Harry Harlow

Infobox Scientist
name = Harry Harlow
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caption = Harry Harlow
birth_date =birth date|1905|10|31|mf=y
birth_place = Fairfield, Iowa, U.S.
death_date =death date and age|1981|12|6|1905|10|31|mf=y
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nationality = United States
ethnicity =
field = Psychology
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prizes = National Medal of Science (1967),

Gold Medal from American Psychological Foundation (1973),

Howard Crosby Warren Medal (1956), several others
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Titles = President, The American Psychological Association; Consultant to Army Scientific Advisory Panel

Harry Frederick Harlow (October 31, 1905–December 6, 1981) was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which demonstrated the importance of tangible affection in social and cognitive development. He conducted most of his research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he worked for a time with humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow.

Harlow's experiments were controversial. Harlow and his research were influential to many in the animal rights movement. Deborah Blum's "The Monkey Wars" describes the influence of Harlow's research on the burgeoning animal rights movement and subsequent improvement of research animal treatment.Blum, Deborah. "The Monkey Wars". Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 96.]

Biography

Born Harry Israel on Halloween night, 1905 to Mabel Rock and Alonzo Harlow Israel, Harlow grew up largely in Fairfield, Iowa, the second youngest of four brothers. After a year at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Harlow obtained admission to Stanford University on a special aptitude test. After a semester as an English major with nearly disastrous grades, he declared himself as a psychology major.

Harlow largely studied under Lewis Terman, the developer of the Stanford-Binet IQ Test. Terman shaped Harlow's future to a large extent. After he received a Ph.D. in 1930, he changed his name from Israel to Harlow. Although Harlow's family was not Jewish, the reality of America in the early part of the 20th Century would have served to preclude a professorship on account of his name. It is commonly thought that Terman influenced this change, but, in reality, it was probably the result of Harlow's intense drive.

Directly after completing his doctoral dissertation, Harlow was offered and accepted a professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In terms of departmental development, his most significant achievement was his persuasion of the University to construct the Primate Laboratory, one of the first of its kind in the world. It was and is a place of cutting-edge research at which some 40 students earned their PhDs under Harlow's direction.

Harlow received numerous awards and honors, including the Howard Crosby Warren Medal (1956), the National Medal of Science (1967), and the Gold Medal from the American Psychological Foundation (1973). He served as head of the Human Resources Research branch of the Department of the Army from 1950-1952, head of the Division of Anthropology and Psychology of the National Research Council from 1952-1955, consultant to the Army Scientific Advisory Panel, and president of the American Psychological Association from 1958-1959.

Harlow's personal life was complicated, and at times, chaotic. He first married Clara Mears in 1932. One of the select children with an IQ above 150 whom Terman studied at Stanford, Clara was Harlow's student before becoming romantically involved with him. The couple had two children, Robert and Richard; they divorced in 1946. That same year, Harlow married child psychologist Margaret Kuenne. The marriage produced another two children, Pamela and Jonathan. Margaret died in 1970 after a prolonged struggle with cancer. In 1971, Harlow remarried Clara Mears. The couple lived together in Tucson, Arizona until Harlow's death in 1981.

A Timeline:

Early papers

* The effect of large cortical lesions on learned behavior in monkeys. Science. 1950.
* Retention of delayed responses and proficiency in oddity problems by monkeys with preoccipital ablations. "Am J Psychol". 1951.
* Discrimination learning by normal and brain operated monkeys. "J Genet Psychol". 1952.
* Incentive size, food deprivation, and food preference. "J Comp Physiol Psychol". 1953.
* Effect of cortical implantation of radioactive cobalt on learned behavior of rhesus monkeys. "J Comp Physiol Psychol". 1955.
* The effects of repeated doses of total-body x radiation on motivation and learning in rhesus monkeys. "J Comp Physiol Psychol". 1956.

urrogate mother experiment

In a well-known series of experiments conducted between 1953 and 1958, Harlow removed baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers, and offered them a choice between two surrogate "mothers," one made of terrycloth, the other of wire.

In the first group, the terrycloth mother provided no food, while the wire mother did, in the form of an attached baby bottle containing milk. In the second group, the terrycloth mother provided food; the wire mother did not. It was found that the young monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether it provided them with food or not, and that the young monkeys chose the wire surrogate only when it provided food.

Whenever a frightening stimulus was brought into the cage, the monkeys ran to the cloth mother for protection and comfort, no matter which mother provided them with food. This response decreased as the monkeys grew older.

When the monkeys were placed in an unfamiliar room with their cloth surrogates, they clung to it until they felt secure enough to explore. Once they began to explore, they would occasionally return to the cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in an unfamiliar room without their cloth mothers acted very differently. They would freeze in fear and cry, crouch down, or suck their thumbs. Some of the monkeys would even run from object to object, apparently searching for the cloth mother as they cried and screamed. Monkeys placed in this situation with their wire mothers exhibited the same behavior as the monkeys with no mother.

Once the monkeys reached an age where they could eat solid foods, they were separated from their cloth mothers for three days. When they were reunited with their mothers they clung to them and did not venture off to explore as they had in previous situations. Harlow claimed from this that the need for contact comfort was stronger than the need to explore.

The study found that monkeys who were raised with either a wire mother or a cloth mother gained weight at the same rate. However, the monkeys that had only a wire mother had trouble digesting the milk and suffered from diarrhea more frequently. Harlow interpreted this to mean that not having contact comfort was psychologically stressful to the monkeys.

Critics of Harlow's claims have observed that clinging is a matter of survival in young rhesus monkeys, but not in humans, and have suggested that his conclusions, when applied to humans, overestimated the importance of contact comfort and underestimated the importance of nursing. [Mason, W.A. Early social deprivation in the nonhuman primates: Implications for human behavior. 70-101; in Glass, D.C. (ed.) "Environmental Influences". New York: Rockefeller University and Russell Sage Foundation, 1968. Excerpt in Stevens, M.L. "Maternal Deprivation Experiments in Psychology: A Critique of Animal Models". 11; The American Anti-Vivisection Society. 1986.]

Harlow first reported the results of these experiments in "The nature of love," the title of his address to the sixty-sixth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D. C., August 31, 1958. The studies were motivated by John Bowlby's World Health Organization-sponsored study and report, "Maternal Care and Mental Health" in 1950, in which Bowlby reviewed previous surveys of the effects of institutionalization on child development such as René Spitz's [Spitz, R. A., & Wolf, K. M. Anaclitic depression: an inquiry into the genesis of psychiatric conditions in early childhood. II. "Psychoanalytic Study of the Child",(2),313-342. 1946.] and conducted his own surveys on children raised in a variety of settings. In 1953, his colleague, James Robertson, produced a short and controversial documentary film titled "A Two-Year-Old Goes to Hospital" demonstrating the almost immediate effects of maternal separation. Bowlby's report, coupled with Robertson's film, demonstrated the importance of the primary caregiver in human and non-human primate development.

Partial and total isolation of infant monkeys

From around 1960 onwards, Harlow and his students began publishing their observations on the effects of partial and total social isolation. Partial isolation involved raising monkeys in bare wire cages that allowed them to see, smell, and hear other monkeys, but provided no opportunity for physical contact. Total social isolation involved rearing monkeys in isolation chambers that precluded any and all contact with other monkeys.

Harlow "et al." reported that partial isolation resulted in various abnormalities such as blank staring, stereotyped repetitive circling in their cages, and self-mutilation. These monkeys were then observed in various settings. Some of the monkeys remained in solitary confinement for 15 years. [A variation of this housing method, using cages with solid sides as opposed to wire mesh, but retaining the one-cage, one-monkey scheme, remains a common housing practice in primate laboratories today. (Reinhardt V, Liss C, Stevens C. "Social Housing of Previously Single-Caged Macaques: What are the options and the Risks?" Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, "Animal Welfare" 4: 307-328. 1995.)]

In the total isolation experiments baby monkeys would be left alone for three, six, 12, or 24 [Harlow, H.F. Development of affection in primates. Pp. 157-166 in: Roots of Behavior (E.L. Bliss, ed.). New York: Harper. 1962.] [Harlow, H.F. Early social deprivation and later behavior in the monkey. Pp. 154-173 in: Unfinished tasks in the behavioral sciences (A.Abrams, H.H. Gurner & J.E.P. Tomal, eds.) Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins. 1964.] months of "total social deprivation." The experiments produced monkeys that were severely psychologically disturbed. Harlow wrote:

Quotation|No monkey has died during isolation. When initially removed from total social isolation, however, they usually go into a state of emotional shock, characterized by ... autistic self-clutching and rocking. One of six monkeys isolated for 3 months refused to eat after release and died 5 days later. The autopsy report attributed death to emotional anorexia.... The effects of 6 months of total social isolation were so devastating and debilitating that we had assumed initially that 12 months of isolation would not produce any additional decrement. This assumption proved to be false; 12 months of isolation almost obliterated the animals socially ...Harlow HF, Dodsworth RO, Harlow MK. "Total social isolation in monkeys," "Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A". 1965.]

Harlow tried to reintegrate the monkeys who had been isolated for six months by placing them with monkeys who had been reared normally. [Suomi, S. J., Leroy, H. A. "In memoriam: Harry F. Harlow (1902-1981). Amer. J. Prim. 2: 319-342.] [1976 Suomi SJ, Delizio R, Harlow HF. "Social rehabilitation of separation-induced depressive disorders in monkeys." ] The rehabilitation attempts met with limited success. Harlow wrote that total social isolation for the first six months of life produced "severe deficits in virtually every aspect of social behavior."Harlow, Harry F. and Suomi, Stephen J. (1971). [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/7/1534 "Social Recovery by Isolation-Reared Monkeys"] , "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America" 68(7):1534-1538.] Isolates exposed to monkeys the same age who were reared normally "achieved only limited recovery of simple social responses." Some monkey mothers reared in isolation exhibited "acceptable maternal behavior when forced to accept infant contact over a period of months, but showed no further recovery." Isolates given to surrogate mothers developed "crude interactive patterns among themselves." Opposed to this, when six-month isolates were exposed to younger, three-month-old monkeys, they achieved "essentially complete social recovery for all situations tested." [Harlow, Harry F. and Suomi, Stephen J. (1971). [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/7/1534 "Social Recovery by Isolation-Reared Monkeys"] , "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America" 68(7):1534-1538; Suomi, Stephen J; Harlow, Harry F; McKinney, William T. (1972) [http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/128/8/927 "Monkey Psychiatrists"] , "American Journal of Psychiatry" 128:927-932.] The findings were confirmed by other researchers, who found no difference between peer-therapy recipients and mother-reared infants, but found that artificial surrogates had very little effect. [Cummins, Mark S. and Suomi, Stephen J. (1976) [http://www.springerlink.com/content/d13n36l17l10316p/ "Long-term effects of social rehabilitation in rhesus monkeys"] , "Primates" 17(1):43-51.]

Pit of despair

Harlow was well known for refusing to use conventional terminology, and instead choosing deliberately outrageous terms for the experimental apparatus he devised. The tendency arose from an early conflict with the conventional psychological establishment in which Harlow used the term "love" in place of the popular and archaically correct term, "attachment." Such terms and respective devices including a forced mating device he called the "rape rack," tormenting surrogate mother devices he called "Iron maiden," and an isolation chamber he called the "pit of despair" developed by him and a graduate student, Steven Suomi, now director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Comparative Ethology Laboratory, at the National Institutes of Health.

In the latter of these devices, alternatively called the "well of despair," baby monkeys were left alone in darkness for up to one year from birth, or repetitively separated from their peers and isolated in the chamber. These procedures quickly produced monkeys that were severely psychologically disturbed and declared to be valuable models of human depression. [Suomi, JS. "Experimental production of depressive behavior in young monkeys." Doctoral thesis. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1971.]

Harlow tried to rehabilitate monkeys that had been subjected to varying degrees of isolation using various forms of therapy. "In our study of psychopathology, we began as sadists trying to produce abnormality. Today we are psychiatrists trying to achieve normality and equanimity." (p.458) [Harlow, H.F., Harlow, M.K., Suomi, S.J. From thought to therapy: lessons from a primate laboratory. 538-549; "Americam Scientist". vol. 59. no. 5. September-October; 1971.]

Criticism

The experiments delivered what science writer Deborah Blum has called "common sense results": that monkeys, very social animals in nature, when placed in isolation emerge badly damaged, and that some recover and some do not. Blum, Deborah. "Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection". Perseus Publishing, 2002, p. 225.]

Gene Sackett of the University of Washington in Seattle, who was one of Harlow's doctoral students, has stated that he believes the animal liberation movement in the U.S. was born as a result of Harlow's experiments.Blum, Deborah. "Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection". Perseus Publishing, 2002, p. 225.]

Willam Mason, another of Harlow's students who continued [Capitanio, J.P. & Mason, W.A. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10890583&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_docsum "Cognitive style: problem solving by rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) reared with living or inanimate substitute mothers"] , California Regional Primate Research Center, University of California, Davis. 1: J Comp Psychol. 2000 Jun;114(2):115-25.] after leaving Wisconsin, has said that Harlow "kept this going to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive. It's as if he sat down and said, 'I'm only going to be around another ten years. What I'd like to do, then, is leave a great big mess behind.' If that was his aim, he did a perfect job." Blum, Deborah. "The Monkey Wars". Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 96.]

References

Further reading

* [http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Harlow/love.htm The Nature of Love (1958)] - Harry Harlow, "American Psychologist, 13, 573-685"
* [http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm Harry Harlow: Monkey Love Experiments] - Adoption History
* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhharl.html Harry Harlow] - A Science Odyssey: People and Experiments
* [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=285801 Harlow "et al." "Total social isolation in monkeys."] Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1965 July; 54(1): 90–97.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLrBrk9DXVk Film footage of Harry Harlow] - demonstrates his wire mother and cloth mother experiment
* [http://www.madisonmonkeys.com/history_30-81.htm "A History of Primate Experimentation at the University of Wisconsin, Madison"] .
*Blum, Deborah. "Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection". Perseus Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0-7382-0278-9
*Blum, Deborah. [http://www.nzzfolio.ch/www/d80bd71b-b264-4db4-afd0-277884b93470/showarticle/2d34e2fc-2145-4244-93e7-428d15bc8d0a.aspx The Inventor of the Cloth Mother] An article about Harry Harlow.