Chapter 11: Family & Relationships Flashcards
Humans have an ______________.
This is unique to humans.
adolescent period
- Adolescence is the period after puberty when we are still dependent on families
- In other species, puberty marks the time of complete independence
The best explanation for humans’ long juvenile period is…
our species’ disproportionate need to acquire social expertise
_________ is another case of instinct blindness.
Parental love
- not until 60s and 70s that people thought this was a scientific question
- Triver’s parental investment theory explained parental love
Define parental investment
any investment by a parent in an individual offspring that increases that offspring’s chance of surviving and reproducing at the cost of the parent’s ability to invest in other offspring
Define inclusive fitness
one’s evolutionary fitness plus the number of viable offspring of relatives, discounted by relatedness
What is Triver’s Parental Investment Theory? (one in the same with Inclusive Fitness Theory)
- resources given to one child cannot be used to directly benefit another, or be used for the parent’s own reproductive efforts
- a parent can increase IF by investing in offspring.
- Humans have psychological adaptations designed to allocate resources among offspring
What are alloparents?
all the people who contribute to the upbringing of a child other than the child’s parents.
“It takes a village”
Humans are cooperative breeders
Explain the evolution of menopause
- human females have menopause because the risk of an older woman having another child is not worth the direct-fitness benefit. Rather, it is outweighed by the inclusive fitness benefit of investing in her grandchildren
Explain the grandmother hypothesis
- species-specific evolution made possible when grandmothers began feeding newly-weaned children foods that would not otherwise be accessible to them
- weaning happens earlier and the mother’s inter-birth interval decreases
- this increases the mother’s fitness and the grandmother’s and child’s inclusive fitness
- supports the longer childhood of humans
Children with ________ are at greater risk of _________ than those without
stepparents; abuse
- between birth and 2 yrs, stepfathers are more likely to kill stepchild.
- rare but more common than biological father
The importance of father-child resemblance
- the mother’s side of the family is 2x as likely to comment that the baby looks like the father
- important father is reassured so he will take care of his family
- men are responsive to this- study shows they are more likely to favour and be gentler with child who looks like him
- this effect does not occur in women because there is no ambiguity
parent-offspring conflict
conflict between parent and offspring resulting from the fact that mutually exclusive courses of action would maximize each person’s inclusive fitness
Zone of Parent-Offspring Conflict
- Cost to Actor versus Benefit to recipient…
When B < C, parent and child agree selfishness is beneficial and so child acts in own self-interest
Between B = C (parent shift line) and B = 2C (child’s shift line), this is the zone of conflict. Parent favours altruism and child favours self
When B > 2C, parent and child agree that selfishness hurts all and so child shares
What are the implications of the parent-offspring conflict?
- children comply but do not internalize parents’ values.
- If they were to continue to act out parental wishes that did not align with their own self-interest, they would lower their own inclusive fitness
Baumrind’s Parenting Styles
Authoritarian: expect absolute obedience (high control and low responsiveness)
Authoritative: set rules but explain them (high control and high responsiveness)
Uninvolved: disengaged (low control and low responsiveness)
Permissive: warm but no rules (low control and high responsiveness)
Effects of the 4 Parenting Styles
Authoritarian: child has low self-esteem, behavioural issues and poor school performance
Permissive: delinquency and aggression
Authoritative: good in school, independent, responsible
Uninvolved: poor school performance, depression, social withdrawal, early pregnancy and drug use
Good Enough Parenting
- Sandra Scarr
- extraordinary parenting doesn’t make a measurable difference
- children should be resilient to a range of possible parenting
Ecologically Situated Parenting
- Two African groups
- !Kung have hard time finding food, less attentive to children, longer birth intervals, more discipline
- Hadza have easier access to food, more attentive, shorter birth intervals, less discipline.
- If food is abundant, makes sense to have children more frequently.
- It’s not the culture that causes the difference, it’s the ecology that causes it.
An important comparison about divorced families and unhappily married families
kids whose parents should divorce but don’t do worse than those whose parents rightfully decide to divorce
Harris’ extension of Parent-Offspring Conflict
- children are socialized by peers
- thought that parents had basically no influence on child’s personality development
- biological criminality doesn’t matter. Adopted children will be like adopted family (Copenhagen study)
- children pass on culture, games, songs to each other through generations
- kids in concentration camps were attached to each other and grew into typical adults because of this
- a major function of adolescence is peer socialization
Play
parallel play- play w/o interaction (1 yr)
associative play- more interactive, comment on things (15 mons)
cooperative play- play together (2 yrs)
pretend play- more sophisticated cognitively (2 yrs)
Friendship Stages
stage 1- preschool, based on physical proximity
stage 2- elementary school, kids who play easy together
stage 3- 6-12 yrs, trust, reciprocity
stage 4- adolescence, gossip, more exclusive, longer lasting
Neighbourhoods and Stability- An important comparison
- outcomes better for child development in high SES neighbourhoods
- even stronger than economic predictor is stability
- even in poor neighbourhoods, if the community is well established, those outcomes are better
