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Inclusive Fitness

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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

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Synonyms

Altruism; Darwinian fitness; Hamilton’s paradigm; Hamilton’s rule; Kin selection

Definition

Inclusive fitness is a method of measuring evolutionary success. It is the ability of an individual to transmit genes to the next generation, including genes shared with relatives. In accordance with this rule, an individual’s inclusive fitness can depend, in part, on altruistic behavior and cooperation. The term inclusive fitness was introduced in 1964 by William Donald Hamilton, an English evolutionary biologist. Hamilton distinguishes two types of fitness: (a) direct fitness, defined as the number of offspring produced directly by an individual, regardless of who rears, supports, or rescues the offspring; and (b) indirect fitness, defined as the number of related individuals produced, multiplied by the degree of relatedness of those individuals (Hamilton 1964a, b). Inclusive fitness is defined as an individual’s direct fitness plus an individual’s indirect fitness.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Anna Szala & Todd K. Shackelford

Authors
  1. Anna Szala
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  2. Todd K. Shackelford
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna Szala .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University , Rochester, MI, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University Department of Psychology, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Suzanne MacDonald

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Szala, A., Shackelford, T.K. (2019). Inclusive Fitness. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1997-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1997-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

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