Psychology Assignment: Analyzing Harlow's Animal Research and Findings

This psychology assignment analyzes Harlow's animal research, focusing on experiments conducted in natural settings and their implications for understanding human behavior. The assignment addresses the advantages and disadvantages of conducting experiments in natural environments, highlighting how they can establish credibility and assess various metrics such as response speed and likelihood. It also discusses the potential drawbacks, such as the unreliability of field experiments and the limitations in comparing results. Furthermore, the assignment explores the relevance of Harlow's animal research to human behavior, emphasizing the importance of comfort, companionship, and love in forming healthy relationships. It details how Harlow's studies on infant monkeys demonstrated the human inclination toward contact comfort and its impact on development. The assignment references key studies and findings, illustrating how these insights inform our understanding of social and emotional development.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

1PSYCHOLOGY
Table of Contents
Answer 2) a)...............................................................................................................................1
Answer 2) b)...............................................................................................................................1

2PSYCHOLOGY
Answer 2) a)
The advantages of conducting the experiments in the natural setting is that it can help
in the determination of the effect of the various kind of variables that can help in establishing
the credibility in relation to a research. It can help in the assessment of various kind of
metrics like the sped of the responding along with likelihood of the responding that can help
in carrying out the research in the proper manner (Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin 1969). It can
throw light on the kind of the people who are being interviewed that can help in benefitting
the purpose of the research. It can help in understanding regarding the validity of the research
that can increase the importance of a research work. There are also disadvantages in the path
of conducting the experiments within the framework of the natural setting. It can be said that
field experiments are not reliable owing to the fact that the people may not know that they are
a part of the experiment that can cast a shadow on the results of the research. The
experiments were not subjected to that of demand characteristics that can be stated to be a
drawback in relation to the experiments which are carried out within the boundaries of the
natural setting. The results of the group trials cannot often be compared with that of each
other which acts as a disadvantage pertaining to the conducting of the experiments within the
framework of the natural setting.
Answer 2) b)
The results pertaining to the animal research studies of Harlow’s can be said to be
related to the human behaviour as it have delved in the various areas of the behavioural
science along with the social relationships. The cognitive psychologists like Harlow have
talked about the significance of the comfort, companionship along with the love that can
prove to be crucial for the formation of the healthy relationships (Sullivan, Bird and Perry
2017). The animal research studies of Harlow have helped in bringing out the fact that the

3PSYCHOLOGY
people have the tendency of inclining towards the contact comfort that has a great impact on
the area of the development. The research have brought out the essential fact that in the event
of the creatures being left in a state of the social isolation they lost the ability of interaction
that had an adverse effect on their development. The creatures lost the ability of working
together since they were left in an isolated state for a prolonged period of time. It shows an
important aspect of behaviour as it shows that the people have an affinity of leaning on to
something that they find to be more comfortable (Whitham and Washburn 2017). The infant
monkeys were more attracted to the inanimate surrogate mother that was built of rubber cloth
when compared to the one that was built of wire and the wood. The human beings have the
tendency of looking for the element of comfort and the decisions that are taken by them are
dictated by how comfortable they feel with a particular thing.

4PSYCHOLOGY
References
Piliavin, I.M., Rodin, J. and Piliavin, J.A., 1969. Good samaritanism: an underground
phenomenon?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 13(4), p.289.
Sullivan, A.P., Bird, D.W. and Perry, G.H., 2017. Human behaviour as a long-term
ecological driver of non-human evolution. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1(3), p.0065.
Whitham, W. and Washburn, D.A., 2017. A History of Animal Personality Research.
In Personality in Nonhuman Animals (pp. 3-16). Springer, Cham.
Reading Material
Harlow’s Animal Research