PSYC 2P25 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Heterozygote Advantage, Impulsivity, Novelty Seeking
9 Nov 2012
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
These characteristics are (at least partly) heritable. For most characteristics (traits), evolution leads to uniformity within a species -> deviant individuals die out. Some of the reasons involve trade-offs associated with high or low levels of a characteristic, but some of the reasons don"t. Reasons not involving trade-offs [not going to be tested] 1) frequency dependence: when most individuals have a given level of trait, some individuals might do better with a different level, e. g. Some males are parental -> build nest after long maturation. Other males are cuckolding -> mature earl, sneak into other males" nests. When cuckolding males are rare, the have high reproductive success (can easily find many parental males" nests and fertilize there) When cuckolding males are common, they have low reproductive success (harder to find parental males" nests not occupied by other cuckolding males) Thus, success of cuckolding strategy (vs. parenting) depends inversely on frequency of that strategy: e. g. humans.
