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Paternal Investment Relative to Maternal Investment

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Synonyms

Biparental care; Maternal investment; Parental effort; Parental investment; Sex differences in parenting

Definition

It is important to discriminate between two related but distinct constructs in evolutionary theory that refer to parenting: (1) Parental Effort (PE) is the cost assessed in terms of bioenergetic or material resources of the production or maintenance of offspring, typically meaning that expended in behavioral parental care, but may also include biological gestation and lactation; (2) Parental Investment (PI), on the other hand, is the cost assessed in terms of the production or maintenance of future offspring of the parental effort presently expended upon current offspring. Presumably, the costs represented by parental investment are the direct consequences of the costs represented by parental effort, as the expenditure and depletion of available resources are the primary cause of limitations upon future offspring production or care, although not exclusively so....

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

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

    Tomás Cabeza de Baca

  2. Department of Psychology, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada

    Mateo Peñaherrera Aguirre

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Aurelio José Figueredo

Authors
  1. Tomás Cabeza de Baca
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  2. Mateo Peñaherrera Aguirre
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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. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

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

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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Cabeza de Baca, T., Peñaherrera Aguirre, M., Figueredo, A.J. (2016). Paternal Investment Relative to Maternal Investment. 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_3685-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3685-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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