{"id":1172971,"date":"2025-10-20T14:02:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/?post_type=feature&#038;p=1172971"},"modified":"2025-10-20T14:03:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:03:00","slug":"harry-harlow-monkey-experiments","status":"publish","type":"feature","link":"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/features\/harry-harlow-monkey-experiments\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanitizing Sadism: What They Don\u2019t Teach You in Psych 101 About Harry Harlow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div contenteditable=\"false\" class=\"wp-block-beyondwords-player\"><div data-beyondwords-player=\"true\" contenteditable=\"false\"><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>A \u201cpit of despair,\u201d a \u201crape rack,\u201d and a \u201cwire mother\u201d sound like props from a horror film, but they were real devices used to torture baby monkeys. Harry Harlow, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison, claimed he wanted to study the \u201cnature of love,\u201d but his experiments on infant monkeys were anything but loving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"video-player\"><div class=\"widescreen-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Science or Suffering? The Dark History of Taking Babies From Mothers for Experiments\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xdiCb8NENhk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, the psychological torture Harlow inflicted on baby primates in the name of \u201cscience\u201d is still taught in many introductory psychology courses\u2014but here\u2019s what they don\u2019t teach you in Psych 101.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Harry Harlow Exploited Infant Monkeys Who Needed Their Mothers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Just like human babies, monkeys depend on their mothers for milk, warmth, protection, and comfort. In nature, rhesus macaques live in close-knit social groups where mothers gaze into their babies\u2019 eyes, gently touch them, and carry them everywhere. When frightened or cold, an infant instinctively runs to her mother for safety. When an infant dies, some grieving mothers carry their child\u2019s body for days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/rhesus-macaque-family.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"602\" height=\"303\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/rhesus-macaque-family-602x303.jpg\" alt=\"rhesus macaque family\" class=\"wp-image-1044724\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/rhesus-macaque-family-602x303.jpg 602w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/rhesus-macaque-family-300x151.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/rhesus-macaque-family-768x386.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/rhesus-macaque-family-668x336.jpg 668w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/rhesus-macaque-family.jpg 1336w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 602px) 100vw, 602px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Harlow deliberately and repeatedly separated infant monkeys from their mothers and tormented them to study what would happen to the babies without this vital connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Wire Mother vs. Cloth Mother<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In his earliest experiments, Harlow tore apart monkey families to determine if infants form bonds with their mothers because they provide food or comfort. To test this, he isolated the newborn monkeys, save for inanimate \u201csurrogate mothers.\u201d One \u201cmother\u201d was fashioned from bare, uncomfortable wire and fitted with a feeding bottle, and the other was made from soft terrycloth but offered no food. Even when hungry, the infants clung desperately to the cloth \u201cmother,\u201d only briefly darting to the wire \u201cmother\u201d to nurse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/monkey_experiments_harry_harlow.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"350\" height=\"283\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/monkey_experiments_harry_harlow.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-966014\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/monkey_experiments_harry_harlow.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/monkey_experiments_harry_harlow-300x243.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Harlow then decided to terrify the young monkeys to see how they would react with and without their surrogate mothers. When a cloth or wire \u201cmother\u201d was in the cage, the monkeys would cower against them but eventually explore something new or frightening. When Harlow removed the wire and cloth \u201cmothers,\u201d the baby monkeys cowered on the floor, never exploring. From these experiments, Harlow concluded that love and comfort mattered more than food to the infants\u2014a fact that human parents and primate experts already knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/harry_harlow_monkey_experiments.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"311\" height=\"399\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/harry_harlow_monkey_experiments.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-966012\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/harry_harlow_monkey_experiments.jpg 311w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/harry_harlow_monkey_experiments-234x300.jpg 234w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 311px) 100vw, 311px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Iron Maiden and Other \u201cEvil Mothers\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Harlow didn\u2019t stop after creating the cloth and wire mothers\u2014if anything, those experiments just encouraged him to try other ways to torment infant monkeys with the only comfort he allowed them. He created other surrogate mothers meant to torment desperate infants, such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A surrogate mother that would blast pressurized air so powerful that a clinging infant\u2019s fur was pressed down flat against their skin.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A \u201cshaking mother\u201d that would move so much that baby monkey\u2019s teeth chattered in their mouths while holding onto it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A surrogate mother with a device that catapulted baby monkeys across the cage.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cThe Iron Maiden,\u201d a surrogate mother with brass spikes that could be stabbed into the body of an infant monkey clinging to its body. Apparently, the baby would scream in shock, jump away, and wait until the spikes retracted before clinging again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the pain and mental torment these \u201cEvil Mothers\u201d inflicted on them, Harlow noted that the baby monkeys returned to them time after time for comfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Isolation Chambers: Breaking Monkeys\u2019 Spirits<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Through tormenting and depriving infant monkeys of everything natural and important to them, Harlow concluded that babies crave comfort from their mothers. Then he escalated his cruelty. To see how extreme isolation would affect infant monkeys, Harlow imprisoned several babies in desolate cages. Some would remain in these enclosures for years, without contact with their mothers or peers. The only outside contact they had with anyone was when Harlow\u2019s team placed food and water in their cages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The young monkeys quickly developed abnormal behaviors. They paced, rocked, bit themselves, and pulled out their hair. Once their condition deteriorated to a degree that Harlow felt satisfied with, he would place the traumatized, isolated monkeys with others and see what happened. They struggled to interact with other monkeys and often stayed alone. Some died after refusing to eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These experiments produced no groundbreaking insights about humans; we already knew that depriving social animals of companionship\u2014and everything else natural and important to them\u2014devastates them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Harlow Invented the \u201cRape Rack\u201d to Force Monkeys to Reproduce<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>After breaking baby monkeys\u2019 spirits, Harlow wanted to test how isolation affects parenting. However, Harlow\u2019s isolated monkeys grew up so psychologically damaged that they all refused to mate. To solve this \u201cproblem,\u201d Harlow devised a restraining device he chillingly called the \u201crape rack\u201d to force female monkeys to reproduce against their will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Female monkeys were strapped down to the rape rack and forcibly impregnated. When the traumatized mothers gave birth, they had no idea how to care for their young, since Harlow deprived them of all social contact during their formative periods. According to Harlow, some of the socially deprived, tortured mothers ignored their babies entirely, while others crushed their babies into the floor and rubbed their faces back and forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The \u201cPit of Despair\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the death of his wife, Harlow turned his attention from maternal bonding to depression. He invented the \u201cpit of despair,\u201d a small, inverted metal pyramid with slippery sides leading down to a point he said mimicked the feeling of a depressive episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harlow then allowed mother and infant monkeys to bond, just to separate them later. He then placed the infants inside the pits of despair for weeks. At first, the infant monkeys tried to escape by climbing the sides. Eventually, they gave up, curling into corners. Within days, even the most outgoing monkeys became withdrawn, staring blankly and refusing to move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pit of despair experiments offered no insight or advance to human psychology, nor any steps towards curing depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Did Harlow\u2019s Monkey Experiments Help Anyone?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/investigations.peta.org\/nih-baby-monkey-experiments\/expert-statements\/\">Several members of the scientific community were outraged<\/a> by Harlow\u2019s cruel experiments. Many of Harlow\u2019s experiments concluded with nothing but \u201ccommon sense\u201d results, meaning that they <strong>proved nothing<\/strong> and <strong>benefited no one. <\/strong>The claim that social animals suffer when deprived of love is something anyone who has felt loneliness could have told him, without being tortured to insanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/VIV-WLD-barbary-ape-monkey-Pixabay-NC-VS.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"602\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/VIV-WLD-barbary-ape-monkey-Pixabay-NC-VS-602x338.jpg\" alt=\"A monkey's face. He or she looks sad.\" class=\"wp-image-958998\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/VIV-WLD-barbary-ape-monkey-Pixabay-NC-VS-602x338.jpg 602w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/VIV-WLD-barbary-ape-monkey-Pixabay-NC-VS-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/VIV-WLD-barbary-ape-monkey-Pixabay-NC-VS-768x431.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/VIV-WLD-barbary-ape-monkey-Pixabay-NC-VS-375x212.jpg 375w, https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/VIV-WLD-barbary-ape-monkey-Pixabay-NC-VS.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 602px) 100vw, 602px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The only possible benefit of Harlow\u2019s horrific monkey experiments is that they upset people widely, encouraging people to speak up for animals used in experiments. Although no amount of \u201coversight\u201d and no \u201ccommittee\u201d can make animal experimentation ethical, Harlow\u2019s horrible experiments helped lead to some minimal improvements for animals used in laboratories. Harlow\u2019s former doctoral student and animal experimenter, Gene Sackett, believed that Harlow\u2014to his own disdain\u2014led many to support the Animal Liberation Movement, as his studies on maternal deprivation and isolation were a significant contributing factor to the rising public and scientific concern that led to the passage of the Animal Welfare Act of 1966. Another former student, William Mason, explained, \u201c\u2026 it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive. It\u2019s as if he sat down and said, \u2018I\u2019m only going to be around another ten years. What I\u2019d like to do, then, is leave a great big mess behind.\u2019 If that was his aim, he did a perfect job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Monkey Torment Didn\u2019t Die With Harlow<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Harlow died in 1981, but the cruelty he normalized continued. For decades, his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Stephen Suomi carried on with experiments that tore infants away from their mothers at the National Institutes of Health. Suomi also gave them inanimate surrogates, such as cloth-covered bottles. He exposed restrained baby monkeys to frightening sounds inside \u201cstartle chambers\u201d and even sedated mother monkeys, taped over their nipples, and locked their babies in cages with them. In one experiment, researchers even laughed while infants frantically tried to wake their drugged, unresponsive mothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"video-player\"><div class=\"widescreen-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Baby Monkey Experiments Exposed: National Institutes of Health\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/610831130?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Thankfully, a relentless, 18-month-long PETA campaign led to the shutdown of Suomi\u2019s laboratory and the end of his cruel experiments in 2015.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Monkeys Still Suffer Today<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Monkeys are suffering in government facilities that inflict pain, fear, and isolation on them right now. You can help stop it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The seven National Primate Research Centers have lapped up billions of dollars to prop up their infrastructure since their inception in the 1960s. Taxpayers like you are also bankrolling the horrors in these labs\u2014including infecting monkeys with deadly pathogens, electro-ejaculating male monkeys, scaring monkeys with real snakes, cutting into monkeys\u2019 skulls and implanting electrodes in their brains\u2014and the violations, like scalding a monkey to death in a high-temperature cage washer. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please&nbsp;take action&nbsp;and urge your members of Congress to shut off the funding to the seven National Primate Research Centers today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-16018d1d wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/headlines.peta.org\/save-money-save-monkeys\/#action\">Help Monkeys in Seconds<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<input class=\"fooboxshare_post_id\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"1172971\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Harry Harlow\u2019s \u201cpit of despair\u201d and \u201crape rack\u201d experiments tortured infant monkeys under the guise of research. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":277,"featured_media":1071139,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","beyondwords_generate_audio":"1","beyondwords_integration_method":"","beyondwords_project_id":"45142","beyondwords_content_id":"8c097633-6098-47b0-8faa-0954d29004d0","beyondwords_preview_token":"8dc948a2-36f7-4961-8201-a0f7a51e0ea6","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_code":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[18],"placement":[449,147],"class_list":["post-1172971","feature","type-feature","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animal-experimentation","placement-features-landing-page","placement-home-page-featured-posts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Harlow Monkey Experiments Exposed| PETA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Harry Harlow\u2019s monkey experiments were bad science. Learn about the \u201cpit of despair,\u201d \u201crape rack,\u201d and other horrific tools designed to torture baby monkeys.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/features\/harry-harlow-monkey-experiments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Harlow Monkey Experiments Exposed| PETA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Harry Harlow\u2019s monkey experiments were bad science. 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