Primatology, Ethics and Trauma: The Oklahoma Chimpanzee Studies

Primatology, Ethics and Trauma offers a critical re-examination of the research conducted into the linguistic capabilities of the Oklahoma chimps and uncovers the historical reality of this research project without fabrication. It has been 50 years since the first language experiments on chimpanzees. Robert Ingersoll was one of the student researchers from 1975 to 1983. He is well known for being one of the main carers and best friend of the chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky, but there were other chimpanzees in the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for Primate Studies, including Washoe, Moja, Kelly, Sherry, Booee, and Onan, who were taught sign language in the quest to discover whether language is learned or innate in humans. Ingersoll and Scarna shine light on how by definition this research failed to address the emotional needs of the animals. Research into trauma has made scientific advances since those studies. It is time to consider those studies from a different perspective, taking a hard look at the neglect and cruelty that was inflicted on those animals in the quest of psychological study. This book re-examines those cases in this book, addressing directly the suffering and traumatic experiences endured by the captive chimpanzees, in particular the female chimpanzee, Washoe, and her resultant inability to mother, leading to her killing her infant, Sequoyah. The book discusses the unethical nature of the studies in the context of recent research on trauma and offers a specific and direct psychological message, proposing to finally close the door on the language side of these chimpanzee studies. This book is novel, groundbreaking, and will be of interest to academic, research, experimental, and clinical psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, historians of science and primatologists, in particular those involved or interested in primate sanctuary and conservation.