Deck 10: Kin and Family Relationships

Question 1

The _____ experienced by humans, with its extensive social relationships, means that humans may be the only species to live in multi-male and multi-female groups with complex coalitions and extensive parental care.

A) increased survival demands
B) long period of childhood
C) need for social interaction
D) sense of kinship

Answer 1

long period of childhood

Question 2

The grandmother hypothesis brings together four distinctive features of human life histories. Which of the following is NOT one of these?

A) early mating
B) late maturity
C) longevity
D) midlife menopause

Answer 2

early mating

Question 3

In all societies, certain people make it their business to know _____ and educate others, especially their relatives, about exactly how they are related to one another.

A) etiquette
B) folklore
C) history
D) genealogy

Answer 3

genealogy

Question 4

Although kinship systems vary somewhat from culture to culture, they all make certain key distinctions. Which of the following is NOT one of them?

A) age
B) closeness
C) generation
D) sex

Question 5

In all societies, some kinship terms incorporate more than one genealogical relationship, but people are _____ oblivious to the distinctions that terminology obscures or ignores.

A) always
B) nowhere
C) often
D) sometimes

Question 6

Daly and Wilson (1998) reviewed the literature on domestic violence and found three important patterns in the data. Which of the following is NOT one of them?

A) Adolescent males are implicated in a third of domestic homicides.
B) Family homicide consists primarily of spousal homicide.
C) Homicide rate is much higher for non-genetically related individuals.
D) Stepfathers are implicated in half the cases of murdered children.

Question 7

Mothers typically wean their children before the children want to be weaned. This is an example of

A) cooperative breeding
B) kin selection
C) parental investment
D) parent-offspring conflict

Question 8

In all societies, persons related by marriage are deemed to be in a ____ kinship relationship.

A) non-
B) quasi-
C) special
D) true

Question 9

Genes that support altruistic behavior will be more likely to be passed on when the benefit and degree of relationship are _____ the cost.

A) equal to
B) higher than
C) lower than
D) not equal to

Question 10

A general finding in decision making research is that people are risk _____ when a problem is positively framed (as in how many lives will be saved), but they are risk _____ when a problem is negatively framed (as in how many lives will be lost).

A) averse, seeking
B) negative, positive
C) positive, negative
D)seeking, averse

Question 11

There is everywhere a _____ correlation between the average or characteristic of kinship categories and the levels of solidarity and cooperation among those so related.

A) strong negative
B) strong positive
C) weak negative
D) weak positive

Question 12

The dimension of the characteristic closeness of kinship categories is always _____ correlated with the characteristic number of genealogical links defining them; in other words, the degree of genetic relationship parallels the expectation of closeness.

A) negatively
B) positively
C) strongly
D) weakly

Question 13

The equation c

A) Darwin's
B) Hamilton's
C) Lorenz's
D) Trivers'

Question 14

In studies of helping behavior among kin, it was found that individuals were more likely to help someone _____ in a life-and-death situation, but more likely to help someone _____ in an everyday situation.

A) closely related, distantly related
B) in good health, in poor health
C) older than them, younger than them
D) who had helped them, who had not helped them

Question 15

In all societies, people are motivated to inquire how new acquaintances might be related to people they already know and feel they _____ when such links are uncovered.

A) are now also related
B) can now trust the person
C) have acquired useful information
D) have an obligation to help

Question 16

Unlike most species, most human infants receive care from

A) both parents.
B) mothers and her sisters.
C) multiple generations.
D) the whole group.

Question 17

All cultures extend kinship terms to non-kin, using them figuratively rather than literally, for evocative and propagandistic purposes. In such cases, the people in those cultures

A) can easily distinguish what is expected of that person.
B) do this to take advantage of others.
C) then feel obliged to offer aid and support to them.
D) treat such people as if they were kin.

Question 18

_____ relationships are the fundamental building blocks of kinship systems, so the terminology implies a genealogy. You say "my brother" to refer to another individual who was born from your mother.

A) Husband-wife
B) Mother-father
C) Parent-offspring
D) Self-other

Question 19

Wang and his colleagues found that people are more prone to making riskier decisions regarding life and death when ____ are involved than when _____ are involved.

A) kin, nonkin
B) males, females
C) parents, offspring
D) young, elderly

Question 20

One crucial factor that drives human _____ dynamics is the fact that the human is born less mature than other species and requires a long period of care for maturation; this makes an infant's family crucial in its well-being and survival.

A) developmental
B) kinship
C) parental
D) social

Question 21

Hamilton's _____ theory predicts that altruism will be expressed for those whom one is most closely related to and that conflict will increase and cooperation will decrease with decreasing relatedness.

Question 22

People use Hamilton's rule to determine their behaviors toward their relatives

A) and they are conscious of what they are doing.
B) even though they may not be conscious of it.
C) once they have learned how to use it.
D) only in extreme cases of dire need.

Question 23

_____ states that a behavior will evolve if the cost to the individual is outweighed by the gain to another multiplied by the degree of genetic relationship.

Question 24

Different cultures in widely separated areas show similar systems of _____, which appear to be derived from three larger principles: genealogical distance, social rank, and group membership.

A) altruism
B) family structure
C) kin classification
D) reciprocity

Question 25

Based on Hamilton's kin selection theory, it is hypothesized that conflict will increase and cooperation decrease with _____ relatedness.

A) decreasing
B) family
C) generational
D) increasing

Question 26

Based on Hamilton's rule, deceit, manipulation, and exploitation will _____ as relatedness decreases among kin.

A) appear
B) decrease
C) disappear
D) increase

Question 27

The question of why organisms would perform actions that benefited others but not themselves is referred to as _____.

Question 28

_____ refers to the set of terms we use to denote genetic relationships; cross-culturally, these terms appear to be derived from three basic principles: genealogical distance, social rank, and group membership.

Question 29

Because men can never be certain they are the father of their partner's children, they have evolved the ability to recognize _____ characteristics of an infant shared with the parent.

A) behavioral
B) dispositional
C) genetic
D) physical

Question 30

Based on Hamilton's theory, we would expect to see altruistic _____ family relations dominating kin relationships because they tend to support the success of the infant's development.

Question 31

According to Hamilton's theory, _____ will increase as relatedness increases between kin; that is to say, family members will help each other in relation to their genetic relatedness.

Question 32

An important question is whether relationships between individuals could be structured like language. If this were so, it would contradict the traditional _____, which suggests all relationships are learned and structured by custom.

A) Cooperative Breeding Model
B) Language Acquisition Device
C) Parental Investment Theory
D) Standard Social Science Model

Question 33

Female _____ bias suggests that more altruistic behaviors will be shown by the mother than by the father because it is easier to know exactly who the mother of an infant is than to know who the father is.

Question 34

Humans are an exception to the typical mammalian style of _____. For over 95% of mamal species, the female provides almost all the care for the offspring, with the male contributing little more than sperm, and this is true even for chimpanzees and bonobos, the two species most closely related to humans.

Question 35

Hamilton explained altruism in terms of _____; that is to say, an altruistic behavior will evolve if it aids the survival of genes shared by the one conferring the benefit and the one receiving it.

Question 36

The _____model suggests that during the Pleistocene period, the era before the development of farming 10,000 years ago, a human infant needed the attention of a number of individuals in order to survive.

Question 37

In humans, there are data to suggest that genetic factors that influence _____ characteristics may be important markers for indexing relationships.

A) body
B) cognitive
C) facial
D) personality

Question 38

It is hypothesized that altruistic nuclear families will dominate kin relationships in order to

A) increase the resources of the family as a whole.
B) protect its members from competition and conflict.
C) share resources among family members.
D) support the success of the infant's development.

Question 39

Because it is easier to know who the mother of an infant was than the father, it is more likely that more _____ behaviors will be shown by the mother.

A) altruistic
B) cooperative
C) selfish
D) social

Question 40

A variety of studies have suggested that we tend to marry others who are, overall, _____ to ourselves.

A) complementary
B) dissimilar
C) similar
D) unrelated

Question 41

Hamilton suggested that organisms would perform _____ acts if those acts led to genes similar to their own being passed on; that is to say, you are more likely to help kin than strangers.

Question 42

_____ kindred terminologies are universal; around the world, family relationships are described in relation to a particular individual. If you say "my mother," you are describing only one person in the world.

Question 43

In addition to self-preservation, family relationships appear to influence who you choose to partner with in later life and the nature of those relationships. On a social level, genetic _____ strategy, as suggested by Hamilton (1996), is at the basis of a variety of processes, including who helps whom and to what extent, who shows violence to whom, and what categories of relationship take precedence over others.

Question 44

Trivers (1974) addressed the question of _____, which considers the situation in which a mother and child are both seeking to optimize their resources; one clear example is weaning, in which the mother wishes to wean the child before the child wants to be weaned.

Question 45

The naive view was that natural selection would always reward _____ behavior, and thus it was difficult to explain why an organism would engage in behaviors that had a cost, but Hamilton suggested that the situation was more complicated that this.

Question 46

Discuss the factors that lead to violence in the family. How can family violence be reconciled with kin selection?

Question 47

There is reason to believe that the need for human infant support extends beyond the parents and may have driven the involvement of _____ in infant care.

Question 48

Discuss the cooperative breeding model. What drove the evolution of such a model, and what are the consequences of it?

Question 49

Explain the three principles on which kin classification is derived. Are these principles universal, and if so, how do they impact the Standard Social Science Model? In what sense is kin classification like language?

Question 50

The _____ is a cognitive phenomenon in which there is a nonlogical reversal in a decision depending on whether the potential outcome is described in positive or negative terms.

Question 51

Why is the prevalence of altruism a problem for traditional evolutionary theory? How does Hamilton explain altruism in evolutionary terms? According to Hamilton's theory, under what conditions would we expect to observe altruistic behavior? Does Hamilton provide a complete account of altruism?

Question 52

The _____ hypothesis suggests that menopause and the resulting end of producing offspring evolved as a means of increasing the survival odds of children related to an older woman. That is to say, if she can help take care of her daughter's children and increase the likelihood of their survival, this would be an advantage.

Question 53

The human family is a very unusual social structure compared to other mammalian species. What specific human need led to the evolution of family structure? What are some features of family life that result from this need?

Question 54

In all societies, one's beliefs about one's genealogical links are core components of the phenomenology of _____. Who I am is strongly related to who my relatives are. The idea of tribe is also related to one's core identity.

Question 55

Friends or relatives who help a mother provide care for her offspring are called _____.