Effects of maternal mobility, partner, and endocrine state on social responsiveness of adolescent rhesus monkeys.

The social behavior of rhesus monkeys raised for the 1st year of life with mobile (MS) or stationary (SS) cloth surrogate mothers was investigated when the animals reached 4-5 yr of age. The MS males generally refrained from social interaction during initial pairings with females, whereas SS males interacted frequently, but were more often the targets of attacks and chases from adult females than were MS males. The MS males were more likely to vary their social behavior according to the behavior of the social partner and seemed to benefit more from extended social exposure than their SS counterparts. The MS females were more similar to wild-born females than were SS females in nearly every behavior category and dimension tested. These results suggest that rearing with mobile artificial mothers improves the chances of later adaptive social adjustments in socially restricted monkeys.