Definition
According to Hamilton’s rule, the cost of an investment must be less than the benefit weighted by the genetic relatedness of the investor and recipient. Based on the condition “all else being equal,” individuals are predicted to invest more in closely genetically related kin compared to more distantly related kin or non-kin.
Introduction
The Rule
Hamilton argued that in addition to the parent–offspring relation, other relatives who share a common descent carry identical copies of the same alleles (Mock 2011). Therefore, individuals can spread their own genes (inclusive fitness) not only by reproducing themselves (direct...
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References
Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour I & II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–52.
Mock, D. W. (2011). The evolution of relationship in nonhuman families. In C. A. Salmon & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of evolutionary family psychology (pp. 211–229). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Salmon, C. A., & Shackelford, T. K. (2011). Toward an evolutionary psychology of the family. In C. A. Salmon & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of evolutionary family psychology (pp. 3–11). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
West, S. A., El Mouden, C., & Gardner, A. (2011). Sixteen common misconceptions about the evolution of cooperation in humans. Evolution and Human Behavior, 32, 231–262.
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Hämäläinen, H., Tanskanen, A.O., Danielsbacka, M. (2018). Hamilton’s Rule. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1357-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1357-1
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