Adult male--infant interactions among monkeys living in nuclear families

Adult male rhesus monkeys were housed in nuclear families containing adult female mates, offspring, and other infants and adults. Behaviors exhibited by the adult males were recorded 4 days per week over a 37-month period; in interactions involving other monkeys, the identity and the responses of those participants were also recorded. The results indicated that, although adult males were less active and more stable in their behavioral levels than mates or offspring, they clearly distributed both initiates and responses differently to male offspring, female offspring, mates, and both infant and adult monkeys from other families. These results suggest that adult males have the potential to play more important roles in the social development of infants than had been previously suspected on the basis of field data. Implications for human father-infant interactions are discussed.