Harlow’s Rhesus Monkey Experiments: Monkeying Around With - Psychological Experiments Series | Academy 4 Social Change

Harlow’s Rhesus Monkey Experiments: Lesson Plan

Topic

Harlow’s rhesus monkey experiments are most well-known for their championing of comfort contact. Throughout his experiments, Harlow insists that a child develops love for their mother not because she cares for their physical need s but because she provides a sense of comfort and safety. Thus, he provided eviden ce that a child can grow to love any guardian as much as they would love a biological parent if they form a secure attachment. Such bonds are necessary for the proper development of the child’s social, emotional, and psychological health.

Possible subjects/classes Time needed

Psychology 30-45 minutes Sociology

Video link: https://academy4sc.org/topic/harlows-rhesus-monkey-experiments-monkeying-a round-with-love/

Objective: What will students know/be able to do at the end of class?

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to ● Explain the role contact comfort plays in development. ● Identify why children develop strong bonds with their guardians. ● Explain how peer bonds can help partially fill in for failings of parental bonds and promote further growth in each other.

Key Concepts & Vocabulary

Attachment bonds, surrogate, sustenance

Materials Needed

Worksheet

Harlow’s Rhesus Monkey Experiments: Monkeying Around With Love - Psychological Experiments Series | Academy 4 Social Change

Before you watch

Ask students to raise their hands if they had one particular object (a blanket, a toy, a stuffed animal, etc) that they were very attached to when they were young. If any students are willing to share what their item was they can. Then, just ask students to think as you ask the following questions: When were you most likely to reach for that item? How would you have felt if it got lost? Have students break up into groups and discuss whether children care about the function of a comfort item or just how it makes them feel.

While you watch

1. Which “mother” was preferred in Harlow’s surrogate mother experiment? 2. How did the experiment change how people thought about parenting?

After you watch/discussion questions

1. What attributes would you expect a comfort object to have? In other words, what traits help provide comfort? 2. Are these traits similar to what you’d expect from a person? What traits do you expect a person attempting to comfort you to have? 3. Growing up, who are some people you grew attached to? What function, if any, did they serve in your personal survival?

Activity Ideas

● Complete the attached Worksheet and discuss answers ● Focus on question 5 on the Worksheet. One major critique of these experiments is that they were cruel to the monkeys involved. Ask students to try and design a similar experiment that is less harmful to the test subjects. Is there another way to observe the same tendencies? ● Imagine you have a younger sibling who has a stuffed bear that they carry everywhere and hug whenever they’re scared. Your parents say that the bear is old and dirty should be thrown away. Knowing what you know now, what would you say to your parents?

Sources/places to learn more

1. Blum, Deborah. Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. Basic Books, New York, 2002. ISBN: 978-0-7382-0278-5. 2. Johnson, Susan M., Melissa Burgess Moser, Lane Beckes, Andra Smith, Tracy Dalgleish, Rebecca Halchuk, Karen Hasselmo, Paul S. Greenman, Zul Merali, and

Harlow’s Rhesus Monkey Experiments: Monkeying Around With Love - Psychological Experiments Series | Academy 4 Social Change

James A. Coan. “Soothing the Threatened Brain: Leveraging Contact Comfort with Emotionally Focused Therapy.” Plos, Nov 20, 2013. Doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079314. 3. Kraemer, Gary W., Michael H. Ebert, C. Raymond Lake, and William T. McKinney. “Hypersensitivity to d -amphetamine several years after early social deprivation in rhesus monkeys.” , vol 82, issue 3, Sept 1984, pp. 266-271. Doi: 10.1007/BF00427788. 4. Olson, James M., C. Peter Herman, and Mark P. Zanna. Relative Deprivation and Social Comparison: The Ontario Symposium, Volume 4. Press, 2014. ISBN: 13: 978-0-898-59704-2. 5. Suomi, Stephen J., Harry F. Harlow, and S. David Kimball. “Behavioral Effects of Prolonged Partial in the Rhesus Monkey.” Psychological Reports, vol 29, issue 3_suppl, 1971, pp. 1171–1177. Doi: 10.2466/pr0.1971.29.3f.1171.

Note: Students might find the results of Harlow’s experiments as “obvious,” but it’s important to remember the context in which they were done. At the time, from behaviorists to even Freudians largely believed that attachment between a child and their parents was developed only via meeting the child’s physical needs. Parents were encouraged to not coddle their child so as to avoid raising overly dependent persons. This went so far as to advise parents to ignore their child’s crying to help foster a more independent nature. While there were inevitably naysayers, they were in the minority without any concrete proof to back up their claims. Thus, Harlow created a dramatic, drastic experiment with scientifically collected findings that couldn’t be ignored.

Important takeaways from Harlow’s experiments are the importance of contact comfort, the necessity of a stable bond between a child and a loving , and that anyone, regardless of if they directly care for the physical needs of the child, can be loved by said child for attending to their emotional needs.