Complexity Digest 2005.27 - 15

04-Jul-2005

Mother Knows Worst: Abusive Parenting Spans Generations In Monkeys, Science News Bookmark and Share

Excerpts:
Mommy Dearest. Some rhesus monkeys brutalize their offspring. Here, an abusive mother appraises her child in a Puerto Rican animal preserve. Maestripieri
It's bad enough that some rhesus monkey mothers regularly kick, hit, bite, and otherwise brutalize their babies. But to make things worse, females exposed to such abuse as infants often grow up to become abusive parents themselves, perpetuating a primate cycle of family violence, a new study finds.

Being abused as an infant outweighs any primarily genetic trait, such as an anxious temperament, in fostering abusive parenting by female monkeys, says primatologist Dario Maestripieri of the University of Chicago.