The Effect of Early Deprivation on the Social Behavior of Adolescent Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees reared during early life in environments with social and perceptual restrictions are strikingly different from animals reared by their mothers in a natural habitat. As adolescents they avoid social contact and display little species-typical behavior; they play and copulate infrequently and do not groom. The authors found these aberrations to be very resistant to modification by a variety of maneuvers, including contact with normal social partners, drugs, and experimental manipulations, and they discuss the implications of their lack of "therapeutic" success.