Maternal Deprivation In Rhesus Monkeys

“SOMEDAY, AFTER MASTERING THE WINDS, THE WAVES, THE TIDES AND GRAVITY, WE SHALL HARNESS FOR GOD THE ENERGIES OF LOVE, AND THEN, FOR THE SECOND TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, MAN WILL HAVE DISCOVERED FIRE.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (as cited in Cormier, 1996, p. 33)

Human beings are overwhelmingly relational creatures that crave relationships and social interactions. These experiences often provide the attention, support, and nurture we so desperately yearn and are generally accompanied by emotions that gild our lives with vibrancy and meaning. Love is most notably at the root of many attachments and serves as the foundation of infant-mother, age-mate, and male-female bonding. Typically, the maternal figure facilitates a child’s development

But what happens in the absence of a maternal figure? American psychologist Harry Harlow is known for his acclaimed research regarding the effects of maternal deprivation in rhesus monkeys. Through a series of observational studies, Harlow and Zimmermann (1959) show that chimpanzee infants develop strong ties to their mothers whereas orphaned baby monkeys develop strong attachments to inanimate surrogate mothers. In one of their experiments, a group of eight orphaned monkeys had access to a bare wire-frame surrogate mother and a wire-frame surrogate mother covered in a cheesecloth blanket. For four of the monkeys, the wire mother lactated and the cloth mother did not; for the other four monkeys, this condition was reversed. Both mothers provided adequate nursing, but the cloth mother “provided an additional variable of contact comfort” (Harlow & Zimmermann, 1959). Over a 165-day period, all infants showed a distinct preference for the cloth mother. The data reveal that “contact comfort is of critical importance in the development of affectional responsiveness to the surrogate mother and that nursing appears to play a negligible role” (Harlow & Zimmermann, 1959). The results also demonstrate that “without the factor of contact comfort, only a weak attachment, if any, is formed” (Harlow & Zimmermann,