PSYCO104 Lecture 16: Parental Care

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: Claire Scavuzzo

Document Summary

The goal is to ensure survival of current and future generations. Reptiles, fish, insects, many offspring with low parental investment. Humans and mammals have large parental investment in few offspring. Time, energy and effort in caring for and protecting the offspring. Explain the different mating systems (trivers 1972) Parents who invest more will be competed for and will be more choosy. Females make fewer reproductive cells than males. Males become larger and smaller which makes a competitive advantage. Equal parental investment leads to monogamous mating systems. Offspring would not survive with only one parent. Incubation, protection and foraging can"t be everywhere at once. The more monogamous they are, the more difficult it is to figure out the sex. Occurs in some birds, insects and fish. Females, larger, stronger, more active, more aggressive than males. Men and women generally overlap for mate preference. Younger men do not have status or access to resources. Older men more established, accumulate experience, wisdom.