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Harry Harlow And Mary Ainsworth

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Harry Harlow And Mary Ainsworth
Compare and contrast the work of Harry Harlow and Mary Ainsworth on understanding attachment

“Attachment is relatively long term, emotionally important relationship in which one individual seeks proximity to and derives security and comfort from the presence of another” (Investigating psychology, 2012 p. 193). Harry Harlow and Mary Ainsworth are two famous psychologist who provided us series of experiments to understand the attachment in terms of psychology. HarryHarlow started the experiments on monkeys and Mary Ainsworth focused on human infants’ behaviour. There are various similarities and differences in their sets of experiments by using different techniques.

Harry Harlow was an American psychologist who studied the infants bond with their mother and this theory is called ‘Cupboard love’. In Harlow cupboard theory, infants bond with their mothers because of main provider of food. Harlow’s experiments were mostly based on the studies of animals. First
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The secure children were glad in the existence of their mother and happily play and explore the environment. They were unhappy when the mother left the room and they were quickly at comfort when the mother come back andcontinued play without any problems. The 15% of the children were categorized as anxious resistant. They were upset when the mother left the room and they were hesitant and uncertain when reunited. The lasting 15%were categorized as anxious avoidant. These childrenwere not upset on separation and were not happy on reunion. A fourth category has been added called disorganised. Disorganised infants show signs of confusion rocking or hair pulling because of their parental neglect or abuse. But the research results werevarying in different countries with different cultures. For example, in Germany only 40% of the children were categorised as secure, 49% of them were categorised an

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