Rhesus Monkeys Essay

When an infant does not have the proper care and nurturing they grow up with emotional deprivation that cannot be healed if treated too late. In a study, done by Harry Harlow and Margaret Harlow on rhesus monkeys, they found that monkeys who did not have a mother figure in their lives were more emotionally incapable to deal with stressful situations, and they didn’t know how to raise their own offspring. On the other hand, the monkeys who were raised with a stand in cloth mannequin of sorts were more able to deal with stress than those who had been raised in isolation. At the conclusion of the study of the rhesus monkeys the Harlow’s noticed that even though some of the monkeys had a stand in for a mother they were not the same as monkeys who had been raised by real mothers. A mother’s love is most important in the development of an infant.
Harry Harlow and Margaret Harlow separated rhesus monkeys from their mothers for health reasons. The young monkeys were given a cheesecloth for comfort when the cheesecloth was removed to be cleaned the monkeys became highly distraught (Myers, 188). Harlow and Harlow studied the rhesus monkeys for years trying to determine what was going on in their heads. The monkeys were reared with no contact of any
… early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage … if maternal deprivation lasted after the end of the critical period than no amount of exposure to mothers or peers could alter the emotional damage” (McLeod, 2009). These attachments in early life, can affect relationships later in life, whether it was a healthy attachment to a mother it can lead to healthy relationships in adulthood, and if it was an unhealthy attachment in infancy later in life it can lead to unhealthy relationships in