Parent offspring conflict (POC)

Parent offspring conflict (POC)

1. Offspring not completely passive in the process

   • Trivers: 1. children desire greater investment than their parents have been selected to provide. 2. Parents try to allocate resources to their offspring in order to ensure that maximum number of offspring survive. 3. Conflict occurs when each child wants more resources than the parent can give

2. Resource allocation

   • Parent shares 50% of her genes with each child and inclined to spread resources equally among all children in the family
     • However, individual offspring will want more than fair share at expenses of other offspring
       • As result sibling rivalries may develop as children compete for attention and resources of parents

3. Competition between siblings

   • Child want to delay weaning as long as possible, often in contrast to mothers wishes
   • Parents encourage their children to value their siblings more than they naturally would
   • Parents punish conflict between siblings and reward co-operation, against child's natural instincts
   • Conflict exists before and after birth
     • During pregnancy - potential fatal condition pre-eclampsia
     • At some point when new child is born parent has to transfer investment from older child to more vulnerable young.
     • Sibling rivalry exists in animal kingdom
     • In human sibling rivalry usually more intense when children get closer to similar age and of same gender

4. Evaluation

   • Substantial empirical support: (Daly and Wilson) Cross cultural research indicates parental investment is lower in families: with at least one step parent, fathers question paternity, infants are ill weak or deformed, families are poor, mothers are young, have too many children, birthing space too short
   • Stepfathers more likely to kill step children, same for child abuse, as indicated by samples of children dying before the age 15 and samples of children suffering head and other injuries (daly and Wilson)
     • Even when financial resources and marital status are held consent, younger mothers are more likely to kill their infants than are older mothers (Daly and Wilson)