Social-Emotional Development Across the Lifespan

AP Psychology· difficulty 3/5

In a contemporary replication of Harlow's surrogate-mother paradigm, infant macaques are housed with two artificial mothers: a wire frame dispensing milk and a cloth-covered frame providing no food. Researchers record clinging time, and they introduce a startling mechanical spider to assess where the infant flees.

Harlow's results most directly contradicted which earlier theoretical claim?

  • A

    The psychoanalytic 'cupboard theory' that infants attach to whoever feeds them

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  • B

    Bowlby's evolutionary theory of attachment

  • C

    Ainsworth's classification of secure and insecure attachment

  • D

    Erikson's stage of trust versus mistrust

Explanation

Both Freudian and behaviorist accounts predicted attachment would form to the feeding source ("cupboard theory"). Harlow's data refuted this; Bowlby and Ainsworth's frameworks were consistent with his findings.

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