Synonyms
Definition
Any two same-sex humans share about 99.9 % of their genes. Family members also share significant portions of the remaining 0.1 %. This shared portion is referred to as genetic relatedness. In reference to a target individual, siblings or parents have a genetic relatedness of r = 0.50; nephews, nieces, aunts, or uncles r = 0.25; and cousins r = 0.125. The level of genetic relatedness is assumed to affect the amount of aid reciprocated by two individuals, everything else being equal.
Introduction
Why do we help our relatives? One could claim that a gene that promotes helping kin should not have been selected for, since it involves a price to the helper. For many years this dilemma was indeed a problem in evolutionary theory. The breakthrough arrived when Hamilton (1964) suggested that in some instances a helper can gain an evolutionary advantage by assisting his or her relatives. Hamilton’s (1964) Kin-selection theory claims that an...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Burnstein, E., Crandall, C., & Kitayama, S. (1994). Some neo-Darwinian decision rules for altruism: Weighing cues for inclusive fitness as a function of the biological importance of the decision. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(5), 773–789. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.5.773.
Griffin, A. S., & West, S. A. (2003). Kin discrimination and the benefit of helping in cooperatively breeding vertebrates. Science, 302(5645), 634–636. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1089402.
Gurven, M., Hill, K., Kaplan, H., Hurtado, A., & Lyles, R. (2000). Food transfers among Hiwi foragers of Venezuela: Tests of reciprocity. Human Ecology, 28(2), 171–218. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007067919982.
Hamilton, W. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-5193(64)90038-4.
Korchmaros, J. D., & Kenny, D. A. (2006). An evolutionary and close-relationship model of helping. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23(1), 21–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407506060176.
Park, J. H. (2007). Persistent misunderstandings of inclusive fitness and kin selection: Their ubiquitous appearance in social psychology textbooks. Evolutionary Psychology, 5(4), 860–873. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024626.
Pollet, T. V. (2007). Genetic relatedness and sibling relationship characteristics in a modern society. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28(3), 176–185. 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2006.10.001.
Tifferet, S., Saad, G., Meiri, M., & Ido, N. (2018). Gift giving at Israeli weddings as a function of genetic relatedness and kinship certainty. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 28(1), 157–165. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1006.
Webster, G. D., Bryan, A., Crawford, C. B., McCarthy, L., & Cohen, B. H. (2008). Lineage, sex, and wealth as moderators of kin investment: Evidence from inheritances. Human Nature, 19(2), 189–210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-008-9038-0.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Tifferet, S. (2018). Genetic Relatedness Affects Aid to Kin. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1484-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1484-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Genetic Relatedness Affects Aid to Kin- Published:
- 16 February 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1484-2
-
Original
Genetic Relatedness Affects Aid to Kin- Published:
- 20 September 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1484-1