Parental Care I

1. Parental Care I Overview of the Day Parental Care Who provides it and why Relatedness, offspring fitness, resources

2. Who Provides it and Why? • Do all species provide parental care? • Higher in species with internal gestation • Benefits of parental care • better chance of offspring surviving and reproducing • Costs of • resource monopolization • less mating opportunity

3. Some Questions • How does parental care increase survival and reproduction of offspring in humans? • protection, skill training, character development • There is very little psychological research on parental care and motivation for parental care. Why do you think this is?

4. Who provides the most parental care, Mom or Dad? • Mothers • 4 times as much direct care • 90% of single parents are mothers • Mating vs. parenting effort • high status fathers: less time in parenting effort and more in mating effort

5. Theories of Maternal Care • Paternal uncertainty • mothers are more certain the baby is theirs • Abandonability • males are more likely to leave first, leaving mothers no choice but to care for young • Mating opportunity costs from parental care are higher for males

6. Some possible biological mechanisms • fosB gene • Female mice with a fosB deficiency did not nurture their pups, and their pups died • fosB controls neuronal circuit in hypothalamus area of brain • What activates fosB? (smell of new pups?) • Reductions in testosterone in new mothers and fathers

7. Postpartum depression • Relationships between PPD and: • lack of paternal care • social support • infant health and development problems • PPD may inform mothers of a fitness cost • PPD may help mothers negotiate greater parental assistance from others

8. Parental Care and Relatedness • Genetic parents vs stepparents • GP: greater feelings of love • SP: greater liklihood of child abuse • 40% greater risk of abuse when there is at least one stepparent • “evil” step mother in children’s literature • SP: 40-100 times more infanticide

9. Healthcare • Wearing car seat belts • BM, BF 74%; SF, BM 63%; BF, SM 52% • Yearly medical checkup • BM, BF 61%; BF,SM 46% • BM dead, 35%

10. Paying for College • BF 5.5 times more likely; $15,000 more • Low parental uncertainty 13% less likely, $28,400 less • Father invests more in children of current mate

11. How do we determine genetic relatedness • Visual cues • mothers are more likely to say that baby looks like the father • independent raters see no greater likeness • accuracy of matching new babies to parents is low (possible reasons, issue of interracial marriages) • Olfactory cues (mothers can recognize sent of their new babies)

12. Parental care and offspring fitness • More neglect and abuse of children with disabilities • Better maternal care of “healthy” babies • Less infanticide as children get older • A conjecture: personality, attractiveness, and other characteristics that relate to fitness may affect parental care

13. Parental Care and Resources • Mother’s age • Mother’s marital status

14. Summary • Parental Care • Who provides it and why • Relatedness • Offspring fitness • Resources

15. For Next Time • Lykken (2000) in reserve room • Harris, chapters 5-6, in reserve room • Quiz 3 on Thursday, October 12