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Question 1

Provide an ultimate account of how a monogamous mating strategy benefits
i) human males

Answer 1

• If males stay with females longer, then they get a better return on their investment—they don’t have to fight other males, and reproduce longer

Question 2

Provide an ultimate account of how a monogamous mating strategy benefits
i) human females

Answer 2

• Get paternal investment

Question 3

What two uniquely human aspects of morphology relevant to birth, in combination, increase the benefits described in (a) relative to the benefits available in other species? Be sure to explain your reasoning.

Answer 3

• Have larger brain and wider pelvis. Making it so the female can give birth to a wider head, but more investment is needed to insure that baby will grow. Babies are completely dependent

Question 4

Describe two attributes, other than age, of a woman’s primary partner that are expected to
increase the likelihood that she will experience increased interest in extra-pair copulations. Provide an ultimate explanation for this pattern

Answer 4

• Less attractiveness.
• How committed the relationship is. If he’s less committed than she’d want someone else’s investment
• To maximize offspring survival and reproductive success

Question 5

There is some evidence that women’s interest in extra-pair copulation varies across the
menstrual cycle. Describe the basic pattern of variation and provide an ultimate explanation for it

Answer 5

• Women’s interest in EPC are higher when they’re ovulating. This is when it’s the most beneficial—when she is most fertile.
• Ultimate: wants best genes etc. so she’ll be more interested and attracted to males she feels has good genes.

Question 6

There is some evidence that men in long-term sociosexual relationships vary their efforts to monitor the actions of their female partners, exerting greater efforts at some points in the
partner’s menstrual cycle than in others. Provide an ultimate explanation for this phenomenon

Answer 6

• Want to prevent cuckoldry. Men will be more controlling in some way to protect the female that they want to invest in from being taken

Question 7

Although some investigators have argued that the phenomenon described in (e) reveals that
men can directly detect their partner’s position in the menstrual cycle, skeptics point out that
such detection ability is not a necessary prerequisite for the pattern observed in males. Provide a plausible proximate explanation for this phenomenon that does not rely on men being able to directly detect their partner’s position in the menstrual cycle

Answer 7

• Respond to female’s behavior of increased desire to hang out with other men, or interested in spending more time away.

Question 8

Following the birth of a child, it is common for people to remark on resemblances between the child and its father. It turns out that the child’s maternal grandparents are more likely to do this than are the child’s paternal grandparents. Provide an ultimate explanation for this pattern

Answer 8

• So the father believes that it’s his child, and therefore would invest more in the child. All the father has to do is know he could be the father