Chapter 11: Family and Other Relationships

Question 1

Here are some statistics that you should be able to recite: 1) What percentage of children live with their mothers following divorce? 2) What percentage of men and women, respectively, remarry following a divorce. 3) What percentage of children experience divorce once? How about twice?

Answer 1

1) 90% 2) 75% of fathers remarry; 65% of mothers remarry. 3) 40%; 10%.

Question 2

What age-range of people do infants prefer playing with?

Answer 2

Adults.

Question 3

There are four stages of friendship. Your goal is to provide the duration window and a short description for each. (Hint: they somewhat coincide with Piagetian stages.)

Answer 3

Stage 1 (Preschool): Based on proximity and shared activity. Stage 2 (5 to 7 years): Shared activity where friendships are easily made and forgotten. Stage 3 (6 to 12 years–similar to concrete operational): Still share activity, but friendships are now based on loyalty and reciprocity. Stage 4 (Adolescence–similar to formal operational): Intimacy and self-disclosure become important. More time with peers than family (twice as much).

Question 4

How does alloparenting contribute to the cooperative breeding hypothesis.

Answer 4

Mothers have alloparents (relatives) who assist in early child rearing as to provide mothers with the time required to reproduce faster.

Question 5

At these developmental dates, an infant will develop some sort of peer interaction. What, specifically, occurs here? 1) Three to four months. 2) Six months.

Answer 5

1) Will try to touch one another. 2) Will look at other infants and smile.

Question 6

Describe parallel play and state when it typically occurs.

Answer 6

Infants independently playing in unison. From years one to two.

Question 7

What does menopause signal in an older women?

Answer 7

Marks the shift from a parent, reproductive strategy to a grandparent, supporting strategy. “A grandmother’s foraging provides crucial nutrition for young children who were no longer nursing but who were not yet eating adult food [in the Hadza tribe].”

Question 8

How does parenting style change between mothers and fathers when divorce occurs?

Answer 8

Females become more authoritarian. Males become more permissive.

Question 9

Explain the logic behind good-enough parenting.

Answer 9

If parenting is only valuable insofar as to make children acceptable to their peers, of whom will properly socialize them, then perhaps extra parenting efforts are a poor use of resources and energy.

Question 10

We know that the socio-economic status of a neighbourhood is a strong predictor of outcome, but can you provide another positive outcome predictor (something relating to one’s neighbourhood)?

Answer 10

The stability of a person’s home life, e.g. whether they have grown up in the same home or not is a strong predictor of life outcome.

Question 11

Describe cooperative play and state when it typically occurs.

Answer 11

Infants playing in unison, focusing on the same activity (theme). Occurs after the second year.

Question 12

What do Jones and Hawke see as the two variables that determine parenting style in Hadza and !Kung tribes? What implications do these have for modern society?

Answer 12

1) Whether there are sufficient resources for a mother to support herself sans a father. 2) The inherent risks of their environment. With sufficient safety and resources in modern society, we trend towards a warm, democratic, and authoritative structure.

Question 13

When looking at the correlations between attachment style and parenting style what should we be cautious about?

Answer 13

“Keep in mind that this research is not experimental. Children have not been randomly assigned to be parented by authoritative, permissive, or authoritarian parents. Baumrind reminds us to keep in mind other factors, such as socio-economic status, when interpreting the data.”

Question 14

Define adolescence and state its purpose.

Answer 14

The period of time after reproductive maturity when an individual is still dependent on his or her parents. The purpose of adolescence is to provide humans time to become cognitively and socially skilled.

Question 15

When does in-group vs. out-group psychology develop in infants?

Answer 15

Three months.

Question 16

The Hadza are a group of hunter-gatherers who move seasonally. List some parenting characteristics that can be observed in their society. What do these tell us about the Hadza’s environment?

Answer 16

-Shorter birth intervals -More attentive to each child -Less rigid discipline These traits indicate a resource-rich environment (shorter intervals) with little danger (less disciplined).

Question 17

By the age of four who does a child most frequently interact with?

Answer 17

Their siblings. These siblings teach them culture, games, and skills.

Question 18

A child is overly susceptible to the peer pressure cast by negative figures. What style were they likely raised with?

Answer 18

Permissive. “Inattentive [permissive] parents are not available to monitor their children’s behaviours and may not be aware when they are spending time with peers who do not uphold the parents’ values. Peers are powerful influences, especially in adolescent development.”

Question 19

Women can be sure that a child is theirs; men cannot be so sure. Provide several pieces of evidence for things that we as a species do to convince men a child is theirs (three points listed).

Answer 19

1) Non-biased, randomly selected raters are significantly better at pairing infants up with their fathers. Provides evidence that infants look more like their fathers, at least initially.
2) Maternal family members are significantly more likely than paternal family members to remark on how much a child looks like the father versus.
3) Males, but not females, are more likely to punish children who do not look like them, and are more likely to reward children who do look like the.

Question 20

How does the ideal parenting style differ between individualistic and collectivistic cultures?

Answer 20

Authoritative styles are ideal in the west. Authoritarian styles are ideal in the east.

Question 21

What do older siblings commonly do when their younger sibling is born?

Answer 21

“…but once the infant sibling arrives, the older sibling typically shows signs of distress, might show signs of withdrawal, show signs of immaturity that they had already outgrown, and might show clear signs of competing for parental attention.”

Question 22

What is the role of paternal parenting and how common is it across species?

Answer 22

The role of a father is to ensure that their child is competitive amongst peers. Will only invest when this cost will greatly improve his child’s fitness. Seen in roughly 5% of species.

Question 23

Explain group socialization theory.

Answer 23

“Socialization takes place in peer groups, especially sex- and age-segregated peer groups that form from middle childhood through adolescence. In adolescence these groups are also segregated by ability and interest. Once children identify with such a peer group, they adopt the group’s attitudes and norms of behaviour. Behaviours learned at home will only be transmitted to the group if that behaviour is shared by and approved by most of the group members. Ultimately, the child’s peer group creates the children’s culture by selecting and rejecting elements of adult culture and by inventing novel elements.”

Question 24

What was Judith Harris’ main argument?

Answer 24

“Peers, not parents, socialize children.”

Question 25

Explain why, according to Trivers, parent-offspring conflict is inevitable.

Answer 25

Each offspring is related to their parent at r = 0.5. Each offspring is related to their sibling at r = 0.5. However, each offspring is related to themselves at r = 1. This leads to conflicting reproductive interests: parents view offspring as equally valuable, but an offspring does not. To an offspring, their sibling is only half as valuable as themselves. Hence why parents will try to divide resources equally while offspring will try and procure a majority of resources. This is why parent-offspring conflict is inevitable.

Question 26

Recite the takeaway of the Danish, criminality/adoption study.

Answer 26

“In other words, nothing the parent did at home made criminal behaviour more or less likely, but if the parent reared the child in a high-crime neighbourhood, a child with criminal biological parents was relatively likely to engage in criminal activity.”

Question 27

The children of this parenting style are aggressive, delinquent, and rigid. They might even be described as “developing their own moral directions”. What parenting style best describes this?

Answer 27

Authoritarian. “Children who are subjected to authoritarian parenting, complete with high demand and rigid regulation, are more likely to show physically aggressive behaviour in childhood and juvenile delinquency and criminal behaviour later on . Perhaps children who are constantly monitored and controlled do not have enough freedom, or motivation, to develop their own moral directions.”

Question 28

Which of the four parenting styles was NOT described by Baumrind, and was instead conceptualized by Maccoby and Martin?

Answer 28

Uninvolved.

Question 29

Which alloparent would you expect to provide the greatest investment in the offspring?

Answer 29

The maternal grandmother. Here there is a definitive genetic connection with no risk of cuckolding.

Question 30

What are the short-term and long-term effects of divorce on a child?

Answer 30

Short-term: “lower academic achievement and more behavioural problems when compared to children of non-divorced parents.” Ideally, though, we would compare the divorced group to children in an unhappy household. Long-term: “Adults who experienced parental divorce in childhood are more likely to divorce themselves, complete less schooling and secure lower-paying jobs, and experience depression, anxiety, and phobias.” Rutherford, however, wants us to say that the effects are really only short-term.

Question 31

Describe the step-parent/child dynamic.

Answer 31

Few step-parents feel parental feelings for their child, though step-fathers feel twice as much as step-mothers. In households with step-parents the risk of child abuse increases 100 fold.

Question 32

Mathematically describe where the zone of conflict is between parent and offspring.

Answer 32

When B (benefit) is between C/2 and C (cost).

Question 33

What comparison did Dr. Rutherford use to depict how similar siblings are on measures of rebelliousness or adherence to the status quo?

Answer 33

“Siblings are more different than stranger on the measures of…” This is because birth order effects make first-borns more supportive of order and late-borns more interested in innovation.

Question 34

Describe pretend play and state when it typically occurs.

Answer 34

Infants acting out a future role together, in unison. Around the second birthday.

Question 35

Describe associative play and state when it typically occurs.

Answer 35

Infants offering each other gifts/toys. Between 15 and 18 months.

Question 36

What attachment style is most frequently produced through permissive parenting?

Answer 36

Insecure-avoidant.

Question 37

What predictions does Trivers’ theory have regarding socialization and value adoption?

Answer 37

He predicts that children will not benefit from adopting their parents values.