Abstract
Eight behaviors were observed in 1-year-old squirrel monkeys exposed to either a live boa constrictor or one of four inanimate objects with varying similarities to the live snake. The playpen group was exposed to these stimuli both in the presence of their feral mothers and after they had been permanently separated from their mothers. The surrogate group was similarly tested before and after separation from cloth mother surrogates. The principal finding was that the playpen group touched the box containing the stimulus objects for significantly shorter durations than did the surrogate group. The difference occurred both in the presence and in the absence of the mothers or the mother surrogates. This result indicated that the playpen infants had learned to avoid the stimulus box as a consequence of observing their mothers’ marked affective responses to the snake.
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The research described in this report was partially supported by Training Grant MH-11286 from the United States Public Health Service.
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Huebner, D.K., Lentz, J.L., Wooley, M.J. et al. Responses to snakes by surrogate- and mother-reared squirrel monkeys. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 14, 33–36 (1979). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329392
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329392