Family and Relationships Flashcards
Parental Investments
Great Plains toad
Male grip female tightly around her abdomen until she releases eggs - male release his sperm to ferilize eggs - use feet to hold eggs in place - never interact again
Frontosa -
fish living in lake tanganyika - mother carries offspring in mouth from fertilization through mobility - mother will not eat - brooding
Adelie penguin -
- travel 3000 miles to the nesting site used previously - make nest - lay egg - take turns incubating - if they leave it exposed it will never hatch
Prolonged childhood/period of dependence is an evolutionary result of our complex social lives
Not all species have childhood/juvenile period
Among primates - length of juvenile period is related to adult brain size
What was it that took humans so long to learn?
Best explanation is social cognitive hypothesis - neocortex size correlates with the length of the juvenile period rather than with gestational period, lactation period or the reproductive lifespan
juvenile period - adolescence
Extremely protracted developmental period including adolescence
Adolescence is unique to humans - period after reproductive maturity when an individual is still dependent on parents
Functional in species that specializes in information and cognition - longer time period allows for the development of our complex human social cognition - function of adolescence is specifically social development
maternal/biparental care
Families are rate among non-human animals - in most species individuals are self-sufficient after a brief period of maternal care - lasting maternal relationship is not seen in most species
Biparental care is uncommon
Families as Systems
Human family is part of a system and is a system itself
Continuous bidirectional interaction
Systems are characterized by multiple and continuous interactions among the elements of the system
Microsystem:
Birth order, temperament, sex, health, and intelligence can influence his or her own development and family.
The immediate family - Each family member impacts each other family member, as is characteristic of a system
Mesosystem
Effects that emerge due to interactions in the microsystem
Quality of parents marriage
How well parents work together
Divorce
Exosystem
Elements that the child does not interact with directly but still impact the child - parents workplace - source of family’s resources and events at the workplace can have an effect on the disposition of the parents
Parental Love and Investment
Happens cross culturally
Parental love is deeply consuming, and parental investment occurs cross-culturally
Parent will make a tremendous investment in a child - food time money - instinct blindness as to why
Parental investment theory
He stressed the evolutionary basis of parental behavior, including the extensive investment parents make in their offspring
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.
Parental love that humans feel as well as the irritation and frustration that a parent might feel toward a child, are parts of psychological processes that calibrate the level of parental investment a parent is willing to make in a particular child.
Inclusive Fitness:
One’s evolutionary fitness plus the number of viable offspring of relatives, discounted by relatedness. For example, one gets full credit for oneself, half credit for offspring or siblings, and a quarter credit for nieces or nephews.
partial credit one gets in natural selection for the reproductive success of one’s close genetic relatives.
Alloparents:
All of the people who contribute to the upbringing of a child other than the child’s parents
A child’s chance of survival increases when mother has help, and a maternal grandmother is the most effective help in terms of child survivorship
alloparents - Some forms of contributions are rather indirect - Ache,
Some forms of contributions are rather indirect. For example, among the Ache, hunter-gatherers in the forests of Paraguay, mothers of young children forage less, but their deficit is made up for by the foraging of other women, especially relatives
Hrdy - Cooperative Breeding Hypothesis
Natural selection has shaped a cooperative breeding system among humans in which mothers were not along in rearing their children but shared responsibilities with close female kin and friends - with help women can have a new baby even when the older sibling still needs adult care
Hrdy - Cooperative Breeding Hypothesis
Evidence - exists throughout human societies
Efé of Central America as an example. An infant born among the Efé is held by adults other than his mother on his first day of life. A three-week old already spends 40% of daytime hours with alloparents, and by the time the baby is 18 weeks old, he is spending 60% of his daytime hours with alloparents
Not the amount of time the mother spent with the child but the extent to which the child felt safe and secure when not with the mother
Fathers
Mothers invest more than fathers
Only 5% of species have any paternal investment
Woman begins by investing 9m in gestation and then she is obliged to invest 2-4 more in breast-feeding
Mothers tend to spend the next decade investing heavily in an individual child and the rest of her life investing to a lesser extent
Father investment is important to raising a child who is healthy and competitive with peers - fathers investment is not obligatory - fathers are playing an increasing role in child rearing
Childcare responsibilities traditionally fell on mother - still true today
Alloparents tend to be
Alloparents tend to be the mothers relatives - because mothers genetic connection is more certain than the fathers
Grandmother hypothesis -
- important species specific evolution was made possible in human history when grandmothers began feeding newly-weaned children foods that would not otherwise be accessible to them.
Decreases infant mortality
If grandmother is present to make these foods accessible to a newly weaned child then weaning can happen earlier and mothers interbirth interval decreases - increasing mothers fitness and grandmother/child inclusive fitness
A grandmother’s contribution, according to this hypothesis, also supports the child’s longer period of development and ultimately the larger brains and cognitive specialization seen in human
Brain size is also correlated with duration of
Brain size is also correlated with duration of nursing (time to weaning) and humans wean much earlier than would be expected based on brain size and correlation
Grandmothers involvement in feeding that allows this early weaning
Menopause
Menopause as an adaptation that allows for extended lifespan and increased inclusive fitness via grandparental investment
Pregnancy in older women - higher miscarriage rates, stillborn, maternal death and low birth weight compared to pregnancy in younger women
Menopause - shift in strategy from parenting to grandparenting due to a shift in the risk to benefit ratio
Increase inclusive fitness by ceasing reproduction and investing in grand child
Hadza - traditional foraging society in africa
presence of a grandmother does contribute to the success of the grandchildren
Grandmothers foraging - provides crucial nutrition for young children who were no longer nursing but who were not yet eating adult food
mother was still nursing a younger sibling, the health of the weaned child was predicted by the foraging of the grandmother
mother was free to wean her older child at a younger age, trusting that his grandmother would contribute to his nutrition, allowing the mother to become pregnant with her next child. This increases the grandmother’s inclusive fitness by reducing her daughter’s birth interval
Tsimane - forager horticulturalists in the bolivian amazon
not only are grandparents able to pass wealth and resources on to grandchildren in a way that increases fitness, but they are able to manage resources in response to the sex, relatedness, and even the productivity of the recipient.
All of these variables were taken into account in order to maximize the grandparents’ inclusive fitness
Stepparents
Would not have been uncommon in EEA - losing a parent was possible - finding a new mate was a good strategy
Not psychologically the same as a parent - only 53% of stepfathers and 25% of stepmothers report feeling any parental feelings for their step children
stepfathers reported weaker feelings for stepchildren than for their own children
stepfathers spend significantly less time with their stepchildren, about three hours a week less, than with their biological children and are less likely to help their stepchildren with homework than they are to help bio children
Parallels in traditional societies
Hadza
Hadza - cared for their biological children more than for their stepchildren, as measured by the amount of time spent together.
Biological fathers - more time near their children - communicated more, held, fed, cleaned more than stepfather
Stepfathers never seen playing with step child
childrens mortality rates_______________if their widowed mother remarried
increased
Trivers’ parental investment perspective - stepparent
a stepparent would not be expected to invest in stepchildren to the extent that the child’s biological parent invests since investing in this unrelated child does not directly increase the stepparent’s inclusive fitness
The cognitive machinery that allows us to subjugate our interests completely to another individual is, in fact, a set of adaptations that will be passed to the next generation by the genes that underlie their development. It is thus easy to see that conflict would be predicted in stepparent and stepchild relationships, and indeed, such conflict is found in studies of stepfamilies.
crime and stepparents
rate of murders committed by stepfathers against children residing with them is hundreds of times higher than the rate for fathers against their biological children’s
and children are 40 times more likely to be abused if they live with a stepparent than if they live in a home with two biological parents
Stepchildren are more likely to be abused, where abuse includes battery, sexual abuse, and murder
when stepparents are physically abusive in the home, they are likely to be abusive only to their stepchildren and not to their own offspring. One study, for example, showed that abuse was directed exclusively toward the stepchild in 19 out of 22 abusive families
Resembling Dad
Evolutionary
one of most serious risks to a man in a high paternal-investment society is to unknowingly invest in another mans child when he raises his wife’s offspring
Infant has to solicit parental care at least from the mother and if possible from the father too
Mother knows the child is hers - father believes it to be his
New born babies are said to resemble their fathers more than they are said to resemble their mothers. Furthermore, it is the mother who is more likely than the father to assert that the newborn baby looks like the father, presumably in order to reassure the father that he is, indeed, the baby’s father.
Maternal relatives are twice as likely as paternal relatives to say that the newborn baby resembles the father compared to the mother
looking more like dad when and how
Surprisingly, at the age of 1 year, photos of babies can be matched with photos of their fathers more easily than they can be matched with photos of their mothers
babies might have adaptations to solicit resources from dad, who might be uncertain about his relationship to the baby, as opposed to mom, who is certain of her relationship to the baby
Photo morphing technology - morphed photos of the participant with photos of children selected at random
Which child would you punish more severely, which one would you adopt - men were biased - choose child that resembled them in response to the positive questions
Women showed no bias - consistent with the idea that men, and not women, may have evolved psychological processes designed to protect them against cuckoldry
Siblings
Initial reaction to hearing you will be getting a sibling is usually positive
Older sibling is typically distress and may withdraw or show regressive immaturity, competition once sibling arrives
Older sibling important role in the development of the younger sibling - by the time the younger sibling turns 4 - talks more with older sibling than parent
Older comforts younger when distressed and in some cultures provides care
Teach culture, games and life skills
Parent Offspring Conflict and its Implications for Child Rearing
Parent is equally related to each offspring and would like resources to be shared equally
Equality is overridden by differences in the children’s needs - the extent to which paternal investment will translate to greater inclusive fitness
—–Feed hungry child - help child who is more dependent
Conflict arises because childs view is different from the parents
offspring would keep more for himself and share less with his sister than a parent would prefer
Parent-offspring Conflict
Conflicts between parents and their offspring that results from the fact that, in our evolutionary history, maximizing each offspring’s inclusive fitness would have resulted from different, mutually exclusive, courses of action.
Hamilton’s Rule
Altruistic behavior toward close family members, including direct parental investment and investment in a younger sibling, is favored by natural selection when the benefit to the recipient, discounted by the relatedness between the recipient and the actor, is greater than the cost to the actor
rB > C
“B” stands for benefit to the recipient
“C” stands for cost to the actor.
“r” in the equation refers to genetic relatedness, the probability that a gene picked at random from the actor’s genome would be the same allele as that of the gene at the same locus in the recipient’s genome, and that these alleles will be the same because they were inherited from a common ancestor
relatedness hamilton
relatedness to a parent, full sibling, or your own child is 0.5; your relatedness to an aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew is 0.25; and your relatedness to a first cousin is 0.125
does the child internalize the parents goals and values?
the child has different goals and values, so should not adopt or internalize the parents’ goals and values.
Parents encourage behaviors that further their own interests, not the child’s. If the offspring were “to continue to act out parental wishes that were not in harmony with its own self-interest, it would continue to lower its own inclusive fitness”
Parent-offspring Conflict - Conflict has implications on human cognitive development
cognitive design in which a child has to learn everything—values, tastes, preferences, goals—primarily from his parents, and from other adults, using a domain-general learning mechanism
If parents could teach their children to absorb whatever values and motivations they wanted, as these theories predict, there would never be any conflict between parent and child.
The parent would simply teach the child to sacrifice everything for his younger sibling and that would be that.
Lessening Sibling Conflict
Talk to older sibling and explain how family will change but parents will continue to love them before the birth
Attend to older childs needs after baby is born - increase in amount of time father spends with older child
Involving sibling in new babys routines
Young children - parent can reduce conflict by intervening when conflict arises
Children dont understand each others behavior and if parent can explain behavior - reduced conflict
Siblings get along better when they believe that parents treat them equitably and dont play favourites
Otherwise - less favoured sibling can become worries, anxious or depressed
Less negative impact on the child and siblings relationship if children understand that the parents differential treatment is a result of differences in the siblings needs and interests
Siblings more supportive if parents are warm and accepting of each of the siblings
The Non-Shared Environment
Gender is one, and the extent to which gender influences outcomes differs across different cultures.
.birth order. Each child has his or her own rank within the family, and this leads to an increased difference between family members. Research by Sulloway and others on the effects of birth order illustrate the power of the non-shared environment on an individual’s development.
siblings may specialize as a result of psychological adaptations that guide people toward
Shared Environment
socio-economic status, exposure to television, parents’ education levels, nutrition or local water sources. In terms of all of these environmental factors, factors of the shared environment, children reared in the same family would be expected to have the same experience.
Authoritarian Parenting style
low responsiveness, parents who are rejecting and unresponsive, and high control, parents who are demanding and restrictive
rigid, harsh, and demanding
expect absolute obedience and respond harshly to any infractions
parent alone establishes the rules without input from the child.
Do not listen to child’s pov
control over their child is coercive, often involving physical punishment, withdrawal of affection, or restricted access to food.
Not all authoritarian parents are abusive, but abusive parents are authoritarian.
Authoritarian Parenting style OUTCOMES
complete with high demand and rigid regulation, are more likely to show physically aggressive behavior in childhood, especially if their parents were physically coercive
to show juvenile delinquency and criminal behavior later on
constantly monitored and controlled do not have enough freedom, or motivation, to develop their own moral direction or self-control.
Kids who are withdrawn or irritable, low self esteem, rejection from peers, low academic performance
Permissive Parenting Style
high in responsiveness—they are warm and involved—but low in control, they are undemanding and permissive
Allow children to have and to do whatever they please
Indulge their children and do not set or enforce rules and guidelines.
Children are encouraged to make decisions for themselves, even if they are too young to make the right choice.
These parents are warm and affectionate and maintain a close relationship with their child.
This parenting style is typically motivated not by a lack of involvement, but by the parent’s belief that autonomy and freedom promote the best development.
Permissive Parenting Style OUTCOMES
Inconsistent enforcement of the rules is associated with delinquency and aggression later in childhood
Self-discipline and self-control do not develop. These children can be impulsive and even aggressive, and become involved with teenage drug use
not available to monitor their children’s behaviors 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.
Authoritative Parenting
high in responsiveness and high in control
relatively warm but not indulgent and set rules that they enforce consistently but not rigidly. - make exceptions when necessary
talk to their children, explaining the rules and the reasons for the rules
listen to their children, hearing their children’s appeals for exceptions to the rules or special circumstances - emotionally available
take into account the child’s specific temperament and skills when deciding on rules and consequences, so that there might be different rules for different children in the family
value conformity and self-regulation, their ultimate goal for their child is not conformity to arbitrary rules, but successful independence.
Authoritative Parenting OUTCOMES
Fare best
most independent and responsible
high self-esteem, are self-reliant, and are interested in new experiences.
perform the best academically and have the least legal trouble in adolescence
lower rates of behavioral problems and are more successful socially
Uninvolved Parenting
Maccoby and John Martin (1983). The uninvolved parent is low in warmth and low in control.
disengaged and emotionally distant - maladaptive
do not set rules/expectations for their children’s behavior.
not motivated by the belief that it will yield desired results, but usually results from parents who are depressed, ill, self-absorbed, or suffering from substance addiction - disordered non optimal parenting style
Uninvolved Parenting OUTCOMES
disruptions in attachment as early as toddlerhood
Myriad problems are manifest in adolescence, including drug use, pregnancy, poor academic performance, depression, and social withdrawal
Having different parenting styles from each parent - kid responds to better option
Connection btw attachment and parenting style
children who are securely attached are likely to grow up to have an authoritative parenting style.
Avoidant attachment in youth is associated with permissive parenting
Good Enough Parenting
Parenting that is sufficient to rear viable children. The term is based on Scarr’s idea that extraordinary parenting makes little difference to the child’s outcome compared to good-enough parenting
Children should be resilient to a range of possible parenting
Ecologically Dependent Parenting Strategies
Summary - Kung
Northern Botswana, hunt big game, harsh climate, more time spent looking for food
-Harder to find food
-Harder to find water
-Less attentive to children
-Longer birth intervals
-More discipline - keep close, from wandering off, prevent from endangering themselves
Summary Hadza
Tanzania, Africa, traveling foragers, hunt large game
-Easier to find food
-Easier to find water
-More attentive to children
-Shorter birth intervals
-Less discipline
Hadza - 6.2 children, Kung 4.7
differences in parenting styles can be explained by differences in the immediate ecological circumstances rather than being explained by culture or tradition.
Because the Hadza live in an environment in which food and water are easier to find, compared to the !Kung environment, a Hadza woman can use her resources to refuel her body and begin her next pregnancy.
Her child will be fine without her full-time foraging efforts since the environment is so fertile that the child can forage as well.
HIGH SES
more warmth and higher levels of care on the part of both mothers and fathers - more resources and fewer risks
Higher SES mothers are more likely to use a style that is accepting and democratic, and they speak with their children more.
child’s leisure time and peer interactions largely take place during activities that the parent either organizes or enrolls the child in
relatively likely to contest a parent’s statement and engage in negotiation with parents,
Middle-class parents are much more likely than poor or working-class parents to solicit a child’s opinion regarding parenting decisions.
LOW SES
Less warmth and care compared to environments with high or predictable levels of resources
more likely than higher SES parents to use an authoritarian and punitive child-rearing style
while poor and working class children have much greater control over their leisure time
while children in poor and working-class families rarely question or challenge adults
Poor and working-class parents are directive in interactions with their children, but compliant with respect to institutions like schools or governmental programs, and will rarely intervene on behalf of a child who is struggling with such institutions
individualistic cultures and collectivist cultures
individualistic cultures, a person is expected to become self-reliant, and is afforded personal freedoms in pursuit of self-reliance. Achievement and pride are valued.
collectivist cultures, community and family are valued above individual pursuits. People are expected to make contributions to their family and their co
Parenting styles research conducted in US
Authoritative ideal in US
Authoritarian well suited for collectivist cultures
Divorce
In US, 50% of marriages end in divorce
estimates in North American and Western
Europe predict that 40% of children who are born to a married couple will experience parental divorce during their childhood
In US, 10% of children will experience parental divorced twice before they turn 16
90% of children of divorce will live with their mother, now a single head of household. She may remarry, as 65% of divorced mothers and 75% of divorced fathers do
Adolescent girls whose parents are divorced
show more early sexual behavior, more conflict with their mothers and lower self-esteem compared to daughters of non-divorced parents
Boys who have experienced divorce
Boys who have experienced divorce are more likely to display aggressive behavior, get involved in delinquency, and use drugs
Adults who experienced parental divorce in childhood
Adults who experienced parental divorce in childhood are more likely to divorce themselves complete less schooling, secure lower-paying jobs, and experience depression, anxiety, and phobias
Socialization:
The developmental process that leads to the acquisition of beliefs, values, language, skills, and, in essence, the “culture” of one’s parents in order to become a member of that culture.
parental effects were small or absent and concluded that “there is very little impact of the physical environment that parents provide for the children and very little impact of parental characteristics
Parental influence is minimal in terms of personality development
Harris - children would turn out essentially the same if they had different parents but the same school and neighborhood.
children learn moral behavior as a result of interactions with peers, not as a result of teaching and instruction from parents
“Character” - set up situations in which children would be tempted to cheat, lie, or steal. They found that “character” was situation-specific: Children who were willing to cheat in one situation were not more or less likely to do so in another
Those who resisted temptation at home did not show more or less “character” outside of the home
Harris concluded that children who lived in the same neighborhood and attended the same school shared a “children’s culture”
criminal behavior of adopted children and their biological and adoptive parents, including over 4,000 adopted men
showed that if the biological father had a criminal record, then there was a relationship between the child’s criminal behavior and the criminality of the adoptive father but only in the case where the child grew up in the capital city of Copenhagen - neightbourhood
example of six Jewish children
who spent their first three years together in a concentration camp with no stable adult caregiver
Grew up together - turned out alright
children have to learn about their relative status and relative attractiveness.
This information, Harris argues, is much more reliably delivered from peers than from family
boy cannot judge his relative status by the fact that he can physically dominate his younger brother or that his older brother and father can physically dominate him; he relies on peer interactions to judge his own relative formidability.
Children’s culture
Children’s culture includes traditions, games, songs and vocabulary that can be passed on for centuries without adult input
Children’s culture is passed not from parent to child but from slightly older children to slightly younger children.
Nyansongo children in Africa have a vocabulary used to describe intimate body parts and the entire vocabulary is taboo for adults to use or for children to use in front of adults. The vocabulary passes from older children to younger children, never from adults to children
Parallel Play 1-2yrs
When two children are involved in parallel play, they are near each other, playing, and keeping an eye on each other, but not trying to influence each other’s play. They are not creating play together.
They might interact, for example by smiling at each other or even commenting on each other’s play, and when one of them comments or smiles, the other usually responds
Associative Play 15-18m
children are playing near each other and paying attention to one another, but it is more interactive.
hallmark of associative play is that the children will offer each other the toys they are playing with.
In addition, the activities they are engaged in are similar (such that toys can be meaningfully shared) and they talk and smile more frequently
Cooperative Play 2yrs
toddlers actually play together, and play is organized around a common theme. For example, they might act out a tea party or a truck race.
Pretend pLay 2++
These four types of play overlap developmentally, although parallel play becomes quite uncommon by the fourth birthday.
Once children finish preschool and enter elementary school, their social lives change dramatically.
encounter many more children, and a greater diversity of children in terms of ethnic, religious and socio-economic background
a great deal of relatively unsupervised time (compared to their lives before elementary school) during recess
From the time of late elementary school through adolescence, time spent together is not spent playing, as in younger years, but primarily in conversing and “hanging out”, which children spend more of their social time doing than even watching television together, playing sports together or doing their homework
preschool friendship
parents have a great deal of control over who the child spends time with, and children define friends in terms of physical proximity. Time spent together is spent engaged in shared activities.
Stage 2 starts in elementary school, and spans ages 5 to 7
friendship is relatively simple.
Friends are children with whom one plays easily.
A friendship may emerge simply when a child finds another child who is kind to them and shares toys with them.
In this stage, friends are easily made, and may be quickly forgotten if the friends do not encounter each other again
Stage 3 takes place in elementary school when children are 6 to 12 years old
Shared activities are still a core feature of friendship, but now children want friends whom they can trust and who can help them when they need assistance of various kinds.
At this stage, children expect reciprocity and loyalty from their friends. The choice of friends now does not depend only on physical proximity, rather, children seek friends who share interests and personality traits.
Stage 4 describes adolescent friendships
characteristics of Stage 3 and more
Gossip solidifies one’s reputation and social group affiliations and identifies people who are not conforming to the group’s expected behaviors.
Gossiping replaces tattling, which is a direct appeal to authorities, when a peer violates an expectation
Adolescent friendships also include intimacy
share secrets and confide in one another
become more exclusive at this point and are longer lasting. For the first time, peers become as important a source of support in various domains as parents and other family members
f
Robbers Cave experiment -
Two groups of 11 fifth grade boys were bussed to a summer camp for a three-week stay.
E
ach group spontaneously developed a sense of comradery and group cohesion, and even adopted names: The Rattlers and The Eagles.
Each group was not told of the other’s existence, but when the camp counselors arranged a series of friendly competitions, group alliances solidified. The two groups became competitive, then verbally abusive, and then physically hostile towards each other.
Despite the fact that the two groups had been originally formed to be similar in terms of various demographic factors, the between-group competition was robust.
The only way the camp counselors finally overcame the rivalry was to create a crisis that could only be solved if the two groups worked together
minimal group paradigm
groups were formed on such minimal criteria as a flip of a coin, a preferred artist, or even random assignment. Once groups were formed, participants were more likely to allocate resources to member of one’s own group at the expense of the outgroup, even when there was no direct benefit to the participant himself
Evidence in infancy group
-3m look longer at ingroup members where ingroup is defined in terms of race
identifying the ingroup would have been an important skill in the EEA
In preschool - not a cohesive group
several children who happen to be near each other because an activity has attracted them or because adults have put them together
elementary school, children begin to form genuine groups
affiliate on a regular basis
have a sense of themselves as a group
has norms of behavior that are understood to all who are in the group and may differ from the norms of other groups
develops an internal hierarchy: some children become dominant, others become subordinate
“group socialization theory”
peers and siblings, especially acting in groups, have a measurable effect on each other’s personality development.
According to this view, socialization takes place in peer groups, especially sex- and age-segregated peer groups that form from middle childhood through adolescence
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 behavior.
