A considerable proportion of Old World monkey mothers living in social
groups under seemingly benign conditions maltreat their young. This i
nteresting finding is the basis for the suggestion by D. Maestripieri
and K. A. Carroll (1998) that monkeys might provide an animal model fo
r investigating child abuse and neglect in the human population. This
suggestion tacitly assumes that the phenomena of abuse and neglect in
monkeys and humans are based on similar processes. This possibility is
more plausible for neglect than for abuse. Child abuse shows such gre
at diversity of forms and causes in human societies that it is unlikel
y to have a natural counterpart among nonhuman primates. The suggestio
n that it does may inadvertently lend support to attitudes that are un
duly restrictive or actively opposed to animal research in psychology.