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Parental Investment and Parenting

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Synonyms

Childcare; Childrearing; parenthood; parental effort

Definition

Traditional theories of developmental and family psychology such as family systems theory (FST; Cox and Paley 1997) focus on interdependent and bidirectional interrelationships among members of the household by viewing the family as a system and the members of the family as parts. According to this approach, interactions between members occur in predictable and repetitive patterns that provide internal balance to the family system. Any perturbations to the system (such as inclusion of new members into the household or loss of old members of the household, major life stresses, or changes that alter one of the relationships within the household) result in loss of homeostasis, creating household dysfunction. Family systems theory would thus view parenting and parental investment as influenced by and products of such household perturbations.

Evolutionary approaches such as parental investment theory (PIT; Trivers 1972...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Health Psychology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Tomás Cabeza de Baca

  2. Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Sonora, Hermosillo, Mexico

    Marcela Sotomayor-Peterson

  3. Department of Psychology, University of California, San Francisco, AZ, USA

    Aurelio José Figueredo

Authors
  1. Tomás Cabeza de Baca
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  2. Marcela Sotomayor-Peterson
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  3. Aurelio José Figueredo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tomás Cabeza de Baca .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  2. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL, USA

    Curtis Dunkel

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

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Cabeza de Baca, T., Sotomayor-Peterson, M., Figueredo, A.J. (2016). Parental Investment and Parenting. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3813-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3813-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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