Archived Abstracts
The Development of an Instrument to Measure Global Dimensions of Maternal Care in Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)
Authors: K. McCormack, B. R. Howell, D. Guzman, C. Villongco, K. Pears, H. Kim, M.R. Gunnar, M.M. Sanchez
One of the strongest predictors of healthy child development is the quality of maternal care. Although many measures exist to assess global aspects of maternal care in humans, such measures are lacking in nonhuman primates. In this study we developed the Instrument of Macaque Maternal Care (IMMC) to measure global aspects of maternal care in rhesus macaque mothers during the first few months postpartum. The 22 items of the instrument were adapted from both human and non-human primate maternal quality assessments. Observations were collected on 40 mother-infant pairs across the first 3 months of life. Following statistical analyses, we found that there were four primary dimensions of maternal care within the assessment: 1) Sensitivity/Responsivity, 2) Protectiveness, 3) Permissiveness, and 4) Irritability. We examined whether there were differences on these dimensions between mothers who physically abuse their infants versus mothers who do not. It was found that maltreating mothers scored higher on the Irritability dimension, and lower on the Sensitivity/Responsivity, Protectiveness, and Permissiveness dimensions compared to the non-maltreating mothers. These differences remained even after controlling for significant frequencies and durations of individual maternal behaviors collected using an established ethogram. Our findings suggest that the IMMC has the ability to capture global aspects of the mother-infant relationship, which provide complementary information about the quality of maternal care to that generated by the collection of individual maternal behaviors.
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