PSYC23H3 Lecture 4: Lecture 4 02-02-12.docx
Document Summary
Prairie voles were bonding and had long lasting relationships whereas the montane voles had multiple and different relationships. The question of how that affects care giving behaviour is interesting. There"s link between pair bonding and how you take care of offspring. There are biological reasons for what those are what they are. If you haven"t given birth yet you"ll spend time with a pup that"s thrown at you. If you have given birth you"ll spend an equal amount of time. The montane voles their oxytocin levels are really low and half the level of what the prairie voles are. Their levels do rise however when they become a parent. They will end up having a similar level even though their behaviour isn"t similarly high. The women will show significant elevation in third trimester in terms of the oxytocin levels. You can see that as you increase leveis of oxytocin at pregnancy the cortisol levels are decline pretty dramatically.
