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Definition
The developmental age of child that is associated with the highest parental investment.
Introduction
The age of a child is shown to have important effects on parental investment decisions. This is likely because the age of the child may be associated with the child’s ability to survive (Volk et al. 2005; Hrdy 1999). For example, newborns are less likely to survive without parental care compared to older children due to lower levels of health-related development at that stage (e.g., less developed immune systems; Voora et al. 1982) and higher dependency on parental care compared to older children (Hrdy 1999; Volk and Atkinson 2008). Therefore, the offspring that shows the highest chance of survival, which is generally the older child, should typically receive the most parental investment as this child will more likely produce offspring and help propagate parents’ genes (Trivers 1972). However, this would suggest...
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References
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Hrdy, S. B. (1999). Mother nature: Natural selection and the female of the species. London: Chatto & Windus.
Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man (pp. 136–179). London: Heinemann.
Trivers, R. L. (1974). Parent-offspring conflict. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 14, 249–264.
Volk, T., & Atkinson, J. (2008). Is child death the crucible of human evolution? Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2, 247.
Volk, A. A., Lukjanczuk, J. M., & Quinsey, V. L. (2005). Influence of infant and child facial cues of low body weight on adults’ ratings of adoption preference, cuteness, and health. Infant Mental Health Journal: Official Publication of The World Association for Infant Mental Health, 26, 459–469.
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Franklin, P. (2019). Age of Child. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2303-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2303-1
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