CMU Psychology Department

Why is it that investment is geared more towards sons in higher classes, but investment is geared more towards daughters in lower classes? I still understand this after reading the chapter.

If FMRI studies have showed that men show greater cortical activity than women when shown images of childrens faces that resemble their own, why is it that their eyes do not dilate the same way that women do when looking at images of infants? Isn't this contradictory?

I think parents with less resources would be much more likely to have a favorite. Fewer resources to give out, you have to prioritize who gets the majority.

As we discussed in class, I have siblings and my parents have worked hard to motivate me to care deeply about them. My father especially often talks about how my brother, sister, and I will have to look out for each other when hes gone and how the burden of taking care of each other will eventually leave him and shift to us. This definitely aligns with what we finished lecture on, talking about how siblings become ultimately more valuable than parents as both get older.

Many couples who are not capable of having children resort to adoption in order to have the experience of raising a children. However, from an evolutionary perspective, adoption doesn't make any sense at all to me. First of all, the adopted child will not be related to either of the parents. The theory of genetic relatedness states that parents provide their children with more care if they are certain that they are indeed their biological children. An adopted child is basically living with two stepparents, and according to this chapter, stepparents don't always develop "parental feelings" toward their stepchildren. Without the parental love and advice that biological parents would normally give their kids, adopted children might have a lower chance of successful reproduction and they also suffer from a higher chance of child abuse. Secondly, resources have to be used up in order to support the development of an adopted child. But why would a couple be willing to invest heavily in a child who, upon successful reproduction, would be passing on the genes of his/her biological parents and not the genes of the couple raising the child. Evolutionarily, adoption just doesn't seem to make any sense because the parents spent valuable resources into raising a child that will eventually propagate someone else's genes.

How does the theory of genetic relatedness play into how a mother treats a baby who is going up for adoption? It should indicate that the mother should take care of the child because it is genetically related to her, but this does not reflect reality. I read in Freakonomics that the authors made the comparison of children going up for adoption are treated in the same ways that you treat a rental car: not well.

Also to answer the adoptive parent question: there is a clear establishment of adoption being a viable way of raising children because there is a huge demand in the United States for babies to be adopted. I think that a good way to explain away how adoption could be considered to be a modified child replacement is that adoptive parents are doing a favor to another couple, albeit unknown, they are improving their position in their community.

asdinard wrote:

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I don't know if it's that I don't believe or just don't understand the Trivers-Willard hypothesis. I could maybe see why being in good conditions would lead to investing more in sons, but the book gives no reason *why* parents should invest more in daughters in bad conditions.

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 The Trivers-Willard Hypothesis was bothering me too so I spent a lot of time thinking about it. And what I came up with was that in ancient times women are more likely to have offspring then men. Successful men took multiple mates claiming all of the woman in the group and the less successful men were left without the opportunity to mate. Maybe under these circumstances it made more sense for women in bad conditions to invest more in female children. I'm still not sure that explanation makes sense. 

This chapter also made me wonder why women with children get remarried. If your young child is 40 to 100 times more likely to be killed when there is a step-parent in the equation and there is 40 times the likelihood of abuse, why the mother bring a step-father into the mix? Are the statistics for children raised by single mothers that much worse that the resources provided by the stepfather (although they will be limited) are worth it? Or, from an evolutionary point of view, are the children from the first marriage considered a lost cause because the father was less than ideal making it "ok" as far as the mother is concerned that their child is in danger? 

I wonder whether post-partum depression is actually evolved mechanism, even when it leads the mother to possibly kill her infant (or neglect it), which you would think wouldn't be beneficial to the gene. So how could this actually be an evolved mechanism?

Parents try to make you more attached to your siblings and want you to get along with them. Is this less important to parents with less resources, or more important? If they do not have enough resources for all of their children there is going to be strife no matter what but do they try to lessen it at all or do they recognize the futility of it?

Also I remember from my time in Peru that there were a lot of homeless children due to Mothers that have gotten remarried. The step father may not have enough resources to feed all children, or just doesn't want the kids around, so they kick out the children who are not his. This is a huge issue across the country as there are yet to be repercussions to those that practice it.