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  3. Most males in the animal kingdom do little parenting. Sometimes, though, parental investment by a male pays off. Songbird chicks

Most males in the animal kingdom do little parenting. Sometimes, though, parental investment by a male pays off. Songbird chicks

admin2022-12-09  91
问题     Most males in the animal kingdom do little parenting. Sometimes, though, parental investment by a male pays off. Songbird chicks are usually tended by both mother and father. Wolf packs see alpha males and females collaborate to raise the cubs. And in human beings, too, the children’s father hangs around to lend a hand in bringing up the kids. Sometimes.
    Understanding why some men settle down to form families with the mothers of their children, and others don’t, is normally seen as the prerogative of social science. But biology has a role, too. And the latest work by Lee Gettler of the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, clarifies how part of that biological mechanism operates.
    Previous studies suggest that high levels of testosterone, the principal male hormone, are bad for family life. Fathers with lower testosterone levels provide more child care and are better partners to the children’s mothers. Conversely, high-testosterone males are less likely to stick around.
    Dr Gettler has shown something further. This is that a man’s adult testosterone level seems correlated with whether his father was present during his teenage years. His data come from a survey begun in Cebu City, in the Philippines, in 1983. This monitored the health and nutrition of 966 men enrolled as babies. It also collected extensive information on whether the fathers of these men were around and providing parental care in the households in which they were brought up. It further documented whether participants got married, had children and, if they did, whether they participated in child care. Crucially, it also measured their testosterone levels at the ages of 21, 26 and 30.
    Overall, Dr Gettler and his colleagues found that on becoming fathers, men had lower testosterone levels if their own fathers had lived with them and been involved in their care during their teenage years. Specifically, if that had happened, testosterone levels in their saliva were 16％ below those of men whose fathers had not stuck around to help raise them.
    This difference has two possible explanations. One is that it is directly genetic, with high-testosterone fathers (those least likely to stick around) begetting high-testosterone sons. In this case the correlation with paternal absence would be a coincidence. The other is that teenage experience actually modulates testosterone levels. This explanation, which Dr Gettler favours, could lead to a vicious circle of high-testosterone men abandoning their sons, who thus become high-testosterone in their turn.
    Testosterone levels are not completely deterministic in the matter of parental care. Some of those in the survey whose fathers were absent during their adolescence, and who ended up with high levels of the hormone, did nevertheless became nurturing parents.
According to Paragraph 3, fathers with higher testosterone levels may________.
选项 A、commit domestic violence
B、provide more child care
C、be less likely to do parenting
D、not stick to their principles
答案C
解析 细节题。根据题干可定位至第三段。第二句提到，Fathers with lower testosterone levels provide more child care(睾酮水平较低的父亲会更多参与育儿)，那么反过来，睾酮水平较高的男性就不太愿意照顾子女。第三句明确指出睾酮水平高的男性不太可能留在家里照顾孩子。选项C是原文less likely to stick around的同义表达，故正确。选项A项属于主观臆断，对家庭不利并不一定就是家庭暴力，故排除。B项属于张冠李戴，更多参与育儿是睾酮水平低的男性的特征，故排除。D项属于望文生义，stick around不是坚持原则的意思，而是停留下来的意思，故排除。故本题答案为C项。
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