by Deborah Blum
H. Arthur Allbutt, The Wife’s Handbook: How a Woman Should Order Herself During Pregnancy, in the Lying-In Room, and After Delivery: With Hints on the Management of the Baby, and on Other Matters of Importance, Necessary to Be Known By Married Women (London: R. Forder, 1888).
Descriptions of childhood medical wards in Harry Bakwin, “Loneliness in Infants,” American Journal of Diseases of Children, vol. 63 (1942); in Harry Bakwin, “Psychological Aspects of Pediatrics: Emotional Deprivation in Infants,” Journal of Pediatrics (1948); in Robert Karen, Becoming Attached: Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its Impact on Later Life (New York: Warner Books, 1994).
Cooney’s work is described in Marshall H. Klaus and John H. Kennell, Parent-Infant Bonding (St. Louis: C. V. Mosby Co., 1982). Another excellent summary can be found in Jules Older, Touching Is Healing (New York: Stein & Day, 1982).
Concerns that mothers don’t want to touch their children are outlined in C. Anderson Aldrich and Mary Aldrich, Babies Are Human Beings Too (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1938).
Brenneman cited in Bakwin, “Loneliness in Infants.” Background on Watson: Kerry W. Buckley, Mechanical Man: John Broadus Watson and the Beginnings of Behaviorism (New York: Guilford Press, 1989); James T. Todd and Edward K. Morris, eds., Modern Perspectives on John B. Watson and Classical Behaviorism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994); and David Cohen, John B. Watson, the Founder of Behaviourism: A Biography (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979).
Watson and Stanley Hall’s perspectives on parenting also discussed in Ernest R. Hilgard, Psychology in America: A Historical Survey (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987); and C. James Goodwin, A History of Modern Psychology (New York: J. Wiley, 1999). The receptive audience of parents is discussed in Ann Hulbert, “The Century of the Child,” The Wilson Quarterly (winter 1999); and in Kim Klausner, “Worried Women: the Popularization of Scientific Motherhood in the 1920s,” published on the History Students Association Home Page of San Francisco State University (http://www.sfsu.edu/-has/ex-post-facto/mothers.html) and explored in Molly Ladd-Taylor, ed., Raising a Baby the Government Way: Mothers’ Letters to the Children’s Bureau, 1915–1932 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986).
Hospital policies discussed in the books of Klaus and Kennell and of Jules Older. The Minnesota “Child Care and Training” books were published by the Institute of Child Welfare, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis; I surveyed editions starting in 1929 and continuing through 1943. The publications of the federal Child’s Bureau from 1914–1963 are reprinted in Child Rearing Literature of Twentieth Century America (New York: Arno Press, 1973). William Goldfarb, “The Effects of Early Institutional Care on Adolescent Personality,” Journal of Experimental Education, vol. 12, no. 2 (December 1943); William Goldfarb, “Variations in Adolescent Adjustment of Institutionally-Reared Children, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 17 (1947). Levy and Bender profiled in Karen, Becoming Attached. Issues of child isolation discussed in David M. Levy, Maternal Overprotection (New York, Columbia University Press, 1943).
Spitz and Katherine Wolf appear in Sheldon Gardner and Gwendolyn Stevens, Red Vienna and the Golden Age of Psychology 1918–1938 (Praeger: New York, 1979). The work of both Spitz and Robertson is beautifully described in Karen’s Becoming Attached. Karen’s book is also, of course, a biography of John Bowlby, and includes a detailed discussion of his battles with Freudian psychiatry.
Of Bowlby’s writings, I relied primarily on his three-volume series: John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, 2d ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1982), and A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development (Basic Books, 1988). Specific articles included: John Bowlby, “Maternal Care and Health,” World Health Organization (WHO) Monograph 2 (Geneva: 1951); John Bowlby, “The Nature of the Child’s Tie to His Mother,” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 39 (1958): 350–373; John Bowlby, “Grief and Mourning in Infancy,” The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, vol. 15 (1960).
Both Karen’s and Hrdy’s books provide an excellent look at Bowlby’s work and its influence. For a scientific overview of the field, I used Jude Cassidy and Phillip R. Shaver, eds., Handbook of Attachment (New York: The Guildford Press, 1999).
Although the tensions between Bowlby and Freudian psychiatry are discussed in the books cited above, I also consulted Edward Shorter, A History of Psychiatry (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997); and Harry K. Wells, Sigmund Freud, A Pavlovian Critique (London: Lawrence & Wishard, 1960).
Chapter Three: The Alpha Male
Harlow’s first experiences at Wisconsin are detailed in his published memoir, “Birth of the Surrogate Mother,” Discovery Processes in Modern Biology, ed. W. R. Klemm (Huntington, N.Y.: R. E. Krieger, 1977); and in Clara Harlow’s introduction in Learning to Love: The Selected Papers of H. F. Harlow (New York: Praeger, 1986).
The descriptions of Clara Mears and many of her comments—here and throughout the book—are drawn from the questionnaires she filled out for Lewis Terman, now archived at the Stanford University psychology department, and from correspondence in those files between Clara, her mother, and Terman.
Gordon Allport’s rebellion against rat research is discussed in Rebels Within the Ranks: A Psychologist’s Critique of Scientific Authority and Democratic Realities in New Deal America, Katherine Pandora, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Allport’s career is also outlined in Ernest R. Hilgard, Psychology in America: A Historical Survey (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987).
See previous chapter for sources on John B. Watson. Also, Roger R. Hock writes about Little Albert in Forty Studies That Changed Psychology: Explorations Into the History of Psychological Research, 3d ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999); G. Stanley Hall wrote about the goals and failures of psychology research in an editorial in the American Journal of Psychology 7 (1985): 3–8. These writings and other early landmarks in psychology can be found in “Classics in the History of Psychology,” an Internet resource (http://psychclassics.yorku.ca) developed by Christopher D. Green, York University, Toronto.
Sechenev and Pavlov are discussed in C. James Goodwin, A History of Modern Psychology (New York: J. Wiley, 1999); and so is B. F. Skinner, who is also discussed in depth in Hilgard, Psychology in America. Skinner also wrote a two-part autobiography; I used the second part in researching this book: The Shaping of a Behaviorist (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979). Both he and Pavlov are profiled in Hock’s Forty Experiments.
Harry Harlow’s descriptions of his efforts to launch an animal research program, including the cat and frog research, are from his unpublished memoirs. The story of Maggie and Jiggs can be found in “Birth of the Surrogate Mother” in the W. M. Klemm book, as can a discussion of Tommy the baboon.
Abraham Maslow’s time at Wisconsin is discussed in Edward Hoffman, The Right to Be Human: A Biography of Abraham Maslow (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1988); and in Richard J. Lowry, A. H. Maslow: An Intellectual Portrait (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., 1973). Harry Harlow discusses his admiration for Maslow in the 1973 Psychology Today interview with Carol Tavris and in correspondence with Maslow’s wife, Bertha, which is housed the Archives of the History of American Psychology along with his other papers.
The construction of the Harlow Primate Laboratory is detailed in Clara Mears Harlow, ed., Learning to Love: The Selected Papers of H. F. Harlow (New York: Praeger, 1986); and in Harry Harlow, “Birth of the Surrogate Mother,” Discovery Processes in Modern Biology, ed. W. M. Klemm (Huntington, 1977); and in Harlow’s unpublished memoir.
Chapter Four: The Curiosity Box
L. R. Cooper and H. F. Harlow, “A Cebus Monkey’s Use of a Stick As a Weapon,” Psychological Reports 8 (1961): 418. Discussion of capuchin tool use in H. F. Harlow, “Primate Learning,” in Comparative Psychology, ed. C. P. Stone, 3d ed. (New York, Prentice Hall, 1951), chapter 7. Also in Harry F. Harlow, “The Brain and Learned Behavior,” Computers and Automation, vol. 4, n
o. 10 (October 1955).
Kohler cited in C. James Goodwin, A History of Modern Psychology (New York: J. Wiley, 1999). Maslow comment from Edward Hoffman, The Right to be Human: A Biography of Abraham Maslow (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1988).
Kurt Goldstein in Ernest R. Hilgard, Psychology in America: A Historical Survey (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987); in Harry F. Harlow, John P. Gluck, and Stephen J. Suomi, “Generalization of Behavioral Data Between Nonhuman and Human Animals,” American Psychologist, vol. 27, no. 8 (August 1972); in Harry F. Harlow, “Mice, Monkeys, Men and Motives,” Psychological Review, vol. 60 (1953); in Harry F. Harlow, “The Formation of Learning Sets,” Psychological Review, vol. 56 (1949); and in Harry F. Harlow, “The Evolution of Learning,” in Anne Roe and George Gaylord Simpson, eds., Behavior and Evolution (Yale University Press, 1958).
Thorndike in Harlow, “Mice, Monkeys, Men and Motives”; in Goodwin, History of Modern Psychology; in Hilgard, Psychology in America; and in Duane M. Rumbaugh, “The Psychology of Harry F. Harlow: A Bridge from Radical to Rational Behaviorism,” Philosophical Psychology, vol. 10, no. 2 (1997). B. F. Skinner in his The Shaping of a Behaviorist (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), and his “Superstition in the Pigeon,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 38 (1948), and in Hilgard and Rumbaugh.
Harry Harlow’s comment on the Watsonian scourge is taken from his “Mice, Monkeys, Men and Motives.” He further discusses Watson and B. F. Skinner in a speech on William James, “William James and Instinct Theory,” American Psychological Association, September 4, 1967.
Clark Hull is profiled in Hilgard. He and Spence are discussed in detail in William Verplanck’s autobiographical recollections, which are published on his Web site at http://web.utk.edu/~wverplan/default.html.
The Wisconsin General Test Apparatus (WGTA) is first described in Harry F. Harlow and John A. Bromer, “A Test Apparatus for Monkeys,” Psychological Record 2 (1938): 434–436; a more modern version is disclosed in John W. Davenport, Arnold S. Chamove, and Harry F. Harlow, “The Semi-Automatic Wisconsin General Test Apparatus,” Behavioral Research Methods and Instruments, vol. 2, no. 3 (1970). Allan Schrier’s WGTA license plate is discussed in correspondence archived at the Archives of the History of American Psychology.
The rat blitzkrieg problem is described in Harry Harlow, “Formation of Learning Sets” (paper presented to the annual convention of Midwest Psychological Association, St. Paul, Minnesota, 7 May 1948). The tests run on the WGTA are described in that paper (Harlow’s presidential address to the MPA) and were named as one of the top one hundred neuroscience discoveries of the twentieth century by the University of Minnesota. I won’t cite the hundreds of other WGTA papers that followed, but I do want to mention three specifically: M. M. Simpson and H. F. Harlow, “Solution By Rhesus Monkeys of a Non-Spatial Delayed Response to the Color of Form Attribute of a Single Stimulus (Wiegl Principle Delayed Reaction),” Journal of Comparative Psychology, vol. 37, no. 4 (August 1944); Harry F. and Margaret Kuenne Harlow, “Learning to Think,” Scientific American, August 1949; and Louis E. Moon and Harry F. Harlow, “Analysis of Oddity Learning by Rhesus Monkeys,” Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, vol. 48, no. 3 (June 1953).
The story of the light-switching spider monkey is in the unpublished memoirs and in “Birth of the Surrogate Mother,” Discovery Processes in Modern Biology, ed. W. M. Klemm (Huntington, N.Y.: R. E. Krieger, 1977).
Papers on the curiosity studies include the following: Harry F. Harlow, “The Formation of Learning Sets: Learning and Satiation of Response in Intrinsically Motivated Complex Puzzle Performance By Monkeys,” Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 43 (1950): 289–294; Harry F. Harlow, Margaret Kuenne Harlow, and Donald R. Meyer, “Learning Motivated By a Manipulation Drive,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 40, no. 2 (April 1950); Robert A. Butler and Harry F. Harlow, “Discrimination Learning and Learning Sets to Visual Exploration Incentives,” Journal of General Psychology, vol. 57 (1957).
Chapter Five: The Nature of Love
Research into affection and intelligence is discussed in Goldfarb’s work (also in Chapter 1). Further details from Goldfarb’s paper, “The Effects of Early Institutional Care on Adolescent Personality,” Journal of Experimental Education, vol. 12, no. 2 (December 1943); Robert Karen, Becoming Attached: Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its Impact on Later Life (New York: Warner Books, 1994); in Joel Shurkin, Terman’s Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1992); in Ernest R. Hilgard, Psychology in America: A Historical Survey (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987); and in John A. Popplestone and Marion White McPherson, An Illustrated History of American Psychology (Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 1994).
Terman’s prediction about Harry’s American Psychological Association presidency can be found in a 1946 letter, archived at Stanford. Harry’s comments about God, learning, and love come from an unpublished paper. Clara’s comments about Harry’s behavior, including the argument in which Harry questioned their love for each other during the breakup of their marriage are taken from the documents filed in support of her divorce petition at the Dane County Circuit Court. The property breakdown also comes from those documents.
The correspondence between Paul Settlage and Abe Maslow is housed at the Archives of the History of American Psychology.
Background on Margaret Kuenne Harlow is based on an interview with her brother, written answers to questions by her daughter, Pamela Harlow, and comments made by her son, Jonathan Harlow, in Richard Dukelow, The Alpha Males: An Early History of the Regional Primate Research Centers (Lanham, Mass.: University Press of America, 1995). The letter about Pamela’s birth is archived at Stanford University, the Lewis Terman files. Other descriptions of Margaret Harlow are based on interviews with former students and staff.
I relied on two books about Carl Rogers: Howard Kirschenbaum, On Becoming Carl Rogers (New York: Delacorte Press, 1979); and Richard I. Evans, Carl Rogers: The Man and His Ideas (New York: Dutton, 1975). Kirschenbaum’s book includes, in full, Rogers’s parting memo to the UW psychology department.
John P. Gluck’s descriptions of Harry are again taken from his “Harry Harlow: Lessons on Explanations, Ideas and Mentorship,” American Journal of Primatology 7 (1984): 139–146.
Chapter Six: The Perfect Mother
Harry Harlow’s description of the problems of importing monkeys and the “ghastly diseases” endemic to India and the issues of starting a breeding colony in “Birth of the Surrogate Mother,” Discovery Processes in Modern Biology, ed. W. M. Klemm (Huntington, N.Y.: R. E. Krieger, 1977).
Stone’s comments on sleeping at the primate lab are from a note to Richard Dukelow, archived at the library of the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center. The note is written on the cover of his paper, W. H. Stone, W. F. Blatt, and K. P. Link, “Immunological Consequences of Feeding Cattle Serum to the Newborn of Various Species,” Research Bulletin, vol. 3, no. 1 (1957).
The work of Mason and Blazek with the “Stone” monkeys is described in “The Monkeys Who Go to College,” which looked at curiosity testing of those little monkeys. The article appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, 15 October 1955.
Alfred R. Wallace’s encounter with the baby orangutan is described in Deborah Blum, The Monkey Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 89.
The discussion of Van Wagenen’s work is housed at the Archives of the History of American Psychology.
The airplane story of the surrogate mother appears in many places, including the Harlows’s “Birth of the Surrogate Mother.”
Skinner’s experiment with his daughter, Debbie, is described in his autobiography, The Shaping of a Behaviorist (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979).
The baby monkey who loved the blank ball head is described in Harry’s famous speech, “The Nature of Love,” given at the 66th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington D.C., 3
1 August 1958, and reprinted in The American Psychologist, vol. 13., no. 12 (1958). His comments from that speech are discussed in the latter section of the chapter as well. The research was first published outside the psychology community in H. F. Harlow and R. R. Zimmerman, “Affectional Responses in the Infant Monkey,” Science 130, no. 3373 (1959); it also appears in Harry F. Harlow, “The Development of Affectional Patterns in Infant Monkeys,” in Determinants of Infant Behavior, ed. B. M. Foss (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1959); and in Harry F. Harlow, “Love in Infant Monkeys,” Scientific American, vol. 6, no. 200 (1959).
Mary Ainsworth’s pioneering work is discussed in Robert Karen, Becoming Attached: Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its Impact on Later Life (New York: Warner Books, 1994), Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999), and Jude Cassidy and Phillip R. Shaver, eds., Handbook of Attachment (New York: The Guildford Press, 1999). Ainsworth appears throughout the book but her story is summarized in Cassidy’s opening chapter, “The Nature of the Child’s Ties,” pp. 3–20 in the Handbook. Bowlby’s connection to Konrad Lorenz is detailed in Hrdy’s book, Mother Nature, and Karen’s Becoming Attached.
Bowlby’s correspondence with Harry Harlow is archived by Helen LeRoy at the Harlow Primate Laboratory; LeRoy has written a thoughtful paper discussing the relationship, titled “John Bowlby and Harry Harlow: The Cross Fertilization of Attachment Behavior Theory.”
