Early Experience and Adult Behavior

这项研究的目的是研究早期经验对成人育儿行为的影响，并确定在早期经验和成年后行为之间提供中间联系的属性和行为。费尔班克斯博士正在利用塞普尔韦达退伍军人管理局非人类灵长类研究设施的四个社会群体中的一群圈养黑猩猩来研究这些重要问题。来自不受干扰的圈养社会群体的结果可以为扩大人口提供良好的行为模式，具有充足的资源基础和较低的死亡率。这些情况对人类行为的某些方面可能具有更大的普遍性，而不是在更稳定或不断下降的野外种群中发现的情况。来自费尔班克斯群体的初步结果表明，在婴儿时期受到过度保护的雌性长尾猴成为过度保护的母亲，而在婴儿时期更经常被排斥的雌性猴子在做母亲时往往更受排斥。也有迹象表明，放任自流的母亲所生的后代比更具保护性的母亲的后代更独立、更具冒险精神，并在青少年和成年后对外部环境做出反应。费尔班克斯博士进一步研究的目的是在更大的个体样本中验证早期经验和后来行为之间的关系，并确定早期经验如何影响个人对环境做出适应性反应的能力。这项研究是对生活在自然组成的社会群体中的灵长类动物早期经历中自发发生的变化的长期影响的第一次广泛研究。这些结果将使费尔班克斯博士能够追踪从婴儿期到成年期早期经历差异的发展过程，并检验育儿方式往往会从一代女性传给另一代女性的假说。

The aim of this research is to study the effects of early experience on adult mothering behavior, and also to identify the attributes and behaviors that provide an intermediate link between early experience and behavior in adulthood. Dr. Fairbanks is investigating these important problems using a colony of captive vervet monkeys living in four social groups at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Nonhuman Primate Research Facility. Results from undisturbed, captive social groups can provide good models of behavior in expanding populations with an ample resource base and low death rate. These conditions might have greater generality to some aspects of human behavior than conditions found in more stable or declining field populations. Preliminary results from Dr. Fairbanks' colony suggest that female vervet monkeys who were overly protected as infants become overly protective mothers, while females who were rejected more often as infants tend to be more rejecting as mothers. There are also indications that laissez-faire mothers produce offspring who are more independent, adventuresome, and responsive to the outside environment as juveniles and adults, compared to the offspring of more protective mothers. The objective of Dr. Fairbanks' further research is to verify these relationships between early experience and later behavior with a larger sample of individuals, and to determine how early experience influences an individual's ability to react adaptively to its environment. This research represents the first extensive study of the long-term effects of spontaneously occurring variation in early experience for primates living in naturally composed social groups. The results will allow Dr. Fairbanks to trace the developmental course of differences in early experience from infancy through adulthood, and to test the hypothesis that mothering style tends to be propagated from one generation of females to another.