Definition
Inclusive fitness is the sum of direct (personal) fitness and indirect fitness of the organism. Direct fitness is the number of offspring the individual procreates, whereas indirect fitness is defined by the number of offspring begotten by the genetic relatives of the individual. To the extent of the genetic relatedness, descendants of relatives share a proportion of copies of the individual’s genes. Thus, helping genetically related individuals, also aids the reproduction of the shared genes, providing additional (indirect) benefits for the altruist (Hamilton 1964).
Introduction
Both direct and indirect fitness benefits could account for the evolution of altruism, and therefore in several cases it is difficult to separate them. Hamilton suggested a formula to define the conditions under which altruism could spread in a...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bereczkei, T., & Dunbar, R. I. (1997). Female-biased reproductive strategies in a Hungarian Gypsy population. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 264(1378), 17–22.
Bereczkei, T., Birkas, B., & Kerekes, Z. (2007). Public charity offer as a proximate factor of evolved reputation-building strategy: An experimental analysis of a real-life situation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28(4), 277–284.
Burnstein, E. (2005). Altruism and genetic relatedness. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 528–551). Hoboken: Wiley.
Clutton-Brock, T. (2002). Breeding together: Kin selection and mutualism in cooperative vertebrates. Science, 296(5565), 69–72.
Dawkins, R. (1982). The extended phenotype. Oxford: Freeman.
Dickinson, J. L., & Hatchwell, B. (2004). Fitness consequences of helping. In W. D. Koenig & J. L. Dickinson (Eds.), Ecology and evolution of cooperative breeding in birds (pp. 48–66). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Griffin, A. S., & West, S. A. (2002). Kin selection: Fact and fiction. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 17(1), 15–21.
Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behavior, I and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–52.
West, S. A., Griffin, A. S., & Gardner, A. (2007). Evolutionary explanations for cooperation. Current Biology, 17(16), R661–R672.
Zahavi, A., & Zahavi, A. (1997). The handicap principle: A missing part of Darwin’s puzzle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Birkas, B. (2016). Helping and Inclusive Fitness Benefits to Helper. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1557-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1557-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences