Chapter 6: Monkey Love
Summary:
This was about Harry Harlow's experiments with monkeys and how he thought he isolated the variables of love. Earlier studies argued that hunger is a primitive drive, but Harlow showed that monkeys preferred a mother who was soft compared to one that was hard, cold, and had food. The experiment started to go bad when he realized the monkeys couldn't interact with each other normally and wouldn't mate. He even went as far as to see how motherless monkeys were at mothering. He noted that some were adequate and some even killed the offspring.
Discussion:
I'm not entirely sure what to think of this experiment. For science I think the beginning of the experiment is alright, but I just hate the idea of separating babies from their mothers. I think he went to far though when he used his "Iron Maiden" and made the monkeys reproduce knowing that something bad and violent could happen to the offspring.
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