Dewsbury D A
Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611.
Nebr Symp Motiv. 1987;35:1-50.
The phenomenon of monogamy is complex both because different characteristics associated with monogamy are displayed by different species and because different authors tend to focus on different characteristics, in part because of the species they study. The essence of monogamy appears to lie in three dimensions--exclusivity of mating, shared parental care, and association. However, many species that can be treated as "monogamous" may fail to show one or more of these characteristics. No one characteristic can be taken as definitive of monogamy. As a rule of thumb, we might consider a system monogamous if two of the three dimensions of monogamy are present. Monogamy, then, is not a unitary construct, but a general term that is useful in delineating a range of phenomena. A fascinating set of questions concerns the determinants of exclusivity of mating, shared parental care, and different kinds of association and when each is and is not shown. This search can be hindered by overreliance on "monogamy" conceived as a unitary characteristic. I find myself following in the footsteps of Frank Beach's Nebraska Symposium paper of 30 years ago in arguing against a unitary concept of monogamy, just as he argued against a unitary concept of "sex drive." Mating systems, such as monogamy, are the product of the behavioral patterns displayed by individual organisms. Our work on voles, like that of Mason and his associates on primates, reveals important differences in the motivational systems of monogamous and nonmonogamous species. Animals show both plasticity within species, as individuals encounter different conditions, and remarkably stable species differences, as laboratory-reared individuals vary reliably. The delineation of these personality profiles of species displaying different proclivities toward mating systems illustrates the utility of the comparative method and can help unravel the underlying causes of a variety of psychological differences, from those affecting mate choice to sex differences in spatial learning. They are thus fundamental to a comprehensive understanding of any species. Although the goal of comparative psychology lies in generating principles of generality concerning behavior rather than in direct extrapolation to humans, results can provide worthwhile hypotheses regarding the evolution of human behavior. Although monogamy and mate choice in humans may be regulated by underlying processes different from those in other species, there are many functional similarities, and both are ultimately the products of natural selection.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
一夫一妻制现象很复杂，这既是因为不同物种展现出与一夫一妻制相关的不同特征，也是因为不同作者倾向于关注不同特征，部分原因在于他们所研究的物种。一夫一妻制的本质似乎体现在三个方面——交配的排他性、共同养育后代以及伴侣关系。然而，许多可被视为“一夫一妻制”的物种可能并未展现出这些特征中的一个或多个。没有一个特征可以被视为一夫一妻制的决定性特征。根据经验法则，如果一夫一妻制的三个方面中有两个存在，我们可能会认为一个系统是一夫一妻制的。因此，一夫一妻制不是一个单一的概念，而是一个通用术语，有助于描述一系列现象。一组引人入胜的问题涉及交配排他性、共同养育后代以及不同类型伴侣关系的决定因素，以及每种因素何时出现和不出现。过度依赖将“一夫一妻制”视为单一特征的观念可能会阻碍这一探索。我发现自己追随弗兰克·比奇30年前在内布拉斯加研讨会上发表的论文的脚步，反对一夫一妻制的单一概念，就像他反对“性驱力”的单一概念一样。交配系统，如一夫一妻制，是个体生物所表现出的行为模式的产物。我们对田鼠的研究，就像梅森及其同事对灵长类动物的研究一样，揭示了一夫一妻制和非一夫一妻制物种在动机系统上的重要差异。动物在物种内部表现出可塑性，因为个体遇到不同的条件，同时也表现出显著稳定的物种差异，因为实验室饲养的个体可靠地存在差异。描绘这些对交配系统有不同倾向的物种的个性特征，说明了比较方法的实用性，并有助于揭示各种心理差异的潜在原因，从影响配偶选择的差异到空间学习中的性别差异。因此它们对于全面理解任何物种都至关重要。尽管比较心理学的目标在于生成关于行为的一般性原则，而非直接外推至人类，但研究结果可以提供有关人类行为进化的有价值的假设。尽管人类的一夫一妻制和配偶选择可能受与其他物种不同的潜在过程调节，但存在许多功能上的相似之处，而且两者最终都是自然选择的产物。（摘要截选至400字）
