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THE NATURE OF LOVE

From http://people.bu.edu/sian/harlow/natureoflove.html The Nature of Love (1958) was one of Harlow's most important studies, as well as the most famous. This series of experiments was inspired by Harlow's observations of the behavior of monkeys in his previous experiments. Infant monkeys raised in the lab's nursery were separated from their parents, in order to prevent the spread of disease. They were kept in separate cages, and folded cloth diapers were laid on the wooden cage floors to catch waste and make them more comfortable. Harlow observed that the infants spent a significant amount of time clinging to this cloth, and became distressed when it was removed for cleaning. These reactions reminded Harlow of the behavior of human infants to pillows, blankets and cuddly toys. Furthermore, it was found that newborn monkeys kept in bare wire cages often survived only with difficulty, if at all. These observations suggested to Harlow that contact with a soft, comfortable surface was important to monkey development. Prior to Harlow's study, the world of psychological research was dominated by the behaviorist and psychoanalytic perspectives, which didn't consider affection an important factor in psychological development. At the time, the dominant theory on behavior was Clark Hull's Drive-Reduction theory, which claimed that all behavior is motivated by the reduction of unpleasant feelings. For instance, an infant's hunger is satiated by nursing from the mother, resulting in a classically conditioned association between alleviation of hunger and maternal closeness. Harlow felt that this view couldn't explain the way the infant monkeys reacted to the cloth, and he decided to design an experiment to measure what factors were most important for the development of attachment. In Harlow's study, newborn rhesus monkeys were exposed to two dummy or "surrogate" mothers. One mother was made from a block of wood, covered in a terry cloth sheath over soft rubber padding, and heated with a light-bulb. The result, according to Harlow, was "a mother, soft, warm, and tender, a mother with infinite patience, a mother available twenty-four hours a day, a mother that never scolded her infant and never struck or bit her baby in anger." (1958, p. 678). The second surrogate mother was made of a wire mesh, intentionally designed to be provide less comfort than the cloth mother, but still more-or-less resemble the figure of a female monkey. The newborn monkeys, separated at birth from their real mothers, were "nursed" solely by one of the two surrogates from an attached bottle. Four monkeys were exposed to a "nursing" wire frame mother and a non-nursing terry cloth mother, and four were presented with the reverse. The purpose of the test was to determine which was more important to the monkeys: nourishment, or comfort. The results of this experiment showed that regardless of which mother was equipped with a bottle, the monkeys spent far more time clinging to the terry-cloth mother than the wire frame mother, indicating that comfort was a far more important factor to attachment than nourishment.

2 The findings prompted further research into the the relationship between the infant monkeys and the surrogate mothers. A follow-up experiment showed that when exposed to a fear-inducing stimulus, the infant monkeys clung to the terry cloth mother for safety and comfort rather than the wire-frame mother. Harlow then decided to investigate how the maternal bond affected the infant monkeys behavior. The monkeys from the original experiment, now securely attached to the terry-cloth surrogate mother, were placed in an unfamiliar open play area with a variety of toys. The surrogate was sometimes present in this situation, and sometimes not. When the surrogate was present in the room, the monkeys would immediately rush to the surrogate and cling to it, and in later sessions use it as a base of operations from which to explore the room (similar behavior has been observed in human infants. See impacts). When the surrogate was absent, the monkeys became distressed, either freezing and clinging to themselves or running around frantically in search of the mother. The introduction of the wire mother to the situation failed to pacify them. This experiment demonstrated that the attachment between infant and mother was based on far more than simple nutrition, and was much more complex than the contemporary theories had claimed. The use of the surrogate mother as a base of exploration suggested that the infants saw the mother as a source of security. When the mother was present but covered by a plexiglass box, the monkeys were initally distressed, but later adapted, using the box itself as a base of exploration. Thus, even though contact was denied, the mere presence of the mother continued to provide a feeling of security The final experiments of the Nature of Love study measured the effect of separation on the bond between mother and infant. The monkeys were placed in an isolation box and alternately allowed a view of the terry-cloth mother, the wire mother, another infant monkey or an empty box. The monkeys showed much greater response to the terry-cloth mother and the other infant monkey than to the wire-frame mother and the empty box. After remaining in isolation for five days, the monkeys were placed in the play area and reunited with the surrogate mother. Following this reunion, the monkeys clung to the mothers even more than in the initial play area experiment, and hardly explored the surrounding area at all. Although exploration did eventually return to a pre-separation level, reaching this level took far longer than it had before separation. The conclusion of these experiments was that the affectional bond between the infant monkeys and the surrogate mothers was maintained through the period of separation and even increased, a finding that refuted the claims of the drive-reduction theory.

LATER STUDIES In the years following the original Nature of Love study, Harlow continued his research on the effects of different variations on the original surrogate mothers. In the Nature of Love-Simplified (Harlow & Suomi, 1970), he analyzed the impact of variables such as lactation, surface texture, motion, different facial characteristics, and temperature, as well as a smaller,

3 simplified mother, consisting of the original terry-cloth and rubber material covering an angled rod. The original impetus of this simplified surrogate was the hope that it would be less likely to be soiled by the subjects than the original, but it was the found that the infant monkeys reacted to the simplified surrogate no differently than they did the original, and the resulting savings in laundry bills led to it supplanting the original cloth mother as the choice tool for experimentation. This new battery of tests produced some surprising results. Although the original study showed that contact comfort was a more important variable to attachment than nourishment, the monkeys did prefer a nursing mother to a non-nursing mother of the same material. This prompted a new experiment: monkeys were presented with two surrogates, one tan in color and one light blue, one of which lactated and the other of which did not. The monkeys presented with this situation consistently preferred the lactating one, regardless of color, demonstrating that lactation does have some importance. Another variation measured the effects of different facial features. In the original experiment, the cloth mother was given a much more complex face than the wire-frame mother, there not being time to produce similar faces. No research had yet been done to investigate which face was preferred. In the later experiments, the concern was raised that the different faces could have been a confounding factor, and an experiment was conducted to measure the fear response to the two. This experiment found that the more complex face of the cloth mother produced a much greater fear response in adolescent monkeys, confirming that the preference for the softer surrogate wasn't a result of the different faces. A second experiment, with two infant monkeys raised with cloth surrogates of different faces and two with wire surrogates of different faces, showed that the faces had no measurable impact on attachment at all. One criticism of the original experiment was that since the wire surrogate was undoubtedly less comfortable than the cloth surrogate, the preference may not have been solely a function of contact comfort. This objection was laid to rest in an experiment testing the monkeys' reaction to surrogates covered in rayon, vinyl, sand-paper and the original terry cloth. The monkeys showed no preference between the other three, but continued to prefer the terry cloth. At the time of the original study it had been theorized that in naturally raised monkeys, movement of the mother would play a part in the bond between infant and mother. To measure this, a cloth surrogate was created that rocked back and forth. Monkeys consistently preferred the rocking mother to a stationary mother. Two final experiments measured the effect of temperature on attachment. In the first, the wire surrogate was heated, raising the body temperature by approximately 10F. When presented with this heated wire mother and the room-temperature cloth mother, newborn monkeys strongly preferred the former. However, by the time they reached 20 days of age, the situation had reversed itself, and the softer but less warm mother was preferred. The second temperature experiment compared a cloth surrogate that was heated and another that was chilled with ice water inside the cloth sheath. Although the difference between the two was only 12F, the result was surprising: when the warm surrogate, with which a monkey had

4 been raised, was replaced with the cold, the monkey ceased all contact, instead huddling in a corner and crying. As time went on, the monkey resumed exploration of the play area, but continued to avoid the cold mother surrogate. When the warm mother was returned, the monkey returned to previous levels of contact. When the mothers were alternated from one day to the next, the monkey continued to ignore the cold mother and exhibit affection towards the warm. Another monkey was then presented with the reverse situation: raised from birth with the cold mother, then introduced to the warm. This monkey never displayed any attachment behavior to the cold mother, and when exposed to the warm, failed to show normal levels of response. When later exposed to a frightening stimulus in the presence of a room-temperature surrogate, the warm-mother-raised infant ran to the surrogate, and the cold-mother-raised infant huddled in a corner. These experiments showed that temperature undoubtedly plays a role in attachment, especially in newborns. Of all variations on the surrogate mothers, warmth was the only factor that resulted in a preference for the wire mother over the cloth. Overall, the Nature of Love studies were important for three reasons: first, they revealed the shortcomings of the behavioral and psychoanalytic theories that were dominant at the time. Second, they demonstrated the importance of affection on psychological development. And third, they laid the groundwork for future theories on how affection received while young affects later behavior, inspiring others to conduct further research on human infants. Furthermore, Harlow's findings on the behavior of monkeys that had been denied a soft mother to bond with inspired him to study further the effects of social and maternal isolation on development. A comprehensive description of all of Harlows experiments over the years (on attachment, isolation, rehabilitation; the impact of and criticisms of his work can be found at: http://people.bu.edu/sian/harlow/index.html