Dr. Harlow
I've picked up a neat book called "Love at Goon Park" by Deborah Blum. It's a biography on Harry Harlow. Basically, in the early 1900s, bacteria and unsanitary conditions ensured that most children in orphanages and foundling homes were likely to never make it past the age of 2. When bacteria was discovered to be the cause of diseases, there was an immaculation mania that everything had to be clean. This led to cleaner conditions in orphanages and children were isolated and were not handled and touched to ensure diseases wouldn't occure. Even then there was a mortality rate of 30% for children in orphanage and foundling homes approaching their 1st year. Doctors couldn't figure it out.
Many scientist including Harry Harlow, proved that isolating children when they were young would weaken their immune systems and their social intelligence and how they interact with other human beings. It's common sense now, but the concept was foreign in the past when physicians and psychologists encouraged social isolation and the mainstream belief on love was that babies only "loved" their mom for their breastmilk. Harry Harlow performed disheartening experiments on rhesus monkeys to push and prove a point.
Baby rhesus monkeys raised alone in cages became neurotic and rocked and sucked their thumbs without the security of a mother. Rhesus monkeys became attached to warm stationary terrycloth mothers than to a warm wire mother that fed them. These monkeys as adult were socially inept and couldn't interact well with other monkeys. Baby monkeys need a sense of security of a mother even if the only object a stationary cloth mother to be curious and interact with the world.
There were darker experiments with Harlow, such as the pit of despair and "iron maiden" mothers. Iron maidens were the same warm inanimate cloth mothers that monkeys would cling on but there was a catch. They were "abusive" in that some threw, blew, and flung their babys away. The baby rhesus monkeys always came back and loved their mothers. The pit of despair was horrible. It put 12 normal 3 month old monkeys in social isolation in an inverted pyrimid box with slippery side to make them hopeless. The time ranged from 1 month to a year. These monkeys all came out psychotic. Harlow was experimenting with depression in these experiments.
Deborah Blum wrote in the book that Harlow tried to rehabilitate them, but how many withered away because of the pit of despair. It's a horrible contraption. He used monkeys who loved hugging and clinging to try to rehabilitate them and some became normal. The most lost, after 6 month of social isolation, used a different technique. They slowly reintroduced them to monkey society by first opening a window so the monkeys can only observe and very slowly integrated them back so they wouldn't be in shock. It worked. These test proved that friendship, companionship, and love as a cure for depression.
All of Harlow's work is very, "WELL DUH!", I still find them interesting though. It all reminds me of humanism and myself in a way. His work and the work of other psychologists changed the then archaic thoughts and beliefs of child development and child rearing and revolutionzed attachment theory. Réné Spitz, James Robertson, William Goldfarb, Mary Ainsworth, and Harry Harlow were awesome.
Many scientist including Harry Harlow, proved that isolating children when they were young would weaken their immune systems and their social intelligence and how they interact with other human beings. It's common sense now, but the concept was foreign in the past when physicians and psychologists encouraged social isolation and the mainstream belief on love was that babies only "loved" their mom for their breastmilk. Harry Harlow performed disheartening experiments on rhesus monkeys to push and prove a point.
Baby rhesus monkeys raised alone in cages became neurotic and rocked and sucked their thumbs without the security of a mother. Rhesus monkeys became attached to warm stationary terrycloth mothers than to a warm wire mother that fed them. These monkeys as adult were socially inept and couldn't interact well with other monkeys. Baby monkeys need a sense of security of a mother even if the only object a stationary cloth mother to be curious and interact with the world.
There were darker experiments with Harlow, such as the pit of despair and "iron maiden" mothers. Iron maidens were the same warm inanimate cloth mothers that monkeys would cling on but there was a catch. They were "abusive" in that some threw, blew, and flung their babys away. The baby rhesus monkeys always came back and loved their mothers. The pit of despair was horrible. It put 12 normal 3 month old monkeys in social isolation in an inverted pyrimid box with slippery side to make them hopeless. The time ranged from 1 month to a year. These monkeys all came out psychotic. Harlow was experimenting with depression in these experiments.
Deborah Blum wrote in the book that Harlow tried to rehabilitate them, but how many withered away because of the pit of despair. It's a horrible contraption. He used monkeys who loved hugging and clinging to try to rehabilitate them and some became normal. The most lost, after 6 month of social isolation, used a different technique. They slowly reintroduced them to monkey society by first opening a window so the monkeys can only observe and very slowly integrated them back so they wouldn't be in shock. It worked. These test proved that friendship, companionship, and love as a cure for depression.
All of Harlow's work is very, "WELL DUH!", I still find them interesting though. It all reminds me of humanism and myself in a way. His work and the work of other psychologists changed the then archaic thoughts and beliefs of child development and child rearing and revolutionzed attachment theory. Réné Spitz, James Robertson, William Goldfarb, Mary Ainsworth, and Harry Harlow were awesome.