APA Dictionary of Psychology

the positive effects experienced by infants or young animals when in close contact with soft materials. The term originates from Harry Harlow’s classic experiments, in which young rhesus monkeys exposed both to an artificial cloth mother without a bottle for feeding and to an artificial wire mother with a bottle for feeding spent more time on the cloth mother and, when frightened, were more readily soothed by the presence of the cloth mother than the wire mother.