ABSTRACT
The various species of the Primate Order, which includes monkeys, apes, and men, have shown relatively direct, progressive capabilities of socialization throughout the course of evolutionary development, with the result that it is easy to conceptualize the human being as the most social animal ever to be created. The human neonate is so physically immature that it cannot clasp, cling, and feed back to the mother as effectively as the neonatal monkey, but this does not mean that its early affectional requirements are basically different. Maternal behavior is in turn based on a family of early-experience variables. At least from late infancy onward the female monkeys show far more interest in baby monkeys than do equal-aged males, and this female interest expresses itself as if the female had a specific need to make positive contactual responses to young monkeys.
