Having siblings myself, I can understand every thing in the chapter about putting your closely related kin over others who are not as close. This manifests when it comes to arguments or some sort of public dispute. While my brother and I fight all the time, we more often than not take the others side in a conflict involving people who are less closely related than we are. This is something weve begun to do more now than we used to, as now we stand up for and defend each other when it comes to issues with others less related kin, presenting a more united front while having each other's back.
1) Humans have adapted several methods of kin recognition, the main one being early associationthe exposure to kin during infancy. Association during childhood is known to produce subsequent sexual aversion which functions as an incest avoidance adaption. Given all of these adaptations for kin recognition, why does incest still occur?
2) I wonder if only children are more likely to prefer a different friend group structure than children with siblings. I believe it might be possible that only childs are more likely to prefer having a few extremely close friends who serve to act as substitute "siblings" rather than a large group of friends/acquaintances. Being an only child myself, this definitely applies to me, but I'm curious if other people share my view or not.
I wonder if there are any birth order effects on children who have half or step siblings? How much does age difference and living situation play in this? Having a half sister who is much older than me, I basically grew up as an only child, but I'm still conscious of being the younger sibling. I also wonder what effects this would have on children with step siblings who have now been shifted in their birth order (i.e. they were the first born, but now they are the second or third)?
in response to Ken, i'm an only child as well and i would say that my preferences for friendships have switched over time. early in life, i was closer to the "substitute siblings" thing you proposed. I had a couple very close friends rather than a bunch of acquaintances. in high school and especially for the first half of college, i switched to having a large group of acquaintances and didn't really put much effort into cultivating sibling-like friendships with people. recently, though, i've switched back to developing a small handful of very close friends that may be closer to what you're calling "substitute siblings." But what's the difference between a 'substitute siblings' bond and a 'male alliance?'
regarding the section about Genetic Relatedness & Emotional Closeness: the studies showed that emotional closeness mediates the tendency to behave altruistically to kin. I wonder how big a gap there would be between these tendencies towards kin and any similar tendencies towards close friends. if someone claims to be emotionally closer to several friends than to certain blood relatives, would their altruistic tendencies follow their emotional ties before their blood/kinship ties? how would genetic relatedness & emotional connection interact when choosing between helping a close friend vs. an emotionally estranged relative?
What accounts for the change in dynamics amongst kins? Why is it that when we are little we are more likely to fight with our kin than when we grow older?
Let me preface any comments I make on this chapter with the fact that I'm the middle child of three boys; we're all fairly close in age (1990, 1992, and 1995).
They mentioned early on in the chapter that middle-borns are less likely to cheat on their mates. While I personally don't see myself ever doing that, and I have plenty of personal/experiential reasons why, I think an evolutionary reason might be due to the fact that us middle children never get the full attention/resources from our parents or other kin. This leads to us knowing how much it sucks to get the short end of the stick, and we don't want to do something like that to the people who are important to us, i.e. our mates.
The supplemental reading seemed to indicate that second-borns are the most likely victims of siblicide, in addition to the killer being the younger sibling. Would the second-borns being the victim have anything to do with our feelings of distance from our immediate family (compare to our older and younger siblings)? And while it's true that I get into disagreements with my older brother more often than my younger brother, how much of this might be due to simply having existed for more time together, or is it due to latent feelings of jealousy for not getting enough attention/resources from our parents growing up?
(Wow, this post makes it sound like I have parental issues)
From what I have read, the conventional wisdom of only children being less social adept or being unable to cope well with interacting with people is of course not entirely true. The best comparison to make about only children is that they are a kind of "hyper-first born" children, and they should be considered to have the same characteristics as them. I am willing to accept that the conventional wisdom is wrong but I think that from an evolutionary point of view only children could be considered less favorable. (I am the oldest of four children, so perhaps take my arguement with a grain of salt). Perhaps considering both from the position of parents, where fewer children means fewer copies of their genes in the world, but I think the more important part of multiple children is the fact that sibling bonds could perhaps be more important than the other kinds of kinship or even friendships that we have. Considering that our parents are much too old in our childhoods for them to understand children, and they quickly become too old to be as active as us, so here in is where I see siblings as deeply important because they help to bridge the gap in support between being alone and parents.
If one of your siblings got into a fight with your mom or dad would it be in your interest to interfere and take a side or to stay out of it? Does it matter if it's your older or younger sibling? Or the sex of your sibling?
Conflicts with family members is well covered in the book, but I was curious as to what other motives drive conflicts between mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws, and father-in-laws and son-in-laws, and what motivates in-laws to help son/daughter-in-laws?
I seem to be an exception to many of the family trends in this chapter. For instance, my family does not follow Sulloway's theory of birth order. Instead of the first born being conservative and least rebellious, the first born was the least conservative and most rebellious. Each successive child was less and less rebellious, and more and more successful. I attribute this to my parents not exactly knowing what they were doing with the first child, but learning from their mistakes as they had more and more children. Another reason could be that the first born was great until the second child was born, and then became jealous and rebellious when the first born had to share attention time from our parents. But I wonder what are some other reasons why this would occur, how often this occurs, and if there are other families who might experience different birth order patterns. Maybe the middle child is rebellious in some instances?
Another pattern in the book that my family does not follow is with regard to investment by grandparents. Although my father's father died when I was two years old, I grew up with three grandparents from the day my father's father passed away until two months ago when my mother's mother passed. Out of my experiences with all of my grandparents, I cannot say that I am closer with one over the other. In fact, if I had to choose, I might feel closer to my father's mother, but I really do feel equally connected. In terms of how invested they are to my sisters and I, they are all equally invested. They all give us money on our birthdays along with several holidays, and support us during our major milestones in our lives. If anything, I feel like my dad's side of the family gives slightly more support to us, but it is not significant. I am wondering how growing up with less than all of children's grandparents affects relationships between grandparents and children. For instance, would it make a difference if my family grew up with both of the grandparents on my father's side as opposed to my mother's? What about if we grew up with only the grandfathers, and not the grandmothers?
Ken brings up an interesting point about only children wanting "substitute sibling" types of friends rather than many acquaintances. I feel like having a twin sister gave me the opportunity to have a best friend for life, but only at the sacrifice of having very close friends outside of the family. All of my friends normally have to be close to both of us if they want to be close at all. It makes it harder for anyone outside to spend a lot of time with one of us, since we always go off of each others' schedules. At the same time, I feel like being a twin made my two older sisters feel the need to find "substitute siblings". Since my twin sister and I are so close, our individual relationships with our other sisters are weaker. And since my older two sisters are not extremely close with one another, they found their own few friends that play the "substitute siblings" role. I'm not sure if my two older sisters feel in a way like only children due to them not having as close of a relationship to all of us as my twin sister and I do. But it is interesting how they both found a few close friends, which Ken is describing as something only children do, whereas my twin sister and I found many acquaintances.
I was also wondering about general family dynamics when it comes to conflict. What can be said about the behavior of the rest of the family members when say a parent gets in a conflict with a child. Do siblings side with siblings or does it make more sense to side with a parent?
In the pattern of inheritance section I found it interesting that people in the Canadian study only left 7.7% of estates to non-relatives. I think it is such stark contrast to the "altruistic" behavior of donating to charities that people often do while alive. To me this supports the thought that charity towards non-kin is done solely for status seeking purposes. I wonder if people's tendency to leave resources to non-kin is altered by the amount of resources some one has? I feel like people who are wildly wealthy are more likely to leave money to charity upon their death than people with normal estates.
In response to Ken: I am also an only child and I feel like all of my friend groups have the same specific structure but it doesn't fit into either of the categories you were talking about. In all of my friend groups I'm the "mom" that plans group activities and the person people come to for advice. This has been the case as long as I can remember. Within this structure I have friends that range in closeness from acquaintances to extremely close friends similar to what I imagine having a sibling would be. I think this is because when I was growing up, I was exposed more to adult behavior and less to children behavior (no cousins near by, my parent's friends don't have children and my neighborhood didn't have many children my age). So I adopted the more responsible adult role in friendships because it what I was already used to.
I feel that the kin order does not hold true in most situations. There is a lot that the gap between the children would effect more than birth order. I have noticed that my oldest sister was the most rebellious and my brother the most motivated.
I also get along with one sibling and fight with the other. I used to fight all of the time with my sister and get along with my brother. My temperament matches up better with my brother but he also gets along with my sister better than I do. So I get to experience kin conflict and benefits.
I also tend to be closer to my Dad's parents as my mom has never gotten along with her family. This affected my relationship with my grandparents and made me closer to my dad's side.
Adoption also is weird to try and fit in with these kinship evolutionary mechanisms. Where do the mechanisms still apply and when are they less likely to? I wonder this as I have a lot of family members that are adopted and I wonder if adopted members would trigger the same reactions.
According to Mark Flinn's study of kinship and stress, children raised in environments with a single parent or step parents/sibs had higher cortisol levels (indicating higher stress) than those raised in a nuclear family. I wonder if children who are adopted would show raised cortisol levels similar to or greater than those of the children in the study, which would indicate that children are somehow able to sense that they aren't genetically related to their parents, or if they would be more like the children raised in nuclear families?
In response to Aubrey and Roxanne, I think whether or not you pick a side in a sibling-parent fight and who you side with would probably depend on your age and the age of your sibling and what would benefit you the most at the time - if you're young and dependent on your parents, it probably wouldn't be to your advantage to side with a sibling, but as you and your siblings age and have more resources/power/reproductive value you would probably be more likely to side with your sibling.
I agree completely with the part that talks about Sulloway's view of how people act differently according to their birth order. Although I have a half-sister, we don't really get in touch with each other, so I guess I'm the "first born" in my family, and my younger brother is the second born. My younger brother is pretty rebellious I would say, which fits what Sulloway is saying. However, what I don't understand is why? I feel like even though my dad might favor me more, my mom definitely favors my brother more. So in that case, I guess we're equal? And my parents give him whatever he wants, so it's not like he's not gaining anything. Therefore, I don't understand why he's still acting the way he is.
Do grandparents have similar investment strategies as parents? For example, do they also invest in the healthier child like the parents do, according to the healthy child hypothesis, or do they just invest in the first grandchild comes along?
