Parenting, Sibling-Support, and Infant Development

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管越来越多的证据表明，家庭是一个重要的调解人的发展，家庭生活的两个方面还没有得到深入分析：大家庭和兄弟姐妹。马立克次灵长类动物的特点是大家庭群体，成年雄性和雌性之间强烈的情感依恋，以及合作的婴儿护理。由于这些特征的表达在callitrichid灵长类动物的家庭单位之间有很大的差异，这些物种代表了理想的模型，以调查家庭中的早期经验和随后的生物行为发育之间的关系。这个项目将测试的一般假设，即婴儿的心理生物学的发展是不是仅仅依赖于父母的特点和他们与婴儿的互动的性质，而是应该敏感的结构和背景的特点，更广泛的家庭系统。第一个目的将是研究婴儿养育模式作为一个功能的个体间的关系质量，家庭人口统计，以及分配的父母和alloparent照顾之间的相互作用。第二个目的是评估早期婴儿护理对心理和身体发育的影响，并研究可能调解这些关系的社会因素。第三个目的是调查婴儿接受性行为的变化是否会影响成年后的行为模式，包括异性伴侣关系和父母风格。提供给婴儿绒猴的护理的质量和数量，以及发育结果将被检查为家庭从一个单一的繁殖对成长为一个大家庭。将评估家庭生活对主要发育里程碑的影响，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，配对关系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展的进化模型的普遍性提供强有力的检验。

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.