Anxious about rejection, avoidant of neglect: Infant marmosets tune their attachment based on individual caregiver’s parenting style

Abstract

Children’s physical, cognitive, and emotional maturation require adequate interactions and secure attachment with their primary caregivers. However, the causal relationships between parenting components and the aspects of infant attachment behaviors toward the caregiver remain unclear. New World monkey common marmosets provide an ideal model of human parent-infant relations because, like humans, infant care is shared among family members using intricate vocal communications. Combining the natural variations in parenting styles and subsecond-scale analyses of dyadic vocal and physical interactions, we demonstrate that marmoset infants signal their need by the social context-dependent use of call types and by exhibiting physical avoidance to rejective and neglectful caregivers. When deprived of an early social environment, infants cannot develop the adaptive use of attachment behaviors or age-appropriate autonomy. These data demonstrate the critical role of social contexts and developmental dynamics in physical and vocal attachment behaviors in infancy.TeaserMarmoset infants modulate their attachment behaviors toward each caregiver, according to their inherent parenting styles.