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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  73
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.
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
选项 A、Testosterone: What Men and Women Need to Know
B、A Vicious Circle of Parents’ Testosterone
C、Elements of Good Parenting
D、Like Father, Like Son?
答案D
解析 主旨题。解答主旨题应着眼于全文。第一段提到人类社会中父亲在照顾子女方面的作用。第二到五段介绍了最新的研究结果，表明父亲在孩子青春期的陪伴与照顾对孩子的睾酮水平有重大影响。第六段从两方面试图解释背后的原因。最后一段又指出，实验也发现了例外现象。总体来说，文章始终围绕着父亲对子女的影响，特别是对儿子的影响展开，因此最合适的标题是D项。A项属于主观臆断，文章并没有提及男性和女性都需要了解睾酮，故排除。B项属于张冠李戴，原文说的是父亲和儿子的睾酮水平陷人了恶性循环，故排除。C项属于扩大范围，本文讲的内容只是这个主题之下的一个小的方面，故排除。故本题答案为D项。
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