Fallstudie für Bio124: Einführung in die Ethik und Theorie der Biologie FS23

Fallstudie 2
Aus: Timothy F. Murphy: Case Studies in biomedical Research Ethics (2004) Case 8.6, p.260

Depriving Primates of Mothers

In the case below, monkeys were taken from their mothers and housed with inanimate
mother surrogates in order to study their development. Researchers wanted to know
which elements of attachment to the mother were most important in monkey
development. By all accounts, this research was extremely influential in its time.

Harry F. Harlow wanted to study the mechanisms by which newborn rhesus monkeys
bond to their mothers. These infants are highly dependent on their mothers for
nutrition, protection, comfort, and socialization. What exactly, though, was the basis of
the bond? Was it primarily a matter of nutrition, a function of an innate suckling instinct,
an innate need to touch and to cling, or something else? These questions have parallels
in human development, and Harlow thought primate development might shed some
light on them.
To examine the nature of infant attachment to its mother, Harlow removed eight
monkeys from their mothers immediately after birth and placed them in cages with
access to two mother surrogates. One mother Surrogate was constructed from wood
and covered with terrycloth, and the second was constructed of wire. The baby monkeys
nursed from bottles hidden in the surrogates, four from the cloth Surrogate and four
from the wire Surrogate. A heating pad in a neutral part of the cage was also available to
the infants.
The animals were studied for 165 days. Most preferred to spend time with the cloth
Surrogate no matter how they obtained their feedings. Harlow took the findings to
mean that a nutritional theory of attachment was insufficient to explain the nature of
bonding by the infant rhesus to its mother. He further tested this by introducing
challenges to the monkeys that would provoke fear. In these challenges, the infant
monkeys took refuge with the cloth monkey. Other studies seemed to confirm the
importance of the cloth Surrogate—but not the wire Surrogate—to the monkeys.