A Critique of Animal Psychology Research at the University
of California at Berkeley
Brandon P. Reines, D.V.M.
Mother-infant separation research: Dr. Phyllis C. Dolhinow
Dolhinow is one of the lesser-known investigators in the field known as mother-infant separation, in which researchers separate newborn animals from their mothers and observe the behavioral effects. The justification for animal experimentation in this field exemplifies the role of linguistic distortion in the perpetuation of psychological experiments on animals. From the beginning of mother-infant separation research in the 1950's, researchers managed to convince the psychological community that such research is critical to public health by committing a series of "linguistic sins." In studies that captured the empathy of the public, a past president of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Harry F. Harlow separated infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers in order to determine the "nature of love." Harlow (1958) gave the infants the choice of either a cloth surrogate or a wire surrogate with a milk bottle protruding from it in order to solve the longstanding controversy over why human infants learn to love mother. When the infants chose the cloth surrogate over the milk-bottle surrogate, Harlow claimed to have cracked the mystery of why a human infant loves its mother. He further claimed that clinicians who maintained that infants love mother because of the milk flowing from her breast are wrong. In 1972, Harlow made an astounding remark that should go down in the annals of scientific history:
The data of the human theorists did not generalize to monkeys because the human theory was false. Monkey theories basically generalized to human infants because the monkey facts were true. ... Sometimes when monkey data fail to generalize to human data the answer lies in the superiority of the monkey data and the need to revise those data that are human ... (p. 716). (Harlow et al., 1972)
Few quotations so exemplify the influence of the dogma of animal experimentation on psychology. It clearly goes beyond the bounds of logic and common sense to suggest that human data is inferior to monkey data when the subject of interest is a human being. If Harlow had been an honest empirical scientist, he would simply have said: "Under certain defined experimental conditions, rhesus infants prefer cloth surrogates to wire surrogates with a milk bottle." By definition, either the controversy over "the nature of love in human infants" can be settled by observations of human infants or it cannot be settled at all.
Fourteen years later, Dolhinow justified her research on infant langur monkeys by a similar linguistic "sleight of hand." In an October 23, 1986 letter, she wrote:
The study of nonhuman primates has stimulated an emphasis on the complex interactional patterns of the parent-child relation. They have encouraged physicians, psychologists, and others concerned with early' development to integrate biological and social behavior and to look more closely at the physiological effects of early experiences ... Such research will continue to contribute to important clinical advances in the future by providing even more information about the nature of the relation between mother and infant, and of the father and the infant as well. As our understanding grows, not only will clinical treatment improve, so too will the general understanding of the lay public.
While Doihinow's claim may sound scientific, it is virtually informationless. By continually referring to "the mother" and "the infant," Dolhinow glosses over the obvious differences between human mothers and infants and monkey mothers and infants. Psychiatrist Dallas Pratt commented, "It has been pointed out that contact comfort is more important in monkeys than in man, and anyone who has watched an infant monkey clinging tightly to its mother as the latter swings through the trees can easily understand why." In fact, Dolhinow herself inherited a "species-blind" vocabulary Harlow. Surely, Harlow's studies dramatized the horror of isolation and may, in some undefined way, have stimulated psychologists to pay closer attention to the effects of mother loss on a child. It may be that the images of the tiny monkeys clinging to the cloth surrogates so moved the psychological profession that if began to pay closer attention to the human need to be touched. But animal experiments that merely serve to dramatize an idea do not constitute scientific research - any more than an inspirational speaker's dramatization of an idea constitutes scientific research. While it is possible that human and monkey children bond to their mothers in a similar manner, definitive conclusions about the origins, manifestations, and psychological meanings of this bond in humans must come from research with human infants.
Dolhinow's primary claim, however, is that continued mother-infant separation research will lead to "improved treatment." There is good reason to doubt this speculation. Stephens' (1986) comprehensive critique of maternal deprivation research revealed that that decades of research involving hundreds of research projects provided little, if any, clinical contributions. In fact, the animal data often contradicted studies of human children.
Dolhinow's last comment, that "the general understanding of the lay public" will grow, is vague. Perhaps she meant that public knowledge of human maternal-infant relations will increase, but objections to this assertion are made above. Perhaps she believed that, aided by the fascination of the popular press with this area of research, her work would enhance public awareness of experimental maternal deprivation. This is politically important, because maternal deprivation research is potentially vulnerable. Many animal advocates have objected to the obvious suffering of the experimental subjects (Singer, 1975), and many scientists have challenged the relevance of this research to people (Harlow and Suomi, 1977; Giannelli, 1985; Stephens, 1986). While this research may lead to a greater public understanding of laboratory maternal deprivation, the value of this understanding is debatable. Dolhinow's research may be irrelevant to both people and to monkeys living outside the highly artificial laboratory environment.
1. Hormones and Behaviour Research
3. Mother-Infant Separation Research