PATERNAL INVESTMENT

males can simply walk away having achieved the task of fertilisation. indiscriminate mating can cost the woman great amounts of time & resources but is less costly for males. They are not certain of paternity so have the choice of either mating with lots of women in the hope that some will mother his children or just one woman and keep an eye on her to make sure it is definitely his child.
do not want to waste time & resources raising another man's genetic reproductive potential.
the theory would predict that paternal certainty would make the males invest more in the offspring if they were sure it was biologically theirs. Contrary to this, research assessing paternal investment by fathers & stepfathers has shown that men don't discriminate between their step children and their own biological children from a previous relationship.
maybe they invest in step-children to show their ability as resource providers to be seen as more attractive
there is also evidence of sex differences in jealousy. Men were found to be more concerned about sexual infidelity and women more about emotional infidelity. Physiological responses from patients when asked to picture scenes of sexual infidelity support this as they found that men showed much more distress for sexual than emotional infidelity. However, opposing research found that men respond with greater arousal to ANY sexual imagery, challenging the view that sex differences in jealousy are an adaptive response in males and females.

most males DO invest in order to increase the chances of reproductive success by decreasing infant and child mortality. This is done by providing resources e.g. stable food supply to allow the famility to live in a healthier environment.

IDA: insights from non-human species such as chimpanzees who are closely related to us shows that the emergence of male parenting in humans represents either a dramatic evolutionary change over our primate ancestors or the contribution of cultural learning as they show little or no paternal investment at all.

IDA: theory is reductionist as it is very limited. men's parental behaviour is also influenced by personal & social conditions such as their personality, the child's characteristics and the quality of the relationship with the mother. Belsky claims that childhood experiences of parental divorce also correlate with the degree to which men invest in the upbringing & care of their own children.

	Created by diana.m1629 almost 10 years ago

	Copied to Note by diana.m1629 almost 10 years ago

GCE Relationships Note on PARENTAL INVESTMENT - created from Mind Map, created by diana.m1629 on 05/05/2014.

PARENTAL INVESTMENT - created from Mind Map