Parenting, Sibling-Support, and Infant Development

描述(申请人提供)：尽管越来越多的证据表明家庭是发展的重要中介，但家庭生活的两个方面尚未得到深入分析：大家庭和兄弟姐妹。Callitrichid灵长类动物的特点是家庭群体扩大，成年雄性和雌性之间强烈的情感依恋，以及合作照顾婴儿。由于这些特征的表达在Callitrichid灵长类动物的家庭单元中差异很大，这些物种是研究家庭早期经历与随后的生物行为发育之间关系的理想模型。该项目将检验一般假设，即婴儿的心理生物发育不仅取决于父母的特征和他们与婴儿互动的性质，而且应该对更广泛的家庭系统的结构和背景特征敏感。第一个目标将是研究婴儿养育模式作为个人间关系质量、家庭人口统计以及父母和异地护理分配之间的相互作用的函数。第二个目的是评估早期婴儿护理对心理和躯体发育的影响，并检查可能调节这些关系的社会因素。第三个目的是调查婴儿接受照料行为的差异是否会随后影响成年后的行为模式，包括异性伴侣关系和父母风格。随着家庭从一对繁殖对成长为一个大家庭，将审查为婴儿绒猴提供的护理的质量和数量以及发育结果。将评估家庭生活对主要发展里程碑的影响，包括婴儿生长和社会发展、融入更大的社会群体、生殖和社会成熟、结对纽带的形成和随后的父母能力。这些研究将为预测家庭内生物行为发育的进化模型的普遍性提供强有力的测试。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite mounting evidence that the family is an important mediator of development, two aspects of family life have not been analyzed in depth: the extended family and siblings. Callitrichid primates are characterized by extended family groups, strong emotional attachment between adult males and females, and cooperative infant care. Since the expression of these traits varies widely across family units in callitrichid primates, these species represent ideal models in which to investigate relationships between early experiences in the family and subsequent biobehavioral development. This project will test the general hypothesis that the psychobiological development of infants is not dependent solely on characteristics of the parents and the nature of their interaction with the infants, but rather it should be sensitive to structural and contextual characteristics of the wider family system. The first aim will be to examine infant rearing patterns as a function of inter-individual relationship quality, family demographics, and interactions between the allocation of parental and alloparental care. The second aim is to evaluate the effects of early infant care on psychological and somatic development, and to examine social factors likely to mediate these relationships. The third aim is to investigate whether variation in receipt of caregiving behavior by infants subsequently influences patterns of behavior in adulthood, including heterosexual pair bonding and parental styles. The quality and quantity of care provided to infant marmosets, and developmental outcomes will be examined as families grow from a single breeding pair to an extended family. The impact of family life will be assessed for major developmental milestones, including infant growth and social development, becoming integrated into the larger social group, reproductive and social maturation, pair bond formation and subsequent parental competency. These studies will provide strong tests of the generality of evolutionary models predicting biobehavioral development within the family.