Culturally transmitted paternity beliefs and the evolution of human mating behaviour.

ABSTRACT: Recent anthropological findings document how certain lowland South American societies hold beliefs in 'partible paternity', which allow children to have more than one 'biological' father. This contrasts with Western beliefs in 'singular paternity', and biological reality, where children have just one father. Here, mathematical models are used to explore the coevolution of paternity beliefs and the genetic variation underlying human mating behaviour. A gene-culture coevolutionary model found that populations exposed to a range of selection regimes typically converge on one of two simultaneously stable equilibria; one where the population is monogamous and believes in singular paternity, and the other where the population is polygamous and believes in partible paternity. A second agent-based

SUBMITTER: Mesoudi A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2176175 | biostudies-literature | 2007 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature