Compare_and_Contrast_Research_by_Harry_Harlow_and_Mary_Ainsworth_on_Understanding_Attachment.

Attachment is seen not just as a connection between two people or animals, but as a strong bond that requires regular contact with the other person. In many cases, a person or animal may experience distress if separated from that person for periods of time. The term attachment is used to describe many different purposes among both humans and animals. With infants and children for example, attachment helps keep children close to their caregivers, in many cases this is generally the birth mother. Both Mary Ainsworth and Harry Harlow are two of the major contributors to our understanding of attachment. They used very different techniques when carrying out their research; however both had the same aim, to understand the mechanism of attachment. Although the studies themselves were very different, Harry Harlow and Mary Ainsworth both encountered similarities within their research. In this essay I will be comparing and contrasting their work as well as looking at the similarities and differences between their work and the outcomes. Harry Harlow was an American psychologist who conducted maternal-separation and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys. He was investigating whether infants naturally bonded with their mother because of ‘cupboard love’, a term used to describe the caregiver who provides food, or if they naturally became attached to them because they were soft, warm and comforting. He was interested in the importance of care-giving and companionship developed with babies and young children with their caregivers. Harlow’s experiments were often seen as controversial, for example, one experiment included rearing infant rhesus macaques monkeys in isolation chambers for up to 24 months, after which many were seen to be severely disturbed. In his experiments, Harlow discovered that the baby monkeys became attached to the soft sanitary pads used in their cages and during daily cage cleaning they would protest when these pads were removed. It was this small discovery that intrigued Harlow and the reason he went on to research attachment with monkeys. “Harlow suspected that the affection for the pads was primarily based upon ‘contact comfort’” (Investigating Psychology, page 202, 2010) For Harlow, the theory of ‘contact comfort’ took place of the original ‘cupboard love’ theory. “Harlow hypothesised that the tactile qualities of stimuli were more important for infant monkey bonding than the provision of food” (Investigating psychology, page 202, 2010) In contrast to Harry Harlow’s controversial research, Mary Ainsworth conducted experiments on the way in which a child formed an attachment with a caregiver, generally a mother. She noted that it is usually easy to know when you feel attached to someone as an adult but Ainsworth was interested in carrying out research on infants and young children who were too young to be able to describe their feelings in words. Ainsworth devised a procedure called ‘The Strange Situation’, whereby she would observe a child playing in a room for 20 minutes while the caregiver and a stranger would enter and leave the room. This was to create a situation where the child was faced with both familiar and unfamiliar people. Ainsworth would observe the child’s response to both the stranger and the caregiver in each situation. The work of Mary Ainsworth in The Strange Situation showed that children were more likely to explore the surroundings of the examination room and play with the toys while in the presence of the caregiver. However when the caregiver left the room, the child would become very distressed, which continued when a stranger entered the room. Once the caregiver returned, the child relaxed again and often went back to playing with the toys. Ainsworth’s study showed that an attachment figure acts as a form of a safe and secure base to enable the children to explore the room, or in later life, explore the world and enable them to form further attachments with other people. The main difference between the work of Harry Harlow and Mary Ainsworth is that Harlow studied attachment of monkeys and Ainsworth conducted studies on the attachment of humans. Harlow’s work focused solely on examining the way in which monkeys formed attachments with stimuli that provided food and stimuli that provided comfort. Ainsworth focused solely on the way in which infants reacted when their caregiver (the person they are attached to), left them alone with an unfamiliar person and in an unfamiliar environment. Ainsworth’s work is seen as more complex as it shows elements of separation and reunion, something which Harlow’s work did not include. Another difference was that unlike Ainsworth who conducted her experiment with both child and parent, Harlow didn’t use the monkey’s birth mothers and instead created surrogate mothers. He built two wired mothers where one was solely responsible for providing food and the other was covered in a soft cloth which was responsible for providing comfort and warmth. For Harlow, these wired mothers were his version of what Ainsworth referred to as the ‘safe base’. A further difference within the studies is the problem Harlow faced of extrapolation. This refers to the problem of transposing the results of his studies on the monkeys to the behaviour of humans. The monkeys and humans share 94 per cent of their DNA, however “Just because monkeys exhibit a certain pattern of behaviour, it does not necessarily mean that humans do so as well” (Investigating psychology, page 203, 2010). This wasn’t a problem for Ainsworth as her work on attachment was carried out solely on human infants. As a result, the work by Ainsworth could be argued to be more relevant and correct. One similarity seen with the two different studies is that Ainsworth and Harlow both understood that attachments formed as an infant have very important consequences on individuals throughout their lives and both researchers understand that the relationship between mother and infant is very important when forming an attachment. They both also discovered that physical attachment is highly important in the relationship between mothers and infants. This is seen in Harlow’s study with the monkeys when they choose to attach themselves to the surrogate mother covered in cloth and in Ainsworth’s study when the infant seem less distressed after the caregiver has returned and comforted them. This showed that the infant wasn’t looking for food or water to feel at ease, but instead wanted comforting. Ethics also play a very important role when discussing the differences between Harlow and Ainsworth’s studies. Harry Harlow’s work was criticized for being unethical. The way in which he conducted his experiments on the monkeys was seen to be cruel, inhumane and disturbing. However, when Harlow embarked on his research, there were no ethical guidelines or procedures in place, therefore, there were no restrictions on what he could and could not do. The problem was that Harlow did not stop his research after his initial experiment resulted in the suffering of 8 baby monkeys, and instead he continued when eventually hundreds of monkeys had been subjected to extreme levels of distress and physical harm. Harlow once said that the only thing he cared about was “whether a monkey will turn out a property I can publish. I don’t have any love for them. I never have. I don’t really like animals ….. How could you love monkeys'” (Slater, cited, Investigating psychology, page 212, 2010) Ainsworth’s research on the other hand, conformed to moral pressures and was seen as adequately ethical as if the infant was seen to be too distressed after the caregiver had left the room then the experiment was stopped immediately and the child was reunited with their mother. Whatever a person may think about the ethics of Harry Harlow’s research, it is clear “that the findings from his initial experiments added weight and impetus to the implementation of some of the most profound changes in Western child-rearing attitudes and practice” (Investigating psychology, page 212, 2010) To conclude, there are many differences and similarities between the research undertaken by Mary Ainsworth and Harry Harlow. The two studies were conducted in different ways but both had a similar outcome. One of the biggest differences between the two researchers was the subjects used to conduct the experiments. Mary Ainsworth’s work was built upon Harry Harlow’s earlier work, where she went on to study attachment in more depth and in a more realistic environment, i.e., with human infants and their mothers instead of monkeys and a surrogate mother. However, despite the work of Mary Ainsworth and Harry Harlow, “many people continued to vehemently resist the suggestion that any aspect of human behaviour, including attachment, is inbuilt or innate” (Investigating psychology, page 223, 2010) Although Harlow’s research and experiments provided evidence that attachment in monkeys was based largely on contact comfort rather than cupboard love, it does not prove that the same concept is true with humans. “One must always bear in mind that, despite similarities, monkeys are not humans” (Investigating psychology, page 215, 2010) Overall, this essay shows that ultimately both Harlow and Ainsworth’s studies provided important information on the understanding of attachment with infants and their caregivers. Word count – 1500 Reference list: Custance, D. (2010) ‘Determined to love'’ in Brace, N. and Byford, J (eds) Investigating psychology, Milton Keynes, The Open University Slater, cited in (2010) ‘Determined to love'’ ,’Ethics of animal research’ in Brace, N. and Byford, J (eds) Investigating psychology, Milton Keynes, The Open University