Asymmetric Caregiving by Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles and the Theories of Kin Selection and Paternity Certainty: How Does Evolution Explain Human Behavior Toward Close Relatives?

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Pashos

Evolutionary theories explain altruism between related individuals, not only for nonhuman animals but also humans themselves. In sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, the supposedly universally found stronger matrilineal kin caregiving by grandparents, aunts, and uncles is often explained by paternity uncertainty in the male descent line. The present article provides an overview of theories and results of the evolutionary research. I will focus, in particular, on the universal caregiving pattern as well as on cultural variety in kin caregiving, the role of actual paternity certainty in the society, theoretical inconsistencies, and nonconsanguineous step relationships. From the analysis of the empirical data, I will conclude that the paternity certainty hypothesis is in fact not a very suitable explanation for the asymmetric kin caregiving found in humans. I will discuss how human behavior toward relatives, in particular grandchildren, can be alternatively explained from an evolutionary perspective.

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ed Glenn
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Majid Manoochehri

Memory span in humans has been intensely studied for more than a century. In spite of the critical role of memory span in our cognitive system, which intensifies the importance of fundamental determinants of its evolution, few studies have investigated it by taking an evolutionary approach. Overall, we know hardly anything about the evolution of memory components. In the present study, I briefly review the experimental studies of memory span in humans and non-human animals and shortly discuss some of the relevant evolutionary hypotheses.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (31) ◽  
pp. 5119-5136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Carpita ◽  
Donatella Marazziti ◽  
Lionella Palego ◽  
Gino Giannaccini ◽  
Laura Betti ◽  
...  

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition strongly associated with genetic predisposition and familial aggregation. Among ASD patients, different levels of symptoms severity are detectable, while the presence of intermediate autism phenotypes in close relatives of ASD probands is also known in literature. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to environmental factors that might play a role in modulating the relationship between genomic risk and development and severity of ASD. Within this framework, an increasing body of evidence has stressed a possible role of both gut microbiota and inflammation in the pathophysiology of neurodevelopment. The aim of this paper is to review findings about the link between microbiota dysbiosis, inflammation and ASD. Methods: Articles ranging from 1990 to 2018 were identified on PUBMED and Google Scholar databases, with keyword combinations as: microbiota, immune system, inflammation, ASD, autism, broad autism phenotype, adult. Results: Recent evidence suggests that microbiota alterations, immune system and neurodevelopment may be deeply intertwined, shaping each other during early life. However, results from both animal models and human samples are still heterogeneous, while few studies focused on adult patients and ASD intermediate phenotypes. Conclusion: A better understanding of these pathways, within an integrative framework between central and peripheral systems, might not only shed more light on neural basis of ASD symptoms, clarifying brain pathophysiology, but it may also allow to develop new therapeutic strategies for these disorders, still poorly responsive to available treatments.


Author(s):  
Thomas Suddendorf

This article examines the nature and evolution of mental time travel. Evidence for capacities in other animals is reviewed and evaluated in terms of which components of the human faculty appear to be shared and which are unique. While some nonhuman animals store episodic memory traces and can display a range of future-directed capacities, they do not appear to share the open-ended ability to construct mental scenarios, to embed them into larger narratives, nor to reflect and communicate on what they entail. Nested scenario building and the urge to exchange mental experiences seem to set human minds apart in this context as in many others. The article ends with a discussion of the archeological evidence for mental time travel, focusing on deliberate practice as an example of its tremendous fitness consequences.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (19) ◽  
pp. 9463-9468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine S. Geist ◽  
Joan E. Strassmann ◽  
David C. Queller

Evolutionary conflict can drive rapid adaptive evolution, sometimes called an arms race, because each party needs to respond continually to the adaptations of the other. Evidence for such arms races can sometimes be seen in morphology, in behavior, or in the genes underlying sexual interactions of host−pathogen interactions, but is rarely predicted a priori. Kin selection theory predicts that conflicts of interest should usually be reduced but not eliminated among genetic relatives, but there is little evidence as to whether conflict within families can drive rapid adaptation. Here we test multiple predictions about how conflict over the amount of resources an offspring receives from its parent would drive rapid molecular evolution in seed tissues of the flowering plant Arabidopsis. As predicted, there is more adaptive evolution in genes expressed in Arabidopsis seeds than in other specialized organs, more in endosperms and maternal tissues than in embryos, and more in the specific subtissues involved in nutrient transfer. In the absence of credible alternative hypotheses, these results suggest that kin selection and conflict are important in plants, that the conflict includes not just the mother and offspring but also the triploid endosperm, and that, despite the conflict-reducing role of kinship, family members can engage in slow but steady tortoise-like arms races.


Psychiatry ◽  
1942 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judah Marmor
Keyword(s):  

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1483) ◽  
pp. 1241-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P Diggle ◽  
Andy Gardner ◽  
Stuart A West ◽  
Ashleigh S Griffin

The term quorum sensing (QS) is used to describe the communication between bacterial cells, whereby a coordinated population response is controlled by diffusible molecules produced by individuals. QS has not only been described between cells of the same species (intraspecies), but also between species (interspecies) and between bacteria and higher organisms (inter-kingdom). The fact that QS-based communication appears to be widespread among microbes is strange, considering that explaining both cooperation and communication are two of the greatest problems in evolutionary biology. From an evolutionary perspective, intraspecies signalling can be explained using models such as kin selection, but when communication is described between species, it is more difficult to explain. It is probable that in many cases this involves QS molecules being used as ‘cues’ by other species as a guide to future action or as manipulating molecules whereby one species will ‘coerce’ a response from another. In these cases, the usage of QS molecules cannot be described as signalling. This review seeks to integrate the evolutionary literature on animal signalling with the microbiological literature on QS, and asks whether QS within bacteria is true signalling or whether these molecules are also used as cues or for the coercion of other cells.


2020 ◽  
pp. 174569162095378
Author(s):  
Satoshi Kanazawa

I aver that standard economics as a model of human behavior is as incorrect in 2017 (after Thaler) as geocentrism was as a model of celestial behavior in 1617 (after Galileo). Behavioral economic studies that have exposed the paradoxes and anomalies in standard economics are akin to epicycles on geocentrism. Just as no amount of epicycles could salvage geocentrism as a model of celestial behavior because it was fundamentally incorrect, no amount of behavioral economic adjustments could salvage standard economics as a model of human behavior because it is fundamentally incorrect. Many of the cognitive biases exhibited by humans are shared by other species, so not only are human actors Humans (as opposed to Econs), but nonhuman animals as phylogenetically distant from humans as ants and locusts are also Humans. Evolutionary biology as a model of human behavior can explain many of the hitherto unexplained cognitive biases and provide a unifying model of human behavior currently lacking in behavioral economics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1885) ◽  
pp. 20181164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip A. Downing ◽  
Ashleigh S. Griffin ◽  
Charlie K. Cornwallis

The evolution of helping behaviour in species that breed cooperatively in family groups is typically attributed to kin selection alone. However, in many species, helpers go on to inherit breeding positions in their natal groups, but the extent to which this contributes to selection for helping is unclear as the future reproductive success of helpers is often unknown. To quantify the role of future reproduction in the evolution of helping, we compared the helping effort of female and male retained offspring across cooperative birds. The kin selected benefits of helping are equivalent between female and male helpers—they are equally related to the younger siblings they help raise—but the future reproductive benefits of helping differ because of sex differences in the likelihood of breeding in the natal group. We found that the sex which is more likely to breed in its natal group invests more in helping, suggesting that in addition to kin selection, helping in family groups is shaped by future reproduction.


Smart Data ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 191-214
Author(s):  
Rute C. Sofia ◽  
Liliana Carvalho ◽  
Francisco M. Pereira
Keyword(s):  

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