Ancient Animal Studies, The Ethics Code, And The Influence of Harry Harlow.
‘Ask researchers why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: “Because the animals are like us.” Ask the researchers why it is morally okay to experiment on animals and the answer is: “Because the animals are not like us.” ’ — Charles R. Magel (1981)
Animal Studies in Ancient Greece
Animal studies have been conducted throughout history on the basis that there is a biological continuity between humans and animals. Far before Darwin’s conjecture that all living things are a product of evolution. Far before the discovery of DNA, which we now use to identify evolutionary patterns. Far before we found out that living organisms are made up of millions of respiring cells. Let us travel back in time to when records of animal studies first began.
The year is somewhere between 290–250 BC. Erasistratus, a Greek physician, is carrying out anatomical research alongside his fellow physician Herophilus, in the city of Alexandria. Their main interests lie among the brain and the cardiovascular system. They perform numerous dissections, from which the pair discover the true nature of the heart. Erasistratus identifies valves, distinguishes between veins and arteries, and deduces that the heart functions as a pump. This is an impressive feat, as it refutes Aristotle’s prior observation that the heart is the centre of sensations. Aristotle’s ideas have dominated scientific ideology for quite some time, and it is not often that he gets debunked. Now fast-forward several hundred years to 48 BC. As Julius Caesar is pursuing his Egyptian rival Pompey, he gets cut off by a fleet of boats in the harbour of Alexandria. Caesar orders these boats to be burned, and succeeds in doing so. However, misfortune and lack of caution causes the fire to spread to the city and library of Alexandria. Flames engulf the library and burn what is estimated to be 40,000 scrolls (according to Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita Libri, written between 63 and 14 BC). The fire has now destroyed centuries worth of work in uncharted territories, which may not be explored until thousands of years later.
It is now the present day. Erasistrus is long gone, but his contributions to science still remain. Although much of his work was lost in the fire of Alexandria, along with many other ancient researchers’, evidence suggests he may have conducted some of the first vivisections — dissections on living animals. Galen (129–216 AD) appears to have continued Erasistrus’ line of research, which is evidenced by recorded dissections on animals such as the Barbary ape, sheep, goats, and pigs. Galen’s endorsement of dissections formed his legacy, as he contributed to the field of medicine by improving surgical skills, discovering new structures (seven pairs of cranial nerves), and refuting incorrect theories. One such incorrect theory was put forward by our old friend, Erasistrus, who believed that arteries carried air. Galen corrected this, after demonstrating that arteries in fact carried blood. [1] This is probably one of the most important debunks in the history of anatomy. Without blood, we would not have the white blood cells necessary to fight infection, nor the platelets that contain blood clotting factors to prevent excess blood loss, nor the red blood cells containing haemoglobin molecules that bind to oxygen. Without blood you’re pretty much dead, as your body cannot defend itself and your cells cannot respire efficiently enough in air. In fact, air in the artery is a very bad sign. These are called gas embolisms, and they can be fatal. Embolisms are small bubbles of air that form in blood vessels, usually when a scuba diver spends too long underwater or surfaces too quickly. Gas embolisms blocking the oxygen supply to the brain can cause a stroke, blockages in the coronary arteries supplying the heart may cause a heart attack, and around 25% of people with a pulmonary embolism (blockage in the lungs) will die suddenly before symptoms can even be identified. So there’s some good news for you if you’re afraid of water. Excuse the digression.
During Galen’s livelihood, vivisections on living animals were a common practice, utilized to gain knowledge on the internal workings, structures, and functions of living organisms. The same is true today.
Findings from animal studies have been extrapolated to humans for millenia to explain not only our biology, but also our behaviour. Such studies exist simply because they would be deemed unethical if conducted on humans. But are animals and humans not two sides of the same coin? If this is the case, then in what world is animal testing ethical?
[1] It is important to note that although these physicians were often correct in their deductions, there were many circumstances where they were very wrong indeed. This is a limitation of observational research; it’s difficult to understand exactly how something works just by looking at it, and it’s easy to guess wrong. Today, we are lucky enough to have access to equipment that allows us to conduct astute observations to gain accurate results, and since the introduction of the scientific method, the entire research process has improved whilst operationalism has become a key component.
The Ethics Code
The APA (American Psychological Association) established their first ethics code in 1953, just before American psychologist Harry Harlow began conducting his controversial animal research that revolutionised attachment theory. This 5.5 by 8.5-inch book contained over 170 pages and 310 individual guidelines that were to be followed by researchers conducting an experiment. The rules it held were not associated with the law. They were merely instructions that might have resulted in a loss of research funding if not followed. Originally, the rules were overly convoluted; 170 pages of rambling rendered the book unwieldy. [2] Today, the ethical code is far more concise. There have been 9 revisions since its first publishing, in which the board members established rules that could still fulfil research aspirations when adhered to, thus alleviating the concern of ethical misconduct in psychological research. The ethics code is the reason that scientists are unable to replicate such experiments as Harlow’s today; not only are there more ethical guidelines to follow but the cost of conducting research outweighs the benefits of psychological knowledge, as we now know far more about the mind and behaviour than we used to.
[2] The APA ethics code has now been reduced to a 16-page document, making it much more convenient for researchers who don’t want to lug around a textbook they may not even glance at.
Harry Harlow's Experiments
Harry Harlow is best known for his studies on baby Rhesus monkeys in the 1950–70s, where he investigated the effects of maternal deprivation and dependency needs in primates. Most of this took place in Harlow’s lab at Harvard University. His experiments were meticulously planned and rigorously conducted, often with the help of his students. Harlow’s research influenced subsequent attachment theories, including John Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment formation and maternal deprivation hypothesis. To this day, scientists cite Harlow’s work in their own research. However, his studies run into some major ethical concerns regarding the treatment of animals.
One such cruel experiment was conducted using what Harlow referred to as the ‘pit of despair’. This was one of his later experiments, taking place at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the 1970s. [3] Infant Rhesus monkeys were taken from their mother, after already forming an attachment, and raised in isolation for up to 10 weeks in vertical metal chambers. The ‘pit of despair’ was designed by Harlow, although he originally wanted it to be named the ‘dungeon of despair’. Holes were drilled into the stainless steel floor to allow the passage of waste material, there was also a food box and water bottle holder available. The pit was just enough to provide the infants with the basic resources they needed to survive. The chamber was covered with a pyramid top, designed to prevent the monkeys from hanging from the chamber ceiling. Harlow’s aim? To produce an animal model of depression. And he did just that. Infants would huddle up in the corner of their cages and remain motionless within just a few days. The pit of despair had detrimental effects on the monkeys’ emotional health, cognitive functioning, and social skills.
One of Harlow’s experiments that uses similar social isolation techniques investigated the foundations of attachment formation. Infants were given surrogate “mothers” — dolls that were made from wood or wire. Wooden “mothers” were covered with cloth and had a light bulb placed behind them, radiating heat. This simulated a soft, warm maternal figure. The wire mother was made entirely of wire mesh, simulating a cold, harsh maternal caregiver. A sample of Rhesus monkeys was split equally into 4 conditions. Stay with me here. In condition 1, the cage contained both surrogates, however, only the ‘harsh’ wire mother had a milk bottle for the infant to feed on. In condition 2, both surrogates were present, but this time only the ‘soft’ cloth mother had the milk bottle. In condition 3, only the ‘soft’ mother was present, and in condition 4, only the ‘harsh’ mother was present. In conditions where the ‘soft’ mother was available, monkeys were observed to cling to her when they were frightened by a loud noise. Monkeys with only the ‘harsh’ mother often had diarrhoea, a common symptom of stress. Overall, the infants displayed a clear preference for contact with the ‘soft’ mother, regardless of whether she produced milk or not. It was concluded that infant Rhesus monkeys have an innate need for contact and comfort, suggesting that emotional security is more important than food in the formation of an attachment.
The main ethical concern in these experiments, aside from the unsatisfactory living conditions, is the harmful, long-lasting effects of isolation. Solitary confinement caused infants to display signs of severe emotional disturbance within just a few days. Monkeys were observed to stare blankly, circle their cages, and some even engaged in self-mutilation. Self-mutilation is a symptom of acute emotional distress. The same behaviour can be found in humans with extreme mental health disorders, such as schizophrenia. The fact that humans display these same symptoms reveals how similar Rhesus monkeys are to us in terms of emotional nature. Once we consider this, it is difficult to ignore how careless and unnecessarily cruel of Harlow it was to have placed infant monkeys in such adverse conditions without reasonable scientific justification. Some monkeys in Harlow’s experiments were kept in “Total social deprivation” for up to 15 years.
Furthermore, the monkeys’ social skills were banefully affected by isolation. When reintroduced to other monkeys, those reared in isolation were unsure how to behave. They were often bullied and even sexually assaulted in some cases, as they were unable to defend themselves. Female victims of these sexual assaults were in such extreme states of anxiety once their babies gave birth, that they were reported to smash their infants’ head on the floor, rubbing it back and forth repeatedly.
“He (Harlow) kept this going to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, and that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive.” — Blum (1994)
Here, Blum quotes William Mason — one of Harlow’s postdoctoral students. This paints Harlow as an ethically thoughtless individual with little regard for the protection of experimental animals. This may well be the case.
Gene Sackett, another of Harlow’s postdoctoral students and a long-term colleague suggested that although Harlow’s studies crossed countless ethical boundaries, they also brought to light the importance of treating animals ethically in research, strengthening the animal protection movement. Due to this, researchers are now far more cautious when dealing with animals.
Despite his complete disregard for ethical standards, Harlow’s surrogate mother experiment revealed that attachment to a maternal caregiver is not based on positive associations with food, but rather the degree of tactile comfort and amount of contact the mother can provide for her child. This provided sufficient evidence to refute the learning theory of attachment. [4] As a result, John Bowlby’s attachment theories gained scientific acceptance and credibility, which were based more on evolutionary principles than on learning. One such theory is his maternal deprivation hypothesis, which explains the effects of a disrupted primary attachment. Applications have been developed from this theory regarding the Romanian Orphan crisis of the late 1900s.
[3] Harlow’s wife died from cancer in 1971. This caused him to develop depression. His research skewed further from maternal attachment theory as he developed a morbid interest in the effects of isolation.
[4] The learning theory of attachment suggested that infants associated the feeling of being fed with being in the presence of their mother, thus forming an attachment to their maternal caregiver by the means of classical conditioning, very much like Pavlov’s dogs.
The Romanian Orphan Crisis
A pro-natalist policy was introduced by Romanian politician Nicolae Ceaușescu of the Communist Party in 1967, called ‘Decree 770’. Abortion and contraception were declared to be against the law, except in a few circumstances. To ensure the policy was being enforced, contraceptives were removed from stores and women were required to be checked regularly by a gynaecologist. This led to the largest surge of birth rates in Romanian history. The country was not equipped to accommodate the needs of so many children; for many families the only viable option was to abandon their infants, placing them in institutions. These orphanages were overcrowded, extremely unsanitary, and children were unable to access a suitable maternal figure. Recordings of the orphanages taken by journalists showed large groups of children left naked in empty rooms, covered in their own waste. The media exposed the horrendous conditions to the public in 1989, and stories made international news. Adoption was encouraged as a solution, which foreigners began to do. Eventually, the orphans were accepted into loving homes, where they could flourish into adulthood.
One longitudinal study was conducted in 1998 by Rutter et al., who tested Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis using the data of 111 adopted Romanian orphans. 3 categories were established: children who were adopted before they were 6 months old, children adopted between 6 months and 2 years, and children adopted after 2 years. The orphans were assessed on their attachment types, and it was found that children adopted after 6 months showed higher levels of disinhibited attachments than those adopted before 6 months. [5] Additionally, children adopted before 6 months were found to have a mean IQ of 102 (the average human IQ is 100). Those adopted after 6 months had much lower IQs. The mean IQ of children adopted after 2 years was 77, over 2 standard deviations below the global average. Such results were not produced by the control group of British adoptees who had not experienced institutional deprivation. This implies that the deprivation of a maternal caregiver for a prolonged period of time caused the Romanian orphans to suffer from delayed cognitive development and difficulties forming new attachments, as they had not formed an internal working model. [6] Much of this is suggested by Bowlby in his maternal deprivation hypothesis, thus granting his theory with explanatory power.
Rutter and his team studied the orphans into adulthood. They found that most of the subjects’ IQs and emotional health eventually improved to meet the expected standards, although those adopted at a later period recovered more slowly. The team concluded that the sooner the children were adopted, the faster their developmental progress. This provided evidence to show that the effects of institutionalisation can be overcome by providing the orphans with loving families. Social workers were assigned to the children, whose duty was to find the most comforting and suitable families for each child so they could thrive as adults. This is one of the many positive outcomes of Bowlby’s work, which one could argue was made possible by Harlow’s deductions.
However, there are several criticisms we can make regarding Rutter et al.’s study. It is wrong to assume that the poor IQs of orphans were a result of a lack of a maternal figure. One obvious factor that could have caused this is the malnourishment the orphans were forced to withstand in the institutes. A 2013 study found malnutrition during infancy to be associated with a significantly high incidence of impaired IQ. The abundance of nutrients is essential for brain development, and regardless of whether they had a maternal caregiver or not, the children in Rutter’s study may still have displayed the same IQs had they not been fed sufficiently. Furthermore, many of the children placed in the institutes had some form of disability, which could have interfered with their cognitive and emotional capabilities. This means that we cannot be sure that the internal working model truly exists, as there are multiple extraneous variables that can provide reasonable alternative explanations for the orphans’ struggles.
Although the studies of Romanian Orphans have some methodological limitations, they have provided psychologists with real-life evidence of the dangers of institutionalisation and maternal deprivation. Decree 770 was finally abolished on 26th December 1989, just days after the Romanian Revolution, and abortion was legalised.
[5] A disinhibited attachment is characterised by indiscriminate behaviour to adults, attention seeking behaviours such as clinginess, and a lack of stranger anxiety. This often results from a lack of a close bond with an attachment figure.
[6] The internal working model is a mental representation of our relationship with our primary caregiver, and is thought to form at infancy. It serves as a template that holds our expectations of normal relationships.
Closing Thoughts
It seems bizarre to think that the majority of attachment theory stems from a series of controversial animal studies. And yet here we are. We’ve gone from Aristotle, to the ethical code, from monkeys to Romanian orphans. You may consider this article a series of unnecessary and irrelevant digressions, or you may find it sparks your interest. Hopefully it is the latter.
In the past, animals have almost always been seen as less important than humans and therefore it has been okay to experiment on them. [7] However recent research has revealed the importance of animal conservation to attain an environmental balance. Media has also played a role in propagating this to the public. One particular short film called ‘Save Ralph’ is a stop motion, created by Taika Waititi of Humane Society International in 2021. The society is a global campaign to ban animal testing for cosmetic products, a difficult message to get across, yet the film emphasises this in a lighthearted and influential manner. Since being uploaded to YouTube, it has attracted over 15M viewers. Millions of people worldwide began to show their support for legal reforms to promote a future without cosmetic animal testing. By December 2022, 10 US states had passed laws that banned this. Mexico also became the first North American country to prohibit cosmetic animal testing in September 2021.
With the help of new laws, general public awareness, and the ethics code, researchers are now far more able to conduct ethically sound research with animals, while obtaining scientifically valid results. Although the ethical dilemma of using animals at all in research still remains, scientists are considerably better at making decisions that do not inflict harm on experimental animals, whether it be physical or psychological.
[7] This of course is not the same for all animals. Many cultures have thought of animals as sacred. In Hinduism, the cow is considered to be a symbol for strength, prosperity, and maternal love. Hindus refrain from eating beef and are often vegetarian, as their faith emphasises that no living thing should be harmed according to the principle of ahimsa. Another example of sacred animals are cats, that were viewed by Egyptians as spiritual vessels that gods would choose to inhabit. After killing venomous snakes, they became a symbol for good luck and were worshipped. The punishment for cat murder was death, even if it was accidental.
thank you for reading :)
Bea
this article was written entirely by a human.
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