more tactically satisfactory mothers in the form of cloth giving no food. Other young monkeys were given a choice between wire mothers that did not provide food and cloth mothers who did give food. A second control group was given normal mothers. Unsurprisingly, the monkeys all preferred the cloth surrogates, whether they gave food or not, under most circumstances. They study concluded that if simulated adequately, surrogate motherhood was not harmful, provided it fulfilled the child's basic tactile and nutritional needs, and also that feeling and touching was crucial to early development in children.
Again, one wonders at the value of the study, given that institutionalized children could have been observed from the past, or case studies could be examined of abused children to prove this thesis. Also, given Harlow's generalizations about the value of nursery school and the ability of fathers to prove love from the experiment, one might think that examining human subjects in a variety of family settings might make a more apt analogy between different methods of child-rearing in the general human population than between humans and a population of a different species. Why subject animals to trauma rather than study 'real' human beings in the 'real' world?
Obedience Study (Stanley Milgram)
In this study, which occurred over a 25-year period from 1961 to 1985 in a variety of countries, random persons were solicited by an advertisement for $4.50 an hour. They were instructed to give shocks to subjects, to an eventually fatal degree (so the volunteers were told) according to an experimenter's orders. According to the website devoted to the experiment...
The experiment's participants were, in fact, confidents of the experimenters. They real target of the research was to see how far the volunteer subjects would comply with an authority. According to the site: "Ultimately 65% of all of the 'teachers' punished the 'learners' to the maximum 450 volts. No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts!" Compliance was lessoned via communication with the fake 'text subject.'
Ethically, no one was physically harmed, and the subjects were merely misinformed over the 'real' purpose of the experiment. One wonders, however, at the lasting psychological damage -- and callousness fostered by this experiment. Like the Stanford Prison experiment, it seems inspired by World War II and the conditions witnessed in concentration camp prisons, as well as other historical and sociological accounts of abuses in prisons, fraternities, and even schools that occur as a result of instructions from an authority figure. What is the value of creating such an experiment, and such an experience for still more human beings, one might ask?
Works Cited
Harlow, Harry. (1958) "The Nature of Love." First Published 1958. Posted at Classics of Psychology on Mar 2000. Retrieved at Classics of Psychology on 18 Jul 2006 http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Harlow/love.htm
Lesson in Depravity." (2006) New Life. Retrieved on http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm
Zimbardo, Stanley. (2006) "The Stanford Prison Experiment." Official Website. 2006. (http://www.prisonexp.org/)
