Barbara Smuts

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Barbara B. Smuts is an American anthropologist and psychologist noted for her research into baboons, dolphins, and chimpanzees.[1]

Research

Much of Smuts’ research concerns the development of social relationships between animals, particularly among chimpanzee and baboon populations. Smuts began studies of wild baboons in 1976.[2] Studies she made of wild olive baboons in Tanzania and Kenya inspired her 1985 book Sex and Friendship in Baboons. The book, the fruit of two years' research, showed how two different groups of the same primate interact with each other socially. She determined that friendship was a critical predictor of sexual activity between male and female baboons: females preferred to mate with males that had previously engaged in friendly interactions with them and could interact with their other offspring as well.[3]

Smuts also carried out research into bottlenose dolphin social development, working extensively with Janet Mann.[4]

Smuts' more recent research at the University of Michigan has focused on social behavior among dogs.[5]

Publications

  • Wrangham, R. and Smuts, B. B. (1980). "Sex differences in the behavioural ecology of chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park, Tanzania." Journal Of Reproduction and Fertility. Supplement, 28, 13–31.
  • Smuts, B.B. (2009. First printing 1985) Sex and Friendship in Baboons New York: Aldine Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-202-02027-3
  • Smuts, B.B., Cheney, D.L. Seyfarth, R.M., Wrangham, R.W., & Struhsaker, T.T. (Eds.) (1987). Primate Societies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-76715-9

References

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  5. Barbara Smuts research profile at UMich.edu

External links


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