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From the article itself: In 1971, Harlow's wife died of cancer and he began to suffer from depression. He submitted to electro-shock treatment and returned to
by philk 16y ago
From the article itself:
In 1971, Harlow's wife died of cancer and he began to suffer from depression. He submitted to electro-shock treatment and returned to work but, as Lauren Slater writes, his colleagues noticed a difference in his demeanor. [6] He abandoned his research into maternal attachment and developed an interest in isolation and depression.
His wife died, he got depressed and switched to the unpleasant experiments described in the article.
- hugh3 16y agoWow. Yes, it seems like an awful lot of psychologists are in the field because they're trying to understand their own problems. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never date a psychology student.
- rimantas 16y agoMy psychology lecturer at the university told exactly that: many of those choosing psychology to study do that in hope to solve their problems.
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoHave you read about his maternal bonding experiments in the 60s? He was clearly messed up before he switched to looking at isolation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow#Surrogate_mother_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow#Surrogate_mother_e...
- philk 16y agoYeah I was reading about those. But if you look at that, there's clearly some point to his previous experiments (studying maternal attachment) whereas it's incredibly hard to see the value in the "pit of despair" stuff he switched to after his wife died.
- dkarl 16y agoHis experiments on maternal bonding were already disturbing. Fake mechanical mothers that tormented their babies with spikes and blasts of cold air? Yikes. The man had issues.
- Tichy 16y agoIt's terrible that his wife died, but I think it is not a good excuse for tormenting animals for years.