The nature of love.

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Abstract
Infant monkeys were reared with the aid of a laboratory constructed mother-substitute. "We produced a perfectly proportioned streamlined body stripped of unnecessary bulges and appendics. Redundancy in the surrogate mother''s system was avoided by reducing the number of breasts from two to one and placing this unibreast in an upper-thoracic, sagittal position, thus maximizing the natural and known perceptual-motor capabilities of the infant operator. The surrogate was made from a block of wood, covered with sponge rubber, and sheathed in tan cotton terry cloth. A light bulb behind her radiated heat. The result was a mother, soft, warm, and tender, a mother with infinite patience, a mother available twenty-four hours a day, a mother that never scolded her infant and never struck or bit her baby in anger." The data obtained "make it obvious that contact comfort is a variable of overwhelming importance in the development of affectional responses, whereas lactation is a variable of negligible importance." It is suggested that the primary function of nursing "is that of insuring frequent and intimate body contact of infant with mother.".

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