Children's Help and the Pace of Reproduction: Cooperative Breeding in Humans

Kramer, Karen L.

doi:10.1002/evan.20082

Cited by 257 publications

(287 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…Unsolicited prosociality may serve to optimize the functioning of cooperative breeding systems (4,16). Humans are the only other primate besides callitrichids to have evolved features of cooperative breeding, such as infant care by grandmothers, older siblings, and fathers (4,44,45). Because only cooperatively breeding primates show such strong mutual interdependence (46), unsolicited prosociality in humans is likely to have arisen as our ancestors adopted extensive allomaternal care.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Other-regarding preferences in a non-human primate: Common marmosets provision food altruistically

Burkart

Fehr

Efferson

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

311

314

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Human cooperation is unparalleled in the animal world and rests on an altruistic concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated strangers. The evolutionary roots of human altruism, however, remain poorly understood. Recent evidence suggests a discontinuity between humans and other primates because individual chimpanzees do not spontaneously provide food to other group members, indicating a lack of concern for their welfare. Here, we demonstrate that common marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus) do spontaneously provide food to nonreciprocating and genetically unrelated individuals, indicating that other-regarding preferences are not unique to humans and that their evolution did not require advanced cognitive abilities such as theory of mind. Because humans and marmosets are cooperative breeders and the only two primate taxa in which such unsolicited prosociality has been found, we conclude that these prosocial predispositions may emanate from cooperative breeding.cooperative breeding ͉ non-human primates ͉ prosociality ͉ helping ͉ dictator game

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Other-regarding preferences in a non-human primate: Common marmosets provision food altruistically

Burkart

Fehr

Efferson

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

311

314

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“…Because the intensive data demands of our analysis required more detailed individual information than was available, we drew a random subsample of women from the HDSS for a tailored survey. Our sample included even numbers of women from (i) the ICDDR,B Area and the Government Service Area, and (ii) each of three 15-y age categories (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49), and 50-64), allowing for better representation of older women and 45 y of time depth regarding fertility and its correlates. Our final survey sample size was 944 women.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Caldwell's Wealth Flows approach (19) suggests that in traditional agricultural societies, children provide their parents with significant wealth through labor, favoring high fertility, whereas in modern economies children consume wealth, resulting in low fertility. Other researchers have argued that children are always costly but that children's work can subsidize parental reproduction, leading to higher fertility (20,21).…”

Section: Demographic Transition Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

A model comparison approach shows stronger support for economic models of fertility decline

Shenk

Towner

Kress

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

118

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The demographic transition is an ongoing global phenomenon in which high fertility and mortality rates are replaced by low fertility and mortality. Despite intense interest in the causes of the transition, especially with respect to decreasing fertility rates, the underlying mechanisms motivating it are still subject to much debate. The literature is crowded with competing theories, including causal models that emphasize (i) mortality and extrinsic risk, (ii) the economic costs and benefits of investing in self and children, and (iii) the cultural transmission of low-fertility social norms. Distinguishing between models, however, requires more comprehensive, bettercontrolled studies than have been published to date. We use detailed demographic data from recent fieldwork to determine which models produce the most robust explanation of the rapid, recent demographic transition in rural Bangladesh. To rigorously compare models, we use an evidence-based statistical approach using model selection techniques derived from likelihood theory. This approach allows us to quantify the relative evidence the data give to alternative models, even when model predictions are not mutually exclusive. Results indicate that fertility, measured as either total fertility or surviving children, is best explained by models emphasizing economic factors and related motivations for parental investment. Our results also suggest important synergies between models, implicating multiple causal pathways in the rapidity and degree of recent demographic transitions.

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“…Children may also relax their early dependence on parents by varying degrees through contribution to subsistence activities, including the direct care of younger siblings (see [46] for discussion of how subsistence type influences children's ability to help). However, in no population has it been demonstrated that children entirely offset their own energetic costs, implying that additional siblings will always dictate some division of family resources [7].…”

Section: (B) Socioecological Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental investment and the optimization of human family size

Lawson

Mace

2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

149

126

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Human reproductive behaviour is marked by exceptional variation at the population and individual level. Human behavioural ecologists propose adaptive hypotheses to explain this variation as shifting phenotypic optima in relation to local socioecological niches. Here we review evidence that variation in fertility (offspring number), in both traditional and modern industrialized populations, represents optimization of the life-history trade-off between reproductive rate and parental investment. While a reliance on correlational methods suggests the true costs of sibling resource competition are often poorly estimated, a range of anthropological and demographic studies confirm that parents balance family size against offspring success. Evidence of optimization is less forthcoming. Declines in fertility associated with modernization are particularly difficult to reconcile with adaptive models, because fertility limitation fails to enhance offspring reproductive success. Yet, considering alternative measures, we show that modern low fertility confers many advantages on offspring, which are probably transmitted to future generations. Evidence from populations that have undergone or initiated demographic transition indicate that these rewards to fertility limitation fall selectively on relatively wealthy individuals. The adaptive significance of modern reproductive behaviour remains difficult to evaluate, but may be best understood in response to rising investment costs of rearing socially and economically competitive offspring.

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Children's Help and the Pace of Reproduction: Cooperative Breeding in Humans

Cited by 257 publications

References 84 publications

Other-regarding preferences in a non-human primate: Common marmosets provision food altruistically

Other-regarding preferences in a non-human primate: Common marmosets provision food altruistically

A model comparison approach shows stronger support for economic models of fertility decline

Parental investment and the optimization of human family size

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