There is little doubt that we can learn a lot about human behavior through the study of nonhuman primates. These animals are the closest taxonomical relatives to humans and are not only similar in skeletal structure but in behavior as well. Many behaviors commonly observed in the social interactions of humans are also portrayed in the social interactions of monkeys and other primates. It is for this reason that so many experiments are done on nonhuman primates when it is deemed inappropriate to use human subjects. Between 1959 and 1973, Harlow and his colleagues performed a series of experiments in which they studied primates in various situations. Findings from these studies were key points in furthering developmental theory.
In Harlow (1959), experimenters took eight baby rhesus macaques away from their mothers just a few hours after birth and placed them with substitute “mothers” in order to test Freud’s drive-reduction theory of emotional attachment between mother and child. Babies were placed with two substitute mothers in a cage, one made of wire and the other of terry cloth. Four monkeys were fed by the wire mother, and four by the terry cloth mother. Experimenters found that regardless of who fed them, all the monkeys much preferred the terry cloth mother. These findings showed the importance of body contact and the comfort it offers infants, and suggested that infants form attachment to mothers based not on the biological drive to eat, as Freud had suggested, but on the soothing comfort of physical contact.
The Essay on Primate Behavior
Why do we study primate behavior? The answer is simple: To learn more about ourselves, and how we, as humans, might have been in our evolutionary past. By studying other primates, we can learn many things about ourselves, and our more animalistic behaviors. We can learn and develop a series of derived traits or our ancestral traits. Through archaeology we can interpret our ancestor s social ...
Subsequent experiments by Harlow and colleagues helped support these new findings. A year after separation from the substitute mothers, the young monkeys raised with a wire mother that fed and a terry mother that had no food still showed preference to the cloth mothers when given three levers that would allow them to see either the cloth mother, the wire mother or an empty box. They showed no more interest in the wire mother than the empty box (Harlow & Zimmerman, 1959).
In strange or fearful situations, baby monkeys ran to the cloth mothers and not the wire mothers for comfort (Harlow & Harlow, 1969).
These experiments showed a clear link between attachment and physical comfort.
While Harlow’s studies revealed much insight about human psychological development, there are still ethical issues regarding the use of primates in these studies. Some might argue that if it is unethical to subject a human to something, there is no reason an animal should have to endure it. Surely Harlow would not have used human babies in these experiments; the possibility of permanently traumatizing the children or otherwise hindering the progress of their development would be too high and the consequences too severe. Harlow’s follow-up studies of these motherless rhesus monkeys would prove this possibility, and also show that animals can suffer psychological trauma in the same way humans can.
The baby monkeys who were taken away from their mothers and subjected to the attachment-theory experiments showed abnormal development later in life. Namely, they lacked the ability to form normal social bonds when they were placed in cages with peers that had been allowed to stay with their real mothers. They were often indifferent or abusive, and could not copulate normally. This suggested that while tactile comfort is important for healthy development in infants, alone it is not enough to stimulate normal development. In other words, the terry cloth mothers were not adequate substitutes for the reciprocal social bond that would exist between a child and a real mother (Harlow & Harlow, 1966).
The Essay on Methods of Studying Human Behavior
Among the various methods of studying human behavior such as naturalistic observation, survey research, correlation research, and experimental method, survey research method is the most appropriate method that can be used to investigate the relationship between violence and alcohol use. Survey research method offers best alternative for the study because it can easily study relationship between ...
Suomi & Harlow (1972) determined that monkeys isolated for the first 3 months of their lives were more likely to recover to relative normalcy than monkeys isolated for the first 6 months of their lives. The monkeys that had been isolated for 6 months since birth displayed behaviors that suggested depression or psychosis when placed in social situations, such as rocking, biting, or scratching themselves compulsively. Monkeys that had been isolated for 6 months, but not beginning at birth, also did not develop normal social behaviors, but were able to recover to the point where they were able to copulate normally at mating age and change some of their behaviors. The monkeys isolated since birth did not.
While these findings may have been interesting and helpful in the study of human social bonds, they were also harmful to the monkeys, as displayed by their lasting psychological effects. Moreover, the techniques used in experiments to attempt to heal the monkeys later were questionable, as they risked harming the monkeys further. One technique included administering a shock to a monkey not displaying normal behavior in an attempt to avert such behaviors. If a human child displayed such inappropriate behaviors and a parent electrically shocked that child, the parent would have been charged with abuse. Another technique was to artificially inseminate the once-isolated females to examine their approaches to motherhood. While some monkeys eventually learned to love and care for their babies, many of them abused the babies and some of the babies died (Suomi et al, 1972).
One can only imagine the effects of a similar study done with human babies instead of monkeys, and the popular reaction to such a study.
I feel that a lot can be learned from studying primate behavior, but that it is not fair to subject a nonhuman primate to misery and psychosis. Whether or not the benefits outweigh the drawbacks of animal experiments largely depends on the type of experiment and the conditions of the experiment site. It would be acceptable, in my opinion, to conduct research by observing the animals in their natural habitat, or in a simulated habitat close to their natural one. If a study is minimally invasive to the animal and does not intend to harm the animal, and if the animal’s living conditions are sanitary and acceptable, then certainly the benefit of these studies in furthering the understanding of the human mind would outweigh the concern for the animals. However, isolation, shock, and other forms of unnatural trauma are highly objectionable activities in animal experimentation, and while in the past experiments like this have taught us much, we must be more careful about how we use animals in research to benefit humans.
The Essay on Ranking Monkey Animals Monkeys Emotions
Animal Emotions By: Nick Animal Emotions Do animals feel joy, love, fear, anguish or despair? What ere emotions, and perhaps more importantly, how do scientists prove animals are capable of emotion? Sea lion mothers have often been seen wailing painfully and squealing eerily as they watch their babies being eaten by killer whales. Buffaloes have also been observed sliding playfully across ice, ...
