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This chapter begins with a brief review of the literature on social influences on food choices of Norway rats. It describes fieldwork strongly suggesting that interactions between adult free-living rats and their young can determine which foods the young come to eat. It then describes several behavioral processes that have been shown in the laboratory to be sufficient to influence food choice in young rats. Finally, it discusses a type of social influence on rats' food preferences that has already proved to be useful in studies of the physical substrates of learning and memory.

This chapter investigates how offspring food preferences and feeding behaviors in mammals are influenced by maternal effects. It discusses the behavioral and cognitive mechanisms through which mammalian mothers may influence the development of food preferences and feeding behavior of their offspring, drawing on experimental studies of laboratory rodents as well as observations of free-ranging animals. The analysis reveals that the behavioral processes supporting such maternal effects vary from species to species, ranging from exclusively maternal influences on dietary preferences of weanlings mediated by flavors of foods to influences that all adults can have on the young.

This chapter explains how beavers select their food. Direct observation of the beavers' feeding behavior shows that they consume much nonwoody vegetation that leaves little trace. Aside from trees, beavers eat grasses and forbs on land and aquatic vegetation in the pond or at the lake bottom. Beavers are “central place foragers”: from the lodge where they live, they venture out in all directions to cut plants. They forage at greater distances upstream from their main lodge than downstream. This chapter discusses the range of plants eaten by beavers and where they harvest trees, their food choice and feeding behavior, seasonal changes of food preferences, food conditioning, food caches, and food processing. It also considers cafeteria-style food choice experiments that are conducted to test how beavers respond to food provided at their pond's edge.

This chapter examines how culture influences what people eat, and how food practices function to enculturate the next generation. We examine four case studies of two food items (sugars and animal proteins) in countries ranging from developing to developed economies, and Western, Eastern, and African cultures. The first three case studies focus on sugar (Australia, Japan, and Thailand) with Australia providing a case study from a Western developed country, Japan providing an example from an Eastern developed country, and Thailand providing an example from a new industrialized country. These three countries have seen changes in sugar consumption paralleling increases in non-communicable diseases. Although global concern for malnutrition is increasingly focused on overconsumption and obesity, it is important to remember that much of the world’s population still struggles with undernutrition. The fourth case study of the Yoruba in southern Nigeria serves to remind us of the importance of cross-cultural comparisons and diversity, as we see that many Yoruba children experience stunting and hunger. For them overconsumption of processed food and sugars is not the primary problem; rather, it is underconsumption of protein, particularly given their infectious disease load. Around the world, culture influences food preferences, and at the same time foods often are used to convey cultural values—such as convenience and modernity, urban lifestyle, hospitality, socialization, and moral education for children. Together these factors have implications for public health interventions and policies, yet collectively require a locally nuanced understanding of culture.

This chapter examines both the classical (genomic, long-term) and rapid (nongenomic) effects of estrogens on social recognition and social learning with regards to behavior and neurobiology. The chapter discusses how estrogens regulate an animal’s ability to recognize a previously encountered conspecific (social recognition) and how estrogens regulate an animal’s ability to acquire socially transmitted information from a conspecific (social learning). It reviews the different brain regions and estrogen receptors involved in these skills. Furthermore, it discusses mechanisms that may drive estrogens’ effects on these behaviors, such as via the oxytocin system or via cell signaling pathways.

This chapter offers an epilogue to the book, written more than a year later. Pregnant again, the author reflects on what she has learned about pregnancy and parenting. She describes her son’s rapid acquisition of language skills, an expanded vocabulary, and their consequent better communication. She also discusses her son’s developing personality and his clear preference for gender-stereotyped toys. The author emphasizes that letting go of some of the worries of parenthood has made her a better parent, more able to allow her son to explore his world and learn from his experiences, always with his secure attachment to his mom to reassure him.