Harlow's Horrifying Monkey Experiments

Dr. Harry Harlow's rhesus monkey experiments in the 1950s contributed a great deal to psychologists' understanding of attachment theory. Unfortunately, his later experiments also contributed a great deal to the need for ethics regulations.

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[lejink]

"Pit of dispair" makes me think of isolation in prisons.. And we wonder why people are released worse off than before they were convicted

[xmMoyocoyatzin]

_"Missing that caretaking experience as an infant makes them incapable of it as adults."_ This explains so much of modern society and it's the origin of the modern adage: _"do not expect sympathy from those who receive none."_

[eliannam.]

if they took away my blanket, I'd freak out!

[Inaset]

Who names their experiment a "pit of despair" and thinks its a good idea?

[IQrius_sci]

Throughout the history of psychology you will find many examples of deeply unethical experiments. But the truth is we owe much of our knowledge of how the brain works to them

[lisagarner]

I have to quibble with one thing: Harlow's experiment is best known for challenging Freud's assumption that infants attach to their mothers because their oral (and unconsciously sexual) drives are satisfied by suckling, rather than by all of the other comforting things caregivers do while feeding. The behavioral bit is somewhat tangetial, in my opinion. Otherwise, great discussion of ethics in research!

[funstuffgirl]

coulda told you this. I'm attached to my bed, not my refrigerator.

[ALegitimateYoutuber]

Sounds like his research did provide very interesting information that did help explain things. And as bad as these experiments might have been, they were effective. Also just wondering, say this exact experiment was done but with lab rats and obtained the same results. Would it be viewed and criticized the same way as it is now?

[NicolineNDahl]

This makes me really grateful to have a loving and caring mother. Thank you mom, for not screwing me up as a baby

[joycloud]

I was in social isolation from 6 to 14 due to sever child abuse. It is still effecting me today over 40 years later.

[eksbocks]

Like him or not. He proved his point.

Society literally treats other humans worse than this. But it always gets written off as a "fact of life."

[catherinemelone]

All the first experiment proves is that monkeys find cloth more comfortable than metal and wood, which doesn't prove anything psychological and advocates behaviourism: metal is uncomfortable to the senses so the behaviour of hugging metal decreases; cloth is comfortable to the senses so the behaviour of hugging cloth increases. They go to the metal mother for food, but the physical sensation of hugging metal versus cloth stays the same. Hugging and getting food are different behaviours with different stimuli and therefore different responses. As for a scared monkey going to the cloth monkey, again the metal is just less comfortable, and monkeys would have evolved to find soft things like their mothers more preferable to trees or metal because the ones that stayed close to an adult would have been killed less often.

[mikerphone.]

i understand and agree with the unethical portion of the argument against his work but i think that there is still important scientific understanding that came from it. if he was the first to do these sort of isolation experiments, then he really paved the way for how detrimental it is for a subject to be isolated for extended amounts of time. something that is used as a punishment for prisoners of age, and maybe more importantly juveniles, in the U.S and abroad. i think that his work could be used as a very strong research based argument for why these practices should be banned internationally with the likes of waterboarding and other torture practices that can permanently damage the human psyche.

[Metaphix]

" a few got very aggressive" that is the most interesting part for me

[robertwagner]

Some scientists are mentally disturbed.

[lenavoyles]

“Little scientific gain”? Are you kidding me? Given that child rearing “experts”, even those with psychology degrees, are still arguing that isolation techniques like timeout are perfectly acceptable forms of “discipline” for human children, I think if anything we need to hear more about Harlow’s experiments, not write them off as unethical. At least until we stop doing to our own children what he did to his lab monkeys.

[OkiDingo]

As unethical as these early experiments were, they were extremely important to understanding child development psychology. You are correct that today none of the great early experiments could have been performed, I find that said. Without these experiments where would Psychology be today? It would all be theories without any empirical data to back them up. How would our children be???

[kimwallace]

Studying for the MCAT, great explanations! Thank you so much!

[visceralities]

I remember watching some of the actual recorded footage of these experiment in my ap psych class. it was horrifying to say the least

[misanthropiclusion]

whenever I read or learn more about old psychological studies they all sound like the person doing them was a supervillian