Vyrastekova Jana, Huisman Janine, Mosha Idda, Smits Jeroen
Radboud University, Institute for Management Research (IMR), Nijmegen Center for Economics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Radboud University, Anthropology and Development Studies, Center for International Development Issues Nijmegen (CIDIN), Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2014 Jun 25;9(6):e99952. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099952. eCollection 2014.
Evolutionary theory predicts humans to be more altruistic towards genetically more closely related kin. Because fathers face uncertainty about the relation to their children, the asymmetric parental altruism hypothesis predicts mothers to provide a higher share of parental care than fathers. We tested this hypothesis using parental choice experiments in rural Tanzania, in which fathers and mothers could choose between an outcome that benefited themselves and an outcome that benefited their children. When a parent was solely responsible for the outcome, mothers chose more altruistic than fathers. However when the choice situation was changed into a coordination game in which responsibility was shared with the partner, the sex difference disappeared. Fathers then chose somewhat more altruistic, but mothers substantially less. Our findings thus partly support the asymmetric parental altruism hypothesis, but they also show that parental altruism is influenced by the context in which choices are taken.
进化理论预测，人类会对基因上关系更密切的亲属表现出更多利他行为。由于父亲不确定与自己孩子的关系，不对称亲代利他主义假说预测母亲会比父亲提供更高比例的亲代照料。我们在坦桑尼亚农村进行了亲代选择实验来检验这一假说，在实验中父亲和母亲可以在有利于自己的结果和有利于孩子的结果之间做出选择。当父母一方独自决定结果时，母亲比父亲做出了更利他的选择。然而，当选择情境变为与伴侣分担责任的协调博弈时，性别差异消失了。此时父亲的选择略显利他，但母亲的利他选择大幅减少。因此，我们的研究结果部分支持了不对称亲代利他主义假说，但也表明亲代利他行为会受到做出选择时所处情境的影响。
