Decades of Trivers-Willard research on humans: What conclusions can be drawn?

IF 3 1区心理学 Q1 BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Evolution and Human Behavior Pub Date : 2023-07-01 DOI:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2023.03.005

Valentin Thouzeau , Jeanne Bollée , Alejandrina Cristia , Coralie Chevallier

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The Trivers-Willard hypothesis predicts that parents in good condition are positively biased towards sons, while parents in poor condition are positively biased towards daughters. An extensive literature testing this hypothesis has accumulated in the last five decades. We take stock of results concerning humans in a systematic review, which yielded 87 articles, reporting a total of 821 hypothesis tests. A p-curving analysis did not reveal a pattern of p-values consistent with p-hacking. Effects are consistent with the Trivers-Willard hypothesis overall. We then went on to check whether there was a difference between sex ratio and post-birth investment. Theoretical work suggests that, the conditions under which the Trivers-Willard hypothesis is verified should be more restrictive in the case of post-birth investment than for sex ratio. We explored this question in two ways and obtained mixed results. We put forward recommendations for future studies that aim to further assess the validity of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis or mechanisms subtending it, and we discuss the implications of different ways of measuring parental status and investment.

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几十年的特里弗斯-威拉德人类研究:可以得出什么结论?

Trivers-Willard假说预测，条件好的父母对儿子有正向偏见，而条件差的父母对女儿有正向偏见。在过去的五十年中积累了大量的文献来检验这一假设。我们在一篇系统综述中总结了有关人类的结果，共发表了87篇文章，报告了821项假设检验。p曲线分析没有揭示出与p黑客行为一致的p值模式。总体而言，效果与Trivers-Willard假说一致。然后，我们继续检查性别比例和出生后投资之间是否存在差异。理论工作表明，在出生后投资的情况下，验证Trivers-Willard假说的条件应该比性别比例更具限制性。我们从两个方面探讨了这个问题，结果喜忧参半。我们为未来的研究提出了建议，旨在进一步评估Trivers-Willard假说或其机制的有效性，并讨论了衡量父母地位和投资的不同方法的影响。

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来源期刊

Evolution and Human Behavior 生物-行为科学

CiteScore

8.30

自引率

9.80%

发文量

审稿时长

82 days

期刊介绍： Evolution and Human Behavior is an interdisciplinary journal, presenting research reports and theory in which evolutionary perspectives are brought to bear on the study of human behavior. It is primarily a scientific journal, but submissions from scholars in the humanities are also encouraged. Papers reporting on theoretical and empirical work on other species will be welcome if their relevance to the human animal is apparent.