Comparing and contrasting the work of Harry Harlow and Mary Ainsworth on understanding attachment. In 1950s psychology was mainly leaded by the behaviourists, their belief was that humans were motivated because of their primary needs like obtain hunger, thirst, avoid pain and satisfy sexual needs. Harry Harlow changed it all. He refused to accept that affection and love are less important and his paper “The nature of love” became bestseller among others. Harlow has said that ”Love is wondrous state, deep, tender, and rewarding“ (American Psychologist, p. 73, 1958) and his experiments have been dedicated to prove that. A decade later Mary Ainsworth was still trying to prove this theory in practice. Today we can say that they both are mainly responsible for our understanding of attachment. Harlow and Ainsworth researched attachment from different angles and used different techniques; however there were lots of similarities as well. To contrast and compare their works, I will use and point out some of them. The main difference between these two works is setting.
Harry Harlow’s most famous experiment took place in laboratory and it involved young rhesus monkeys and their behaviour in relation with food and comfort by giving a choice between two different surrogate ”mothers”. Harlow noticed that baby monkeys were attached to the cloth pads or nappies that were on the floor in their cages. So Harlow made one mother from soft cloth, but she provided no food and another from wire, but she provided food from an attached bottle. Baby monkeys spent most of their time with their cloth mother even though she did not provide them with food. Harlow’s findings appeared to confirm (…) that the infant- parent bond is based on innate tendencies rather than cupboard love” (Discovering psychology, p. 206, 2010).
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Attachment was the same that human babies develop towards their special blanket, toy or pillow. “Harlow hypothesised that the tactile qualities of stimuli were more important for infant monkey bonding than the provision of food. ” (Discovering psychology, p. 202, 2010) In contrast, Mary Ainsworth’s work was about human infants and attachment behaviour. Experiment was called The Strange Situation and it was just 20 minutes long. It consisted of a standardised set of episodes involving a child, their mother and a stranger in a sequence of separations and reunions. ” (Discovering psychology, p. 217, 2010) The Strange situation experiment showed that infants are more likely to explore the surroundings if their mother is around, not a stranger. Ainsworth’s work involved separation and reunion. And even though there was this big difference, both Harry Harlow and Mary Ainsworth came to conclusion, that an attachment figure plays a big role as a form of secure base.
Mary Ainsworth’s work can be seen as more complex and much deeper by referring to different forms of attachment; secure, anxious-resistant and anxious-avoidant, where in contrast Harry Harlow concentrated his observations on simpler – feeding and comfort behaviour. Harlow’s experiment and work of Ainsworth both concentrated on the relationship between carer and infant as most important aspect of attachment. But the main problem with Harlow’s work was to convert the results of studies on animals to relevance in behaviour of humans.
Rhesus monkeys were chosen because they show very little difference to humans in how they nurse, explore, see, hear, but still they are not humans. “Humans are extremely complex creatures (…) and (…) a small difference in DNA can make a huge difference in a species’ anatomy and behaviour. ” (Discovering psychology, p. 204, 2010) In contrast, Ainsworth’s studies involved unanimous human babies from beginning, so theoretically her work could have been validated higher, but still there were objections and criticisms.
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It was a very complex work, and involved very important aspects and observations about attachment between mother and baby, objections were about the fact, that there was only one single observation with each subject for just 20 minutes. Which rose questions about child’s mood, tiredness, how they slept and other circumstances witch could have affected the results of experiment. Another issue was difference in countries, cultures and traditions. While importance of experiments of Harlow and Ainsworth might be argued as useful, here we are, learning about them, discussing them and looking for reasons why it is important what they have achieved.
Many experts were ignoring importance of love and affection, but Harlow’s experiment offered evidence that love, care and affection is essential for healthy and normal childhood evolution. Both Harry Harlow’s and Mary Ainsworth’s work, helped find the right approach for adoption agencies, social services, orphanages and carers in dealing with care for children. Ainsworth’s work has been very important; it has created great deal of interest and further researches in attachment theories. An important aspect of both these experiments which can not be overlooked is the ethics.
The experiments completed by Harry Harlow have been criticized of being cruel, inhumane and deeply disturbing; his laboratories were a brutal place for rhesus monkeys to live. That kind of experiments are not allowed today – „modern psychological research (.. ) is subject to rigorous ethical scrutiny. ” (Discovering psychology, p. 211, 2010) but it is important to keep in mind that “none of these ethical guidelines or procedures were in place. ” (Discovering psychology, p. 211, 2010) Many parts of Harlow’s work are considered ethically inadequate today.
Ainsworth on the other hand used experiment setting that would not be uncommon and emotionally harmful in the life of a small child. Any distress was short-term and it was stopped immediately when infants showed any signals of distress. Techniques she developed continue to be used today. „Attachment – a relatively long-term, emotionally important relationship in which one individual seeks proximity to and derives security and comfort from the presence of another. ” (Discovering psychology, p. 193, 2010) In this essay I have analysed Harry Harlow’s and Mary Ainsworth’s works on theories of attachment.
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Comparing and contrasting those two sets of work has been hard, there are some notable similarities and very many differences at the same time. Both works are very similar in reasons and contents, but form, expression and explanations are very different from one another. We can not skip the main difference – Harlow used animals, but Ainsworth humans to prove that attachment is based on love. Without Harlow’s research followed by Ainsworth work there would have been delay in understanding of attachment. This essay acknowledges that these two sets of work must be always analysed together, it gives one deeper understanding about both of them.
