In a classic study of infant attachment, Harlow (1959) placed infant monkeys in cages with two artificial surrogate mothers. One “mother” was made from bare wire mesh and contained a baby bottle from which the infants could feed. The other mother was made from soft terry cloth and did not provide any access to food. Harlow observed the infant monkeys and recorded how much time per day was spent with each mother. In a typical day, the infants spent a total of 18 hours clinging to one of the two mothers. If there were no preference between the two, you would expect the time to be divided evenly, with an average of μ = 9 hours for each of the mothers. However, the typical monkey spent around 15 hours per day with the terry-cloth mother, indicating a strong preference for the soft, cuddly mother. Suppose a sample of n = 9 infant monkeys averaged M = 15.3 hours per day with SS = 216 with the terry-cloth mother. Is this result sufficient to conclude that the monkeys spent significantly more time with the softer mother than would be expected if there were no preference? Use a two-tailed test with α = .05.
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