Study Guide

PSY 292

Buss/ Chapters 7, 8, 9

 

Chapter 7:  Problems of Parenting

 

  1. Be familiar with the nonhuman examples of adaptations for parental care given in this chapter.  Consider how they relate to what ancestral (and modern) humans may face.
  2. What are the two main hypotheses about why mothers provide more parental care than fathers in humans?
  3. What is paternity uncertainly?  What species are more and less likely to have paternity uncertainty?
  4. According to the mating opportunity cost hypothesis, when should male parental care be more likely?  Less likely?  Why?  Be able to describe changes that occur when the sex ratio in the population varies.
  5. Why would mechanisms of parental care favor some offspring more than others, leading to “parental favoritism”?
  6. What are the three contexts to which mechanisms of parental care should be sensitive?
  7. What are the data related to how genetic relatedness to children correlates with parental care?  What is the Cinderella hypothesis?  Who are Daly and Wilson?
  8. Describe the studies related to infant resemblance and parental care.  Be familiar with studies such as:  Platek, et al’s morphing and fMRI studies,  Daly and Wilson’s newborn infant comment studies, Burch and Gallup’s male behavior toward spouse when child resembles father or not studies, etc.
  9. Be familiar with the data on allocation of resources related to genetic relatedness- eg, education costs, etc.
  10. Be familiar with the studies of child abuse and homicide in households with two natural parents compared to one natural and one step-parent.  How much more prevalent is child abuse and homicide in the latter household (Daly and Wilson).
  11. What are sex differences in parenting adaptations? 
  12. Describe the parental adaptations related to idea that different children may have higher genetic fitness, that is can kids convert parental care to reproductive success?  Disability and age data.
  13. What is the Trivers-Willard hypothesis?  Under what type conditions do parents invest more in sons than daughters?
  14. What are the data related to alternative uses of resources, related to whether or not mothers invest in offspring?  Age, infanticide data.
  15. What are sex differences across cultures in allocations of parental effort vs. mating effort?
  16. What is parent-offspring conflict (Trivers)?  Be able to sketch the PO conflict graph and give examples of conflicts.  What does the genetic conflict of interest mean?
  17. What are the data related to mother-offspring conflict in utero?
  18. Be familiar with the section on the Oedipal Complex.
  19. Box 7.1 will be in a later unit.

 

 

Chapter 8:  Problems of Kinship

 

  1. What are:  Hamilton’s Rule, inclusive fitness, r, c, b, altruism, genetic relatedness, evolvability constraint.
  2. What are the theoretical implications of Hamilton’s rule as far as interactions between children and relatives other than parents?  Especially sibs, half-sibs, grandparents.
  3. Describe the theoretical implications for niches for children related to birth order.
  4. What are the expected universal aspects of kinship? Pp. 234-235. 
  5. What are the data that support these theoretical implications and universals?
    1. Nonhuman data on ground squirrels.
    2. Kin recognition in human
    3. Kin classification/universal grammar:  genealogical distance, social rank,
    4. Patterns of helping- especially data from Burnstein/ kin, life and death/everyday situations
    5. Emotional closeness
    6. Vigilance over kin’s romantic partners
    7. Stress:  cortisol levels in different households
    8. Inheritance patterns
    9. Special investment by grandparents:  consider FaMO, FaFa, MoMo, and MoFa relations.  Do these findings extend to investment by other relatives?
  6. Be familiar with Emlen’s descriptions of evolution of families.
    1. Types of families:  Simple, extended
    2. Matrilineal/bi-parental
    3. Costs of families on offspring
    4. Benefits to offspring/parents
    5. Predictions and critique
  7. What are the major forms of conflict in families?  Why is there conflict?

 

 

Chapter 9:  Cooperative Alliances

 

  1. Why is altruism a problem from an evolutionary standpoint?
  2. Describe reciprocal altruism, cooperation, reciprocation, social exchange.
  3. What is the problem of cheating?
  4. Be able to describe the prisoner’s dilemma game theory and how it relates to reciprocal altruism and the problem of cheating.  What is tit for tat?  What are the features of this strategy as summarized by Axelrod?
  5. Be familiar with the examples of nonhuman cooperation described by Buss- eg, vampire bats, chimps.
  6. According to Cosmides and Tooby, what are the specific problems and adaptations necessary for social exchange and detecting cheaters?
    1. Recognition
    2. Remember histories
    3. Communicate values
    4. Model values
    5. Evaluate costs and benefits
  7. Be able to describe the situations in which humans evaluate logic problems more and less effectively.
  8. What conditions are necessary to detect true altruists?  Why is that detection important?  How does this relate to cooperation and friendship?
  9. What is the banker’s paradox?  How does it relate to detection of true friends?
  10. Why is irreplacability argues to be important?
  11. What are friendship niches?
  12. Be generally familiar with the studies on same and opposite sex friendships- coasts and benefits.
  13. What are cooperative coalitions?  What is detection of free-riding and defection important?  What is an evolutionary stable strategy?  What is cultural group selection?