cloth mother monkey

cuddles and hugs and touch are important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkGIW-xwzc8

Many of Harlow's experiments are considered unethical—in their nature as well as Harlow's descriptions of them—and they both contributed to heightened awareness of the treatment of laboratory animals, and helped propel the creation of today's ethics regulations. The monkeys in the experiment were deprived of maternal affection, potentially leading to what humans refer to as "panic disorders".^[32] University of Washingtonprofessor Gene Sackett, one of Harlow's doctoral students, stated that Harlow's experiments provided the impetus for the animal liberation movement in the U.S.^[2]

William Mason, another one of Harlow's students who continued conducting deprivation experiments after leaving Wisconsin,^[33] has said that Harlow "kept this going to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive. It's as if he sat down and said, 'I'm only going to be around another ten years. What I'd like to do, then, is leave a great big mess behind.' If that was his aim, he did a perfect job."^[34]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow

Harlow created inanimate surrogate mothers for the rhesus infants from wire and wood.^[10] Each infant became attached to its particular mother, recognizing its unique face and preferring it above all others.^{[citation needed]} Harlow next chose to investigate if the infants had a preference for bare-wire mothers or cloth-covered mothers. For this experiment, he presented the infants with a clothed mother and a wire mother under two conditions. In one situation, the wire mother held a bottle with food, and the cloth mother held no food. In the other situation, the cloth mother held the bottle, and the wire mother had nothing.^[10]

Overwhelmingly, the infant macaques preferred spending their time clinging to the cloth mother.^[10] Even when only the wire mother could provide nourishment, the monkeys visited her only to feed. Harlow concluded that there was much more to the mother-infant relationship than milk, and that this "contact comfort" was essential to the psychological development and health of infant monkeys and children. It was this research that gave strong, empirical support to Bowlby's assertions on the importance of love and mother-child interaction.^{[citation needed]}

^{Monkey prefers cloth over food and wire}