Synonyms
Definition
Paternity uncertainty is when a putative father is uncertain of whether he is unknowingly investing in a genetically unrelated offspring.
Introduction
Parenting is an important evolutionary behavior that is associated with high costs such as reduced mating opportunities and somatic health and maintenance (Trivers 1972). However, these high evolutionary costs are offset by the investments in offspring that help to increase chances of offspring survival and reproduction. Thus, the benefits of parenting from an evolutionary perspective are strongly tied to parents investing in biologically related children. This is generally not a concern for women as the physiology of human reproduction means that mothers always know whether an offspring is genetically related to her or not. However, fathers do face the problem of paternity uncertainty, in which they could be unknowingly investing...
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References
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Franklin, P., Volk, A. (2016). Paternity Uncertainty and Investment in Sons and Daughters. 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_3688-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3688-1
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