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Human adoption in evolutionary perspective

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Abstract

Exploitation is a fundamental element of the parental strategies of many species of birds. Cuckoos, for example, lay their eggs in the nest of other birds, who often unwittingly rear the alien nestlings as their own. Nest parasitism is an efficient reproductive strategy for cuckoos, who do not have to worry about building a nest, incubating their eggs, or feeding their nestlings. But not all hosts respond passively to such intrusions. In response to parasitic cowbirds, for example, robins have evolved the ability to detect and selectively eject alien young from their nests. Human parenting strategies differ sharply from the strategies of cuckoos and robins. Unlike cuckoos, we are reluctant to allow our children to be raised by others. Unlike robins, we knowingly rear strange young. What makes human behavior toward children so different from that of cuckoos and robins? Humans seem to share a number of predispositions that facilitate successful adoptive relationships, and the desire to raise children seems to be pervasive among modern humans. Despite these commonalities, patterns of adoption transactions vary greatly among contemporary human societies. This paper considers the origins and causes of cross-cultural variation in human adoptive behavior from an evolutionary perspective.

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This paper was prepared while I was conducting research at the California Primate Research Center at the University of California, Davis.

Joan Silk is an assistant professor of biological anthropology at the University of California, Davis. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California at Davis in 1981. Dr. Silk’s research has generally been concerned with the evolution of social behavior among nonhuman primates; she has conducted fieldwork on chimpanzees and savannah baboons and has been studying the social behavior of bonnet macaques at the California Primate Research Center since 1977.

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Silk, J.B. Human adoption in evolutionary perspective. Human Nature 1, 25–52 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692145

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