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)
