A 1950s Monkey Experiment Explains Why Your Team Feels Dead

A 1950s experiment with baby monkeys explains why your team feels disconnected.

In the 1950s, psychologist Harry Harlow ran an experiment that should have changed everything about how we build workplaces. It didn't. But it explains why your Monday morning meetings feel so lifeless.

At the time, the prevailing wisdom was utilitarian. Experts believed that children bonded with their mothers because mothers provided food. Feed a child, the theory went, and they'll be happy. Affection was considered secondary. A nice-to-have.

Harlow suspected this was wrong. He believed comfort wasn't a luxury. He believed it was a survival need as potent as hunger.

So he devised an experiment.

Two Mothers

Harlow separated baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers and placed them in cages with two artificial surrogates.

The first was the wire mother. A cold frame made of metal mesh. Hard and uncomfortable, but equipped with a bottle of milk. She provided sustenance.

The second was the cloth mother. A frame covered in soft terry cloth. Warm and tactile, but offering no food whatsoever. She provided nothing but comfort.

If the old theories were correct, the monkeys should have clung to the wire mother. She had the calories. She had the resources that keep you alive. She was the logical choice.

That's not what happened.

The monkeys ignored the wire frame. They spent eighteen hours a day clinging desperately to the cloth mother. When hungry, they would lean over to nurse from the wire frame, then immediately retreat back to the softness.

Then Harlow raised the stakes. He introduced a mechanical spider into the cage, something loud and scary that moved unpredictably.

The monkeys were terrified. But they didn't run to the milk. They ran to the cloth. They buried their faces in the softness until their terror subsided. Only once they felt safe did they have the courage to turn around and face the spider.

What This Means for Your Team

The lesson was shattering. Food was not enough. Sustenance was not enough. The biological need for contact comfort was the primary drive. Without it, the monkeys couldn't function.

We have built professional worlds that function almost entirely as wire mothers.

We designed our offices for efficiency, not connection. We replaced the hallway conversation with the Slack message because it moves faster. We replaced the team lunch with the sad desk salad because it boosts productivity. We built open floor plans that look communal but actually force people to wear noise-canceling headphones to survive.

Your company provides the milk. Good salaries. Benefits packages. Maybe a ping pong table in the breakroom that nobody uses.

But there's no cloth.

No time in the schedule for the soft stuff. Meetings are transactional. Vulnerability is treated as a liability. Efficiency is the only god.

The Cost of the Wire Mother

When the brain is deprived of safety signals, it doesn't innovate. It survives. It hoards information instead of sharing it. It avoids risk. It treats every email like a mechanical spider.

Google discovered this when they launched Project Aristotle in 2012. They wanted to find the secret recipe for the perfect team. They analyzed mountains of data looking for patterns. IQ? Didn't matter. Extroversion? Didn't matter. Clear hierarchy? Didn't matter.

The single greatest predictor of team success was psychological safety. Could people take risks without being embarrassed? Could they admit mistakes without being punished?

The best teams at one of the world's most advanced technology companies were the ones that felt most like a summer camp cabin. They had built a cloth mother environment.

Building the Cloth

You can't transform a wire mother culture overnight. But you can start small.

Try opening your next meeting with a question that has nothing to do with work. Ask people to share three words describing how they feel right now. Not as employees. As humans.

It will feel awkward. People will resist. They've been conditioned to expect the wire. They're waiting for the trap.

But if you persist, something shifts. The digital grid of faces becomes a tribe facing a week together. People who are exhausted but hopeful. Knowing that about each other makes the work easier.

The monkeys taught us something we keep forgetting: comfort isn't a distraction from the real work. Comfort is what makes the real work possible.

Your team doesn't need another productivity tool. They need to know that when the mechanical spider shows up, someone will be there.

About the Author

Matt Kaufman has spent 40 years in summer camp as a camper, counselor, and director, studying what makes people belong, grow, and thrive. He writes about intentional community, leadership, and the intersection of technology and human connection.

Connect with Matt:

• Instagram: @mattlovescamp

• LinkedIn: Matt Kaufman

• Website: ilove.camp

Books by Matt Kaufman:

• The Campfire Effect: How to Engineer Belonging in a Disconnected World (February 2026)

• The Summer Camp MBA: 50 Leadership Lessons from Camp to Career