Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:07:46.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

20 - Paternal Care

from Part III - Postcopulatory Adaptations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2022

Todd K. Shackelford
Affiliation:
Oakland University, Michigan
Get access

Summary

Human offspring require intensive and extended parental care. While the needs of offspring have been argued to drive paternal investment, the evolution of male care and its patterning across cultures defy any simple story. Because human paternal investment, while often substantial in relation to other animals, is facultative rather than obligatory, there is considerable cross-cultural variability in how and how much fathers invest in their children. While cooperative and flexible parenting strategies are present across human societies, male investment is heavily influenced by life history tradeoffs. Specifically, when fitness payoffs towards time and energy allocated to mating effort outweigh parenting effort, men often invest less in their children. Moreover, although men appear to be physiological responsive to childcare responsibilities (through testosterone adjustments), paternal loss often has little effect on child survival. Rather than signifying the unimportance of fathers, it highlights the remarkable flexibility in the human family in terms of how mothers are assisted in raising multiple dependent offspring at the same time. Although some form of pair-bonding is observed cross-culturally, with mothers as the primary infant caregiver, extended kin and alloparental support are also important for offspring success. I review paternal investment from across the animal kingdom, discuss the evolution of paternal care in humans, and describe variability across individuals and groups in the ways and amounts men invest.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archer, J. (2006). Testosterone and human aggression: An evaluation of the challenge hypothesis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 30, 319345.Google Scholar
Barta, Z., Székely, T., Liker, A., & Harrison, F. (2014). Social role specialization promotes cooperation between parents. The American Naturalist, 183, 747761.Google Scholar
Bateman, A. J. (1948). Intra-sexual selection in Drosophila. Heredity, 2, 349368.Google Scholar
Borgerhoff Mulder, M., & Rauch, K. L. (2009). Sexual conflict in humans: Variations and solutions. Evolutionary Anthropology, 18, 201214.Google Scholar
Borgerhoff Mulder, M., & Schacht, R. (2012). Human behavioural ecology. In The encyclopedia of life sciences. New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell. doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0003671.pub2Google Scholar
Bribiescas, R. G., Ellison, P. T., & Gray, P. B. (2012). Male life history, reproductive effort, and the evolution of the genus Homo: New directions and perspectives. Current Anthropology, 53, S424S435.Google Scholar
Brotherton, P. N., & Komers, P. E. (2003). Mate guarding and the evolution of social monogamy in mammals. In Reichard, R., Ulrich, H, & Boesch, C. (Eds.), Monogamy: Mating strategies and partnerships in birds, humans and other mammals (pp. 4258). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bryden, M. M. (1972). Growth and development of marine mammals. In Harrison, R. J. (Ed.), Functional anatomy of marine animals (pp. 179). New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Charnov, E. L. (1993). Life history invariants: Some explorations of symmetry in evolutionary ecology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. H. (1991). The evolution of parental care. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cockburn, A. (2006). Prevalence of different modes of parental care in birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 273, 13751383.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. R. (1871). The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex (1st ed., Vol. 1). London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1976). Some aspects of research design and their implications in the observational study of behavior. Behaviour, 58, 5878.Google Scholar
Flinn, M. V., Ward, C. V., & Noone, R. (2005). Hormones and the human family. In Buss, D. (Ed.), Handbook of evolutionary psychology. New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Fouts, H. N. (2008). Father involvement with young children among the Aka and Bofi foragers. Cross-Cultural Research, 42, 290312.Google Scholar
Fromhage, L., Elgar, M. A., & Schneider, J. M. (2005). Faithful without care: The evolution of monogyny. Evolution, 59, 14001405.Google Scholar
Gavrilets, S. (2012). Human origins and the transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America, 109, 99239928.Google Scholar
Gettler, L. T., McDade, T. W., & Feranil, A. B. (2011). Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases testosterone in human males. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America, 27, 1619416199.Google Scholar
Grafen, A., & Sibly, R. (1978). A model of mate desertion. Animal Behavior, 26, 645652.Google Scholar
Gray, P. B. (2011). The descent of a man’s testosterone. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America, 108 , 1614116142.Google Scholar
Gray, P. B., & Anderson, K. G. (2010). Fatherhood: Evolution and human paternal behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, P. B., & Brown, E. (2015). Fatherhood in St. Kitts: Patterns and predictors of partnership and paternal dynamics in a Caribbean island. Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research & Practice about Men as Fathers, 13(1), 1835.Google Scholar
Griffin, P. B., & Griffin, M. B. (1992). Fathers and childcare among the Cagayan Agta. In Hewlett, B. S (Ed.), Father-child relations: Cultural and biosocial contexts (pp. 297320). Foundations of Human Behavior. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Gurven, M., & Hill, K. (2009). Why do men hunt? A reevaluation of “man the hunter” and the sexual division of labor. Current Anthropology, 50, 5174.Google Scholar
Harcourt, A. H., & Stewart, K. J. (2008). Gorilla society: Conflict, compromise, and cooperation between the sexes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J. F., & Coxworth, J. E. (2010). Family provisioning is not the only reason men hunt: A comment on Gurven and Hill. Current Anthropology, 51, 259264.Google Scholar
Hawkes, K., Rogers, A. R., & Charnov, E. L. (1995). The male’s dilemma: Increased offspring production is more paternity to steal. Evolutionary Ecology, 9, 662677.Google Scholar
Hedges, S., Mulder, M. B., James, S., & Lawson, D. W. (2016). Sending children to school: rural livelihoods and parental investment in education in northern Tanzania. Evolution and Human Behavior, 37, 142151.Google Scholar
Hewlett, B. (1988). Sexual selection and paternal investment among Aka pygmies. In Betzig, L, Borgerhoff Mulder, M, & Turke, P (Eds.), Human reproductive behavior: A Darwinian perspective (pp. 263276). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hewlett, B. S. (1993). Intimate fathers: The nature and context of Aka pygmy paternal infant care. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Hewlett, B., & Macfarlan, S. (2010). Fathers’ roles in hunter-gatherer and other small-scale cultures. In Lamb, M. E (Ed.), The role of the father in child development (5th ed., pp. 413434). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Hill, K. (1993). Life history theory and evolutionary anthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology, 2, 7888.Google Scholar
Hill, K., & Hurtado, A. M. (1996). Ache life history: The ecology and demography of a foraging people. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hill, K., & Kaplan, H. (1988). Tradeoffs in male and female reproductive strategies among the Ache: Part 1. In Betzig, L., Borgerhoff Mulder, M., & Turke, P. (Eds.), Human reproductive behavior (pp. 277289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Høeg, B. L., Appel, C. W., von Heymann-Horan, A. B., Frederiksen, K., Johansen, C., Bøge, P., … & Bidstrup, P. E. (2017). Maladaptive coping in adults who have experienced early parental loss and grief counseling. Journal of Health Psychology, 22(14), 18511861.Google Scholar
Houston, A. I., Székely, T., & McNamara, J. M. (2005). Conflict between parents over care. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 20, 3338.Google Scholar
Hrdy, S. B. (1999). Mother nature: A history of mothers, infants, and natural selection. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Hrdy, S. B. (2009). Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jenni, D. A., & Collier, G. (1972). Polyandry in the American jacana (Jacana spinosa). The Auk: Ornithological Advances, 89, 743765.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H., Hill, K., Lancaster, J., & Hurtado, A. M. (2000). A theory of human life history evolution: diet, intelligence, and longevity. Evolutionary Anthropology, 9, 156185.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H. S., & Lancaster, J. B. (2003). An evolutionary and ecological analysis of human fertility, mating patterns, and parental investment. In Offspring: Human fertility behavior in biodemographic perspective (pp. 170223). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Davis, K. E. (1994). Attachment style, gender, and relationship stability: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(3), 502512.Google Scholar
Kleiman, D. G. (1977). Monogamy in mammals. Quarterly Review of Biology, 52, 3969.Google Scholar
Kleiman, D. G., & Malcolm, J. R. (1981). The evolution of male parental investment in mammals. In Gubernick, D. J & Klopfer, P. H. (Eds.), Parental care in mammals. Boston, MA: Springer.Google Scholar
Kokko, H., & Jennions, M. D. (2008). Parental investment, sexual selection and sex ratios. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 21, 919948.Google Scholar
Kramer, K. L. (2009). Does it take a family to raise a child? Cooperative breeding and the contributions of Maya siblings, parents and older adults in raising children. In Bentley, G & Mace, R (Eds.), Substitute parents: Biological and social perspectives on alloparenting in human societies (1st ed., pp. 7799). New York, NY: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Kramer, K. L. (2010). Cooperative breeding and its significance to the demographic success of humans. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39, 417436.Google Scholar
Kramer, K. L., & Russell, A. F. (2015). Was monogamy a key step on the Hominin road? Reevaluating the monogamy hypothesis in the evolution of cooperative breeding. Evolutionary Anthropology, 24, 7383.Google Scholar
Lamb, M. E. (2004). The role of the father in child development. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Lamb, M. E., Pleck, J. H., Charnov, E. L., & Levine, J. A. (1985). Paternal behavior in humans. American Zoologist, 25(3), 883894.Google Scholar
Lancaster, J. B., & Lancaster, C. S. (1987). The watershed: Change in parental-investment and family-formation strategies in the course of human evolution. In Lancaster, J. B, Altmann, J, Rossi, A. S, & Sherrod, L. R (Eds.), Parenting across the life span: Biosocial dimensions (pp. 187205). Hawthorne, NY: Aldine.Google Scholar
Leonetti, D. L., & Chabot-Hanowell, B. (2011). The foundation of kinship. Human Nature, 22(1), 1640.Google Scholar
Lessells, C. (1999). Sexual conflict. In Keller, L. (Ed.), Levels of selection in evolution (pp. 7599). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, C. O. (1981). The origin of man. Science, 211, 341350.Google Scholar
Lukas, D., & Clutton-Brock, T. H. (2013). The evolution of social monogamy in mammals. Science, 341, 526530.Google Scholar
Marlowe, F. (2000). Paternal investment and the human mating system. Behavioural Processes, 51, 4561.Google Scholar
Marlowe, F. W. (2003). A critical period for provisioning by Hadza men: Implications for pair bonding. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24, 217229.Google Scholar
Marlowe, F. W. (2007). Hunting and gathering: The human sexual division of foraging labor. Cross-Cultural Research, 41, 170195.Google Scholar
Mathews, L. M. (2003). Tests of the mate-guarding hypothesis for social monogamy: Male snapping shrimp prefer to associate with high-value females. Behavioral Ecology, 14, 6367.Google Scholar
McCann, T. S. (1981). Aggression and sexual activity of male southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina. Journal of Zoology, 195(3), 295310.Google Scholar
McNamara, J. M., & Wolf, M. (2015). Sexual conflict over parental care promotes the evolution of sex differences in care and the ability to care. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282, 20142752. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.2752Google Scholar
Murdock, G. P., & Provost, C. (1973). Factors in the division of labor by sex: A cross-cultural analysis. Ethnology, 12, 203225.Google Scholar
Perrone, M., & Zaret, T. M. (1979). Parental care patterns of fishes. The American Naturalist, 113, 351361.Google Scholar
Pleck, J. H. (1997). Paternal involvement: Levels, sources, and consequences. In Lamb, M. E (Ed.), The role of the father in child development (pp. 66103). New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, K. (1931). The Netsilik Eskimos: Social life and spiritual culture. Norwalk, CT: AMS Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, J. D., Goodwin, N. B., & Freckleton, R. P. (2002). Evolutionary transitions in parental care and live bearing in vertebrates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 357, 269281.Google Scholar
Ross, C. T., Borgerhoff Mulder, M., Winterhalder, B., Uehara, R., Headland, J., & Headland, T. (2016). Evidence for quantity–quality trade-offs, sex-specific parental investment, and variance compensation in colonized Agta foragers undergoing demographic transition. Evolution and Human Behavior, 37, 350365.Google Scholar
Royle, N. J., Smiseth, P. T., & Kölliker, M. (Eds.). (2012). The evolution of parental care. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, A. F., & Lummaa, V. (2009). Maternal effects in cooperative breeders: From hymenopterans to humans. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364, 11431167.Google Scholar
Schacht, R., & Bell, A. V. (2016). The evolution of monogamy in response to partner scarcity. Nature Scientific Reports, 6, 32472. doi: 10.1038/srep32472Google Scholar
Schacht, R., & Kramer, K. L. (2019). Are we monogamous? A review of the evolution of pair-bonding in humans and its contemporary variation cross-culturally. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 7, 110.Google Scholar
Sear, R. (2021). The male breadwinner nuclear family is not the “traditional” human family, and promotion of this myth may have adverse health consequences. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 376(1827): 20200020. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0020Google Scholar
Sear, R., & Mace, R. (2008). Who keeps children alive? A review of the effects of kin on child survival. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29(1), 118.Google Scholar
Shwalb, D. W., Shwalb, B. J., & Lamb, M. E. (2013). Fathers in cultural context. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stearns, S. C. (1989). Trade-offs in life-history evolution. Functional Ecology, 3(3), 259268.Google Scholar
Stearns, S. C. (1992). The evolution of life histories. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Székely, T. (2014). Sexual conflict between parents: Offspring desertion and asymmetrical parental care. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 6, a017665. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a017665Google Scholar
Thornhill, R. (1976). Sexual selection and paternal investment in insects. The American Naturalist, 110, 153163.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In Campbell, B (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man, 1871–1971 (pp. 136179). Chicago, IL: Aldine.Google Scholar
Valle, G., & Tillman, K. H. (2014). Childhood family structure and romantic relationships during the transition to adulthood. Journal of Family Issues, 35(1), 97124.Google Scholar
van Schaik, C. P., & Burkart, J. M. (2010). Mind the gap: Cooperative breeding and the evolution of our unique features. In Kappeler, P. & Silk, J (Eds.), Mind the gap (pp. 477496). Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Washburn, S., & Lancaster, C. (1968). The evolution of hunting. In Lee, R. B. & Devore, I (Eds.), Man the hunter (pp. 293303). Chicago, IL: Aldine.Google Scholar
Westneat, D. F., & Sherman, P. W. (1993). Parentage and the evolution of parental behavior. Behavioral Ecology, 4, 6677.Google Scholar
Wingfield, J. C., Hegner, R. E., Dufty, A. M., Jr., & Ball, G. F. (1990). The “challenge hypothesis”: Theoretical implications for patterns of testosterone secretion, mating systems, and breeding strategies. The American Naturalist, 136, 829846.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, P. C. (1990). Patterns of paternal care in primates. International Journal of Primatology, 11, 89102.Google Scholar
Yamamura, N., & Tsuji, N. (1993). Parental care as a game. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 6, 103127.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Paternal Care
  • Edited by Todd K. Shackelford, Oakland University, Michigan
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology
  • Online publication: 30 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108943543.024
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Paternal Care
  • Edited by Todd K. Shackelford, Oakland University, Michigan
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology
  • Online publication: 30 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108943543.024
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Paternal Care
  • Edited by Todd K. Shackelford, Oakland University, Michigan
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology
  • Online publication: 30 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108943543.024
Available formats
×