Chapter 7: Problems of Parenting

Question 1

What happened in the Kibbutz study?

Answer 1

In the tribe, there is a HUGE division of labour, and children of the tribe are raised collectively.

Females wanted to raise their own kids rather than have them raised collectively, but men tried to veto this decision. Females outvoted the males.

shows that there is an inherent parent-child bond in humans that TRUMP philosophical ideas.

Question 2

part of the reason for the lack of universality of parental care is that it is so ___

Answer 2

costly. It is reasonable to expect that whenever we do observe parental care in nature, the reproductive benefits must be large enough to outweigh the costs.

ex/ oysters literally just release sperm and eggs into the ocean and do not care. thousands of their potential offspring die because there is no investment

Question 3

two hypotheses as to why moms may provide more parental care than dads

Answer 3

1) paternity uncertainty hypothesis

2) the mating opportunity cost hypothesis

Question 4

T/F: mothers evolved parental mechanisms were deigned by selection for the good of the entire species and allow survival of the fittest. Proof?

Answer 4

FALSE. mothers EPM for parenting were designed by selection to help her OWN GENETIC OFFSPRING regardless of their fitness.

Seen in bats; mothers give birth and then go find food. There are thousands of baby bats in the cave but they are able to tell EXACTLY who their babies are, and they won’t feed someone else’s baby (ie/ not for the good of the species)

Question 5

T/F: in terms of evolution, parents favour genetic relatedness and favour offspring who show more reproductive fitness

Answer 5

TRUE

Question 6

paternity uncertainty hypothesis

Answer 6

males can never be sure that the offspring contains 50% of his genes. there is always some probability that another male has fertilized the female’s eggs.

Question 7

when is paternity uncertainty strongest?

Answer 7

in species with internal female fertilization.

Question 8

what is the mating opportunity cost hypothesis?

Answer 8

MOC’s are missed additional matings as a direct result of effort devoted to offspring. Males are more greatly affected by this in humans because males can produce more children by mating with a variety of women, but women generally cannot increase their reproductive output directly be mating with a variety of men.

the reproductive success of males tends to be limited primarily by the number of fertile females they can successfully inseminate.

Question 9

when the mating opportunity costs males suffer from mising matings are LOW, the conditions would be more ____(favourable/non favourable) for the evolution of parental care

Answer 9

FAVORABLE

Question 10

What prompts a female bird to lay eggs in the presence of eggs lad by another female?

Answer 10

it shows that the male that is guarding that territory is protecting and investing the eggs, so the female must know that he is a good mate.

Question 11

Only ____% of stepfathers and ___% of stepmothers claim to have true parental feelings toward step children.

Answer 11

only 53% of step fathers and 23% of stepmothers.

Question 12

T/F: step children tend to leave home earlier than their genetic children

Answer 12

true.

Question 13

In the Yanomamo tribe, what may happen if a widowed female re marries?

Answer 13

the males who marry the widowed females with children can request the child be killed before marriage.

Question 14

in folk literature, step parents are almost always portrayed as ___

Answer 14

villains

Question 15

two sources of information that allow a man to infer if the child is his (besides DNA)

Answer 15

1) the general info about his partner’s sexual fidelity.

2) the perceptions of the child’s resemblance to him.

Question 16

T/F: a woman and her family are more likely to make remarks about how a new born baby looks like the father rather than the mother

Answer 16

true. mother’s remarks about the resemblance to the father was 80% as frequent as her remarks about the baby’s resemblance to her.

Question 17

T/F: the act of convincing people that the baby looks like the father is cross cultural

Answer 17

true. it is hypothesized that mothers and their kin attempt to influence the putative gather’s perceptions of his paternity, presumable to encourage male parental investment in the child.

Question 18

what do fMRI studies show when males look at babies that look like them?

Answer 18

men show more cortical activity than women when shown faces of kids who look like them.

Particularly, in the LEFT FRONTAL CORTEX: part of the brain linked with inhibiting negative responses.

Question 19

T/F: men who rate their kids as “not looking like them” were more likely to inflict severe spousal abuse

Answer 19

true

Question 20

T/F; the bias in mother’s remarks about resemblance to the father DO NOT reflect actual resemblance

Answer 20

TRUE. children at ages 1, 3, and 5 do not resemble their fathers any more than they resemble their mothers. Other studies show that when people were asked to match a baby to a parent (either a mother or father), people actually matched babies to their mothers more easily.

Question 21

Discuss what influences the amount of college tuition a child receives from the father

Answer 21

1) genetically related children get more college tuition than step children
2) fathers who are not 100% certain of their paternity do not give as much college tuition
3) fathers who are CURRENTLY with the mother of the child will provide more child tuition
(THEY ARE USING PARENTAL INVESTMENT as a method of MATE RETAINMENT)

Question 22

the ___ ___ theory tells us that genetic relatedness to the child would be one predictor of infanticide

Answer 22

the inclusive fitness theory

Question 23

children living with one genetic parent and one step parent are roughly ___ times more likely to be physically abused than children living with both genetic parents

Answer 23

40 times. even when you control for low SES

Question 24

2 sex differences in parenting adaptations

Answer 24

1) females show more interest in infants earlier than men

2) females are better at recognizing a baby’s emotions; especially their negative emotions.

Question 25

which demographic of children are most at risk for child murder?

Answer 25

preschool aged children have 40- to 100 times higher risk of being killed. Most likely due to helplessness. it’s harder to kill kids when they are teenagers.

Question 26

Primary caretaker hypothesis

Answer 26

contends that women will have evolved adaptations that increase the odds that their children will survive.

Question 27

the fact that femalres are better at recognizing a baby’s emotions, especially their negative emotions, are consistent with WHICH 2 HYPOTHESES that stem from the primary caretaker hypothesis?

Answer 27

1) attachment promotion hypothesis: women should be better than men at decoding all facial expressions of emotion to produce securely attached children
2) fitness threat hypothesis: predicts a special sensitivity to dangers that might be conveyed by negative emotions.

Question 28

how does the tend and befriend adaptation in women promote offspring survival?

Answer 28

tending: protecting children from dangerous predators and other threats and calming and quieting them down to avoid detection

befriending: creating and maintaining social networks that offer a social cocoon of protection.
WOMEN ARE MORE LIKELY THAN MEN TO AFFILIATE WITH OTHER PEOPLE WHEN UNDER STRESS

Question 29

what is “the baby effect”?

Answer 29

women show a reduction in risk taking when they are paired with babies in a lab setting.

Question 30

selection should have favored kids who best utilize parental care. As a result, parents should invest more heavily in kids who can convert parental care into reproductive success. Which primary factors enables a child to best use parental care?

Answer 30

1) whether the child is born with an abnormality

2) the age of the child.

Question 31

T/F: there is more parental neglect of a child with congenital abnormalities

Answer 31

True. Sutdies show that a large fraction of ill children are institutionalized. 12% of institutionalized children are not visited at all, and 22% of children were visited only once a year.

Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that parents invest less in children with abnormalities.

Question 32

what is the Healthy Baby Hypothesis and proof?

Answer 32

hypothesis: the health status of the child would affect the degree of positive maternal behavior.

proved by twin studies: by the age of 8 months, all women in the studies exhibited more positive maternal behavior to the healthier one of the pair.

Question 33

t/f: level of investment mothers devote based on the health status of the child is contingent upon her own level of resources

Answer 33

true. Mothers lacking resources invested LESS in HIGHRISK infants and invested MORE in LOW RISK infants.

If parents have abundant resources, then they can afford to give abundant resources to the needier child, while still having enough resources in reserve to provide for their own children.

Question 34

proof that the increasing REPRODUCTIVE VALUE of children as they age accounts for the fact that genetic parents kill older children less often

Answer 34

older children are killed less often NOT because they can defend themselves better, but because they have higher reproductive value. By the teenage years, the adults have invested a lot into the child, you shouldn’t kill them.

Also, non relatives kill OLDER CHILDREN MORE than younger children, showing that defensive strategies/physical size of older children is not the driving factor as to why parents do not kill their kids.

Question 35

are sons or daughters better able to convert parental care into reproductive success?

Answer 35

they have equal reproductive success assuming an equal sex ratio in the population

Question 36

Trivers Willard hypothesis

Answer 36

parents will produce and invest more in their SONS during good conditions (being rich, “good times”) and will produce and invest more in their DAUGHTERS during poor conditions (financial strain, drought, stress).

Question 37

proof of Trivers Willard hypothesis?

Answer 37

1) female infants were more likley than male infants to be killed by their parents among the higher classes
2) poorer families were more likely to invest in the educations of their daughters than their sons in Kenya, whereas the reverse trend was found among richer families.
3) during drought in kenya, women tended to breast feed their daughters longer than their sons

Question 38

relationship between age of mother and rate of infanticide

Answer 38

infanticide is highest among younger women, who have the MOST opportunities for future reproduction, and LOWEST among older women, who have fewer opportunities for future reproduction.

Question 39

relationship between marital status of women and rate of infanticide

Answer 39

unwed mothers are more likely to commit infanticide.

Question 40

Note:

Answer 40

the same unit of investment in a child will be less likely to increase a man’s reproductive success. Women will be more likely than men to channel energy and effort directly toward parenting rather than toward securing additional matings

Question 41

In terms of mating strategies from an evolutionary perspective, how can you explain why 90% of single parents are mothers?

Answer 41

men tilt their investments toward mating and women tilt their investments towards parenting.

Question 42

T/F: women can identify their own newborn children within six hours of birth merely by smell, whereas fathers cannot

Answer 42

true. Women appear to have evolved decision rules to allocate more time to parenting and have evolved mechanisms of interest and emotional mind reading that render parenting more effective.

Question 43

Tribe that shows unually higher paternal investment

Answer 43

Aka pygmie tribes.

Question 44

relationship between men’s self perceived mate value and the amount of parental investment

Answer 44

if a male has more inherent mate value, they are less likely to invest in their children.

low status men of the pygmie tribe appear to compensate for their standing by increasing the effort they allocate to parenting, whereas high status men appear to be channeling extra effort into attracting additional mates.

Question 45

3 main factors that affect the evolution of parenting

Answer 45

1) genetic relatedness
2) ability of the child to convert parental care into survival and reproductive success
3) alternative ways parents could use resources that might be channeled to children.

Question 46

why should parent and offspring come into conflict from an evolutionary perspective?

Answer 46

they only share 50% of their genes.

Question 47

general premise of the parent-offspring conflict

Answer 47

predicts that each child will generally desire a larger portion of the parents’ resources than the parent wants to give.

Question 48

3 testable hypotheses of the parent offspring conflict

Answer 48

1) parents want to wean kids before the kids wants to be weaned
2) parents want kids to value their siblings more than kids want to value them
3) parents will reward sibling cooperation and punish conflict.

Question 49

Discuss the conflict in utero

Answer 49

fetus and mom are fighting for survival. first stage of parent-offspring conflict. fetus wants more resources, mom’s body is fighting it. (seen in spontaneous abortions).

Fetus fights with mom by producing hCG: causes implantation and prevents mother from menstruating.
also causes an increase in blood pressure in mom (preeclampsia); constricts mother’s blood vessels in order to get more blood flow to the uterus.

Question 50

T/F: moms who have increases in BP during pregnancy have lower rates of spontaneous abortion

Answer 50

true. higher BP often means fetus is healthy and signals to the mom that the fetus is healthy enough to continue investing resources

Question 51

how does the release of human placental lactogen help with preventing spontaneous abortion?

Answer 51

hPL appears to cause maternal insulin resistance. The net effect is to increase blood glucose for longer periods of time, thus the fetus can acquire more nutrients.

Although this may be good for the fetus, it greatly increases mom’s risk of developing gestational diabetes.

Question 52

protein produced by the fetus that appears to be responsible for the high blood pressure in preeclampsia.

Answer 52

sFlt-1 protein

Question 53

why does having siblings increase the parent-offspring conflict?

Answer 53

there is less parental investment going to one child because there are multiple vehicles for gene propagation now. Siblings are also only half related to one another, and they are competing for parental resources.

Question 54

In terms of parent-offspring conflict over mating, the offspring tend to look at ____ as a trait for their mates, whereas parents focus on ___ ___ for the mates of their offspring

Answer 54

offspring tend to look at BEAUTY as a trait for their mates, whereas parents focus on FAMILY BACKGROUND for the mates of their offspring

Question 55

Parents tend to engage in daughter guarding. Why?

Answer 55

may be self interest driven: mainly to preserve the family reputation at the cost depriving their daughters of the same opportunities their sons get.

Question 56

T/F: parents tend to value their children more than their children value them when they get older. Proof?

Answer 56

true. parents, who are less valuable as they grow older, are more often killed by their older children than the reverse.