© 1974 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
The Ontogeny of Play within a Society: Preliminary Analysis
Department of Psychiatry, University of Nebraska, College of Medicine Omaha, Nebraska 68131
Data were collected on play behaviors occuring within a single troop or rhesus monkeys in two environments. Observations were regular and covered a total of almost 2 years. The three categories of play—object, activity, and social play—tended to occur together, typically within the same recording session. Thus, the attending conditions—including satiation and maturity—which permitted the occurrence of one category of play behavior, permitted the occurrence of the other categories as well. Maturity seemed to account for the appearance of a particular behavior within a category (e.g., manipulation rather than touching; climbing rather than active hanging; romping and wrestling rather than contact or touching). The social context, determined by such factors as maternal dominance, the identity of nearby animals, and the overall social tension of the troop, and reflected in the extent of inhibitory control of the target animals by their mothers, seemed to determine the frequency with which these elements in the infant monkey's repertoire could be displayed during any given period in the ontogeny of the individual.