Harlow study the nature of love

Harlow’s Study of Nature of Love
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Abstract
Harry Harlow is one of the greatest psychologists to have contributed significantly to the development of psychology on human experience. His contribution is compared to that of a celebrated psychologist, Sigmund Freud. Based on his book, the nature of love published in 1958, this psychologist takes a look at how adulthood is affected by early experiences during infancy. Harlow’s work has been recognized and continues to receive a positive reception. Current studies have even adapted his works. Forty studies that changed psychology is an article that analyzes some of the psychological studies by greatest psychologists. Harry Harlow’s study is not an exception of the forty studies. As detailed in the article, the author embarked on different experiments in a bid to find out how adult experiences are affected by early human experiences. Harlow’s study is claimed to have been based on love, feelings, and experiences. Harlow’s work is a great masterpiece of a psychology study that has unraveled many mysteries on adult experiences
Keywords: Attachment, comfort, experience
In Harlow’s study, he based his experiments on a theoretical proposition made on observation of monkeys. Harlow made a unique observation that monkey got easily attached to cloth pads that their owners used to cover their cages. The observation was made on infant monkeys who would cling to the cloth pads and played with them. In order to test the theory, Harlow with the help of his associates embarked on several experiments.

In the experiment, the psychologist used monkey surrogate mothers. The first surrogate mother was equipped with very soft comfort through the use of a wood covered with spongy rubber and terrycloth. In another experiment, a surrogate mother was provided with less comfort. Harlow then placed the surrogate mothers in different cages and was close to infant monkeys (Hock, 1995). The purpose of his study was simply to develop a deep understanding of the effect of attachment and comfort. He then observed the infants for some time before tabling his results.
In the results, Harlow claimed that the infants’ attachment was way beyond the normal biological provision of the needs of the monkey infants (Hock, 1995). The monkeys had a strong attachment and preference to comfort than biological needs such as milk. Harlow conducted another experiment called the open field experiment. The purpose of this experiment was to figure out if the earlier attachment would persist even after a long period between the infant and the comfort givers. Harlow concluded his study by stating the importance of the attachment and comfort to infants. He then related his study to human beings and claimed that the key role of parenting is to develop attachment and offer comfort. The attachment and how it affects adult experiences are based on the comfort received during infancy and not mammary capabilities.
Reference
Hock, R. R. (1995). Forty studies that changed psychology: Explorations into the history of
psychological research. Prentice-Hall, Inc.