Despite recent widespread claims about the importance of early contact for facilitating mother-infant bonding, the effects of early contact have not been convincingly demonstrated. Methodological and procedural difficulties, contributing to a "Hawthorne" effect, may account for the pattern of inconsistent and unclear findings to date. The effects of early contact were examined using methodological features which included random assignment of mothers to infant contact conditions, procedures to minimize the effects of "Specialness" of extra contact mothers, checks to ensure equal staff time with all mothers, and data scores who were blind to group assignment of mothers. Fifteen healthy primiparous mothers had their infants one hour at delivery and ninety minutes at each feeding; fifteen received the usual hospital routine--brief contact at delivery and thirty minutes at each feeding. No differences in maternal behavior were obtained using data from 28 discrete response measures, using pooled indicies of maternal response measures, or assessing maternal responsiveness as a function of infant state. Other factors appear to be more important than early contact--socioeconomic level, prenatal instruction, and social support systems. (Author)