In the first place I have an enormous regard for common sense. Any time we discover some great thing and it contradicts common sense, we better go ba… - Harry Harlow

Love is a wondrous state, deep, tender, and rewarding. Because of its intimate and personal nature it is regarded by some as an improper topic for experimental research. But, whatever our personal feelings may be, our assigned missions as psychologists is to analyze all facets of human and animal behavior into their component variables. So far as love or affection is concerned, psychologists have failed in this mission. The little we know about love does not transcend simple observation, and the little we write about it has been written better by poets and novelists.

The effects of 6 months of total social isolation were so devastating and debilitating that we had assumed initially that 12 months of isolation would not produce any additional decrement. This assumption proved to be false; 12 months of isolation almost obliterated the animals socially.

(W)hereas Milgram’s findings need constant reiteration in every generation, Harlow’s research no longer surprises us. One might say that its very success has made teaching it unnecessary: No one would argue against Harlow’s findings, as many students always want to do with Milgram’s.