Mothers Make a Difference: Mothers Develop Weaker Bonds with Immature Sons than Daughters

Among mammals, individuals form strong social bonds preferentially with their kin. Differences in these relationships are linked to differential kin availability due to sex-specific dispersal patterns, but there is some indication that differential bonding among sexes already occurs prior to maturation. However, little is known about how these patterns arise during individual development. Here we investigated sex differences in the development of mother-offspring bonds in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Our results revealed that mothers showed sex-biased bonding toward their offspring. Sons had a distinctly higher probability of receiving aggression from their mothers than did daughters in the first year of life, while no differences were found with respect to affiliative interactions. After the first year, probabilities of all affiliative and aggressive behaviours investigated were higher for daughters than for sons, although generally declining. Furthermore, sons spending less time with their mother and receiving more maternal aggression tended to disperse earlier. The results of our study suggest that mothers influence their bonding strength with offspring by interacting less affiliative with sons than daughters.