The Effect of Early Deprivation on the Social Behavior of Adolescent Chimpanzees
CORBETT H. TURNER M.D.1,
RICHARD K. DAVENPORT JR. PH.D.2, , and
CHARLES M. ROGERS PH.D.3
1 Associate professor of psychiatry and acting chief, division of child psychiatry, Emory University School of Medicine, 1317 Clifton Rd., N. E., Atlanta, Ga. 30307, clinical director, division of youth, Georgia Mental Health Institute
2 Psychobiologists, Yerkes Regional Primate Center, Atlanta, Ga., associate professor of psychiatry, Emory University School of Medicine, and associate professor of psychology, Georgia institute of Technology
3 Psychobiologists, Yerkes Regional Primate Center, Atlanta, Ga.;
Chimpanzees reared during early life in environments with social and perceptual restrictions are strikingly different from animals reared by their mothers in a natural habitat. As adolescents they avoid social contact and display little species-typical behavior; they play and copulate infrequently and do not groom. The authors found these aberrations to be very resistant to modification by a variety of maneuvers, including contact with normal social partners, drugs, and experimental manipulations, and they discuss the implications of their lack of "therapeutic" success.
