Definition
The following entry discusses the concept of paternity uncertainty and the subsequent effects that it exerts on behavior, particularly in terms of offspring investment and conflict.
Introduction
Generally, parental certainty (how confident that an offspring produce by a partner is genetically related) differs between females and males. In humans, a female is certain that a child she has carried is genetically related to her (maternal certainty). In contrast, males cannot know for sure that his sperm, and not the sperm of another male, fertilized his partner’s egg (paternal uncertainty). Hence, a human female is completely certain that her offspring are genetically related to her whereas a human male is not. Paternity uncertainty sets the stage for conflicts between females and males as well as between males and putative offspring (i.e., father-offspring conflict).
Paternity Uncertainty and...
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References
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Bianchi, J., Jacobs, W.J. (2016). Paternity Uncertainty and Father-Offspring Conflict. 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_3597-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3597-1
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