Punch the Monkey and His Plush Machine Re-create a Famous Psychological Experiment
Punch, a monkey who went viral after being abandoned by his mother in a Japanese zoo, reminds us of a fundamental attachment theory experiment
A 7-month-old male macaque monkey named Punch, who was abandoned by his mother shortly after birth, spends time with a stuffed orangutan toy at the Ichikawa City Zoo and Botanical Garden in Chiba Prefecture.
Photo by Jiji Press/AFP via Getty Images
The following essay is republished with permission 
ConversationAn online publication covering the latest research.
A baby macaque monkey named Punch has gone viral for his heartwarming discovery of companionship.
After being abandoned by his mother and rejected by the rest of the crew, his zookeepers at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan provide Punch with an orangutan plush as a stand-in mother. The video of a monkey clinging to a toy has gone viral across the world.
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But Punch’s affection for his inanimate companion isn’t just the subject of a heart-wrenching video. It also reminds me of the story of A famous set of psychology experiments It was conducted by American researcher Harry Harlow in the 1950s.
The findings of their experiments underscore several central tenets of attachment theory, which views the bond between parent and child as crucial in child development.
What were Harlow’s experiments?
Harlow took rhesus monkeys at birth and separated them from their mothers. These monkeys were raised in an enclosure in which they had access to two surrogate “mothers”. A “mother” was a wire cage the size of a monkey, which could provide food and drink through a small feeder. The second was a monkey-shaped doll wrapped in a terry towel. This doll was soft and comfortable, but it did not provide food or drink; It was little more than a furry figure that a baby monkey could cling to.
In Harlow’s usage the strings ‘mother’ and the soft ‘mother’.
Science History Images/ Alamy
So, we have an option that offers comfort, but no food or drink, and an option that is cold, hard, and sticky but that offers dietary sustenance. These experiments were a response to that BehaviourWhich was the prevailing theoretical viewpoint at that time. Behaviorists suggested that children form attachments to people who provide them with biological needs such as food and shelter.
Harlow challenged this theory, suggesting that infants needed care, love, and kindness to form attachments, rather than just physical nurturing. A behaviorist might have expected baby monkeys to spend all their time with a wired “mother” who feeds them. Actually, this did not happen. The monkeys spent much of each day clinging to the terry towel “mom.”
Harlow’s 1950s experiments established the importance of tenderness, caring, and kindness as the basis of attachment. Given the opportunity, Harlow showed, children prefer emotional nourishment over physical nourishment.
How did it influence modern attachment theory?
Harlow’s discovery was important because it completely reshaped the dominant behaviorist approach of the time. This dominant view suggested that primates, including humans, operate in a reward and punishment cycle, and form associations with whoever satisfies physiological needs such as hunger and thirst. Emotional nurturing was not part of the behaviorist paradigm. So when Harlow conducted his experiments, he turned the prevailing theory on its head.
The monkeys’ preference for emotional nurturance in the form of cuddling a furry terry towel-covered surrogate “mother” formed the foundation for the development of attachment theory. Attachment theory posits that healthy child development occurs when a child is “securely attached” to his or her caregiver. This is achieved by the parent or caregiver providing emotional nurturing, care, kindness, and attention to the child. Insecure attachment occurs when a parent or caregiver is indifferent, distant, abusive, or neglectful.
Like rhesus monkeys, you can feed a human baby everything they need, give them all the dietary nutrition they need, but if you don’t provide them with warmth and love, they won’t be able to do that. create an attachment To you.
What can we learn from Punch?
The zoo was not conducting any experiments, but Punch’s situation inadvertently mirrors the controlled experiment conducted by Harlow. Therefore, the experimental setup was mimicked in a more natural setting, but the results look very similar. Just as Harlow’s monkeys took a liking to their terry toweling mother, Punch has formed an attachment to his Ikea plush companion.
Now, zoo conditions do not compare to the harsh, physically nourishing alternatives available to us. But clearly, this is not what the monkey was looking for. He wanted a cozy and soft safe place, and the doll provided just that.
Were Harlow’s experiments ethical?
Much of the world now recognizes primates as having rights that are, in some cases, equivalent to human rights. Today, we would view Harlow’s experiments as a cruel and merciless thing. You wouldn’t take a human baby away from its mother and do this experiment, so we shouldn’t do it with primates.
It’s interesting to see people getting attracted to this parallel to an experiment conducted more than 70 years ago. Punch the Monkey isn’t just the Internet’s latest animal celebrity — he’s a reminder of the importance of emotional nurturing.
We all need soft space. We all need a safe space. Love and warmth are far more important to our well-being and functioning than mere physical nourishment.
This article was originally published on Conversation. read the original article.
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