Abstract
Gaulin, McBurney, and Brakeman-Wartell (1997) found that college students reported both matrilateral and sex biases in the investment of aunts and uncles (aunts invested more than uncles). They interpreted the matrilateral bias as a consequence of paternity uncertainty. We replicated that study with Orthodox Jewish college students, selected because they come from a population we presume to have higher paternity certainty than the general population. The Orthodox sample also showed matrilateral and sex biases. Comparing the two data sets, the Orthodox sample reported more investment, and slightly less matrilateral and sex biases, but the differences were not statistically significant. We did find an interaction between sex of relative and group membership, resulting from greater investment by Orthodox uncles. We interpret the results as reflecting the operation of a facultative investment mechanism whose upper limit is tuned to the maximum levels of paternity certainty found in ancestral environments. Lack of a difference in matrilateral bias between groups may result from levels of paternity certainty near to, or above, that maximum in both groups.
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Donald McBurney is a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. His principal interest is in the psychophysics of taste and smell. Current research concerns sensory adaptation as an evolutionary adaptation, with a focus on long-term adaptation to chili peppers.
Jessica Simon conducted this study as her undergraduate honors thesis at the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently pursuing graduate work.
Steven Gaulin is a professor of anthropology and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Trained at UC Berkeley and Harvard, his research focuses on the intersection of sexual selection and evolutionary psychology. He is author, with Donald McBurney, of Psychology: An Evolutionary Approach.
Allan Geliebter is a psychologist at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, the University Hospital of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Department of Psychology, Touro College, New York City. His research concerns food intake and obesity in humans.
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McBurney, D.H., Simon, J., Gaulin, S.J.C. et al. Matrilateral biases in the investment of aunts and uncles. Hum Nat 13, 391–402 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-002-1022-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-002-1022-5