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Question 1

Weaning is often a source of conflict between a human mother and her child. Using Hamilton’s rule, provide an ultimate explanation for this pattern

Answer 1

• Weaning puts in resources for child. There comes a point where she can’t support the child, and she wants more offspring
• When the cost outweighs the benefit
• Nepotistic altruism will increase Ego’s inclusive fitness when:
o C[ego] < (relatedness) (benefit [to kin])

Question 2

Woman A lives in a very dangerous environment, where infants and young children are often killed. Woman B lives in a very safe environment, where infants and young children are rarely killed.
Would you expect more, less, or the same weaning conflict between Woman A and her infant relative to that between Woman B and her infant?

Answer 2

• Weaning conflict would be more with Woman A because she wants more children because of the uncertainty of survival with the children she produces; whereas woman B is in a safer environment and more security that her child that she invests in will live. Not as much as a need to have more children.
ULTIMATE:• Increase reproductive success. Altering methods of adaptiveness in relation to reproductive success based on their environment

Question 3

Independent of any influence from a woman’s mate, the extent of weaning conflict may be
related to maternal age
Would you expect a mother of age 18 to act in a way that creates more, less, or the same amount of weaning conflict compared to a mother of age 49?

Answer 3

• Younger one would be able to reproduce more so they would create more amount of weaning conflict so that she could quickly reproduce another child.
• Beginning of her reproductive career, so she would want to have more kids to increase her fitness

Question 4

Man A invests little in his partner, and changes partners every few 3 years; Man B invests a great deal in his partner, and maintains the same relationship for many decades. Reasoning from an ultimate perspective, explain how you would expect the attitudes of these two men to differ with regard to the issue of weaning conflict as it pertains to their own partner

Answer 4

• Man A would encourage less weaning conflict and more investment in that one child by the mother to ensure survival of the child since he’s switching partners.
• Man B would only have access to that female and so would want to reproduce as many times as possible with that female.

Question 5

Mothers of twins often find it convenient to breastfeed both infants at the same time.
i) How would you expect the behavior of monozygotic (“identical”) twins to differ from that of dizygotic (“fraternal”) twins in the context of such breastfeeding?

Answer 5

• Since identical twins share more genes, they would be more willing to share.
• The fraternal twins would be at odds with each other, so they are competing for resources.
ULTIMATE: • Between identical twins, you’re as much related to them as yourself, so you want their surivival. Whereas with the fraternal twins, you’re competing