Mother-in-Law Daughter-in-Law Conflict: an Evolutionary Perspective and Report of Empirical Data from the USA

Ayers, Jessica D.; Krems, Jaimie Arona; Hess, Nicole; Aktipis, Athena

doi:10.1007/s40806-021-00312-x

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Published: 10 January 2022

Mother-in-Law Daughter-in-Law Conflict: an Evolutionary Perspective and Report of Empirical Data from the USA

Jessica D. Ayers ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7722-0376¹,
Jaimie Arona Krems²,
Nicole Hess³ &
Athena Aktipis^1,4

Evolutionary Psychological Science volume 8, pages 56–71 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Relationships with genetic relatives have been extensively studied in the evolutionary social sciences, but affinal, i.e., in-laws, relationships have received much less attention. Yet, humans have extensive interactions with the kin of their mates, leading to many opportunities for cooperative and conflictual interactions with extended kinship networks. To contribute to the scholarship on affinal bonds, and particularly on perceptions of affinal conflict, we collected empirical data on cooperation and conflict among affines. Here, we report empirical evidence of self-reported cooperative and conflictual aspects in affinal relationships in a Western sample. US men and women both reported more conflict with mothers-in-law than with mothers, and mothers reported more conflict with their daughters-in-law than with their daughters. We discuss the implications of this work and directions for future research.

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All data are available at https://osf.io/vkb3s/.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Lee Cronk for his helpful comments on this manuscript. Thee first author would also like to thank Kyle Haiges and her fantastic mother-in-law Deb Patrick for their support and discussions throughout this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1104, USA
Jessica D. Ayers & Athena Aktipis
Oklahoma Center for Evolutionary Analysis (OCEAN), Department of Psychology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, USA
Jaimie Arona Krems
Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, USA
Nicole Hess
Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
Athena Aktipis

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Jessica D. Ayers
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Jaimie Arona Krems
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Nicole Hess
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Athena Aktipis
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JDA, JAK, NH, and AA conceived of and created the study materials. JDA collected the data, analyzed the results, supervised ethnography coding, and wrote the manuscript. JAK, NH, and AA edited and reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jessica D. Ayers.

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Ayers, J.D., Krems, J.A., Hess, N. et al. Mother-in-Law Daughter-in-Law Conflict: an Evolutionary Perspective and Report of Empirical Data from the USA. Evolutionary Psychological Science 8, 56–71 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-021-00312-x

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Received: 06 October 2021
Revised: 20 December 2021
Accepted: 21 December 2021
Published: 10 January 2022
Issue Date: March 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-021-00312-x

Keywords

Affines
Kin
In-laws
Cooperation
Conflict
Pair-bonds