"Love Is An Emotion That Does Not Need to Be Bottle or Spoon Fed"

Although I had never heard of Psychosocial dwarfism before reading the related section in Sapolsky’s work, I completely agree with the statement he quoted animal rights activists as making “why were these experiments necessary…everyone knows that love is important”. Although the activists were speaking about Harlow’s monkeys, I believe the statement also applies to the research on the neglected children whose growth was stunted. It should have come as no surprise that neglect could have more than an emotional impact, but it could have a severe physical effect.

Harlow’s monkey’s were never able to adapt into social groups and recover, and it seems that humans may not be able to either. Although it was not discussed, it seemed that the unnamed child Sapolsky mentions, was unable to become a normally functioning person. His growth stopped immediately after his favorite nurse took a vacation, despite the stressor in his life having been removed. This leads me to wonder if children of suffer from psychosocial dwarfism continue to be unstable and unhealthily dependant on others for the remainder of their lives.

The orphans who were under the victimization of Frulein Shwarz began to grow once she departed, but there is not mention of weather they formed unhealthy dependencies on new staff. Sapolsky also provides us with a sadder look into Peter Pan, whose author is rumored to have had immature sexual organs, an effect in many of Harlow’s monkey’s. I’m very curious as to what people who have survived trauma which causes psychosocial dwarfism are like as adults.

These cases and that of King Ferdinand’s experiments make it apparent that a supply of food, shelter and sunlight is far from everything the human or animal body/ mind needs to be what is generally considered healthy. Apparently the saying “love is the best medicine” has a lot of validity to it, and this medicine needs no spoon.