ABSTRACT
This chapter examines proximate mechanisms that permit the expression of sociality and specifically the traits that characterize social monogamy. The proximate mechanisms of sociality are best understood in the context of their adaptive functions and when possible the ultimate/evolutionary origins of such behaviors. The chapter discusses the physiological mechanisms underlying mammalian sociality and social monogamy, in the context of evolution. Social behaviors, including social bonds and other forms of social support, facilitate both the survival of the individual, reproduction—necessary in turn for genetic survival. Social familiarity or novelty is a particularly important determinant of social organization in many mammalian species. Understanding of the neurobiology of selective social behaviors has been slowed by the inherent inter- and intraspecific variation in these behaviors and by the tendency of physiologists to study socially promiscuous laboratory species. Based primarily on life histories and occasional laboratory work, social monogamy in mammals has been described in various taxa, ranging from primates to canids to rodents.
