L12 - Kin Selection Recognition

Question 1

Men with low paternal confidence…

Answer 1

1. spend less time with kids

2. more likely to seek divorce

Question 2

Reasons for kin recognition

Answer 2

1. incest avoidance
2. guiding investment/altruism
   - but kinship cannot be directly assessed for any other relationship other than mother-child
   - so we can expect kin recognition heuristics to evolve

Question 3

Why avoid incest?

Answer 3

1. inbreeding increases build up of harmful homozygous recessive allele combinations
2. associated with frequent miscarriage, higher offspring mortality, reduced cognitive ability

Question 4

How do we recognize kin?

Answer 4

1. Social information - highly vulnerable to deception
2. context environmental cues - watching your mother take care of a child is indication they are a sibling.
3. phenotypic matching (olfactory, visual similarity)

Question 5

Westmark Effect

Answer 5

• growing up with person of the opposite sex reduces propensity to have sex with them
• co-residence duration predicts altruism and sexual aversion even when they know their “sibling” is not related to then
• prolonged separation increases incest in adulthood