Maestripieri D
Department of Psychology and Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, Emory University
Anim Behav. 1998 Jan;55(1):1-11. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1997.0578.
Maternal abuse of offspring in group-living monkeys was investigated to assess whether abuse of infants can be interpreted as an adaptive reduction of parental expenditure or as a behavioural pathology. I compared the parenting styles of 10 abusive and 10 non-abusive rhesus macaque, Macaca mulatta, mothers living in three large captive groups over the first 12 weeks of infant life. I also analysed the social interactions between mothers and infants and other individuals. Abusive females scored higher than controls on several measures of maternal protectiveness and rejection, indicating that they were highly controlling mothers. They also received fewer contacts and approaches from other individuals, and tended to be more aggressive and more interested in other females' infants compared to non-abusive mothers. Infant abuse was accompanied by similar or higher parental expenditure in the offspring rather than by a reduction in expenditure, as predicted by the adaptive hypothesis. Therefore, the results of this study support the hypothesis that infant abuse is a form of behavioural pathology. Infant abuse in rhesus macaques shows parallels with that in other primate species, but some of its characteristics could be a by-product of species-specific behavioural adaptations of rhesus macaques. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
为了评估对幼崽的虐待是可被解释为亲代投资的适应性减少还是一种行为病理学现象，研究人员对群居猴子中母猴对后代的虐待行为进行了调查。我比较了10只具有虐待行为的恒河猴（猕猴属）母亲和10只无虐待行为的母亲的养育方式，这些母亲生活在三个大型圈养群体中，观察期为幼崽出生后的前12周。我还分析了母亲与幼崽以及其他个体之间的社会互动。在几项母性保护和排斥的指标上，有虐待行为的母猴得分高于对照组，这表明它们是控制欲很强的母亲。与无虐待行为的母亲相比，她们从其他个体那里得到的接触和接近也更少，而且往往更具攻击性，对其他母猴的幼崽更感兴趣。如适应性假说所预测的那样，幼崽受虐伴随着对后代相似或更高的亲代投资，而非投资减少。因此，本研究结果支持了幼崽受虐是一种行为病理学形式的假说。恒河猴中的幼崽受虐现象与其他灵长类物种中的情况相似，但其中一些特征可能是恒河猴特定物种行为适应的副产品。版权所有1998动物行为研究协会。
