The evolution of parent–offspring conflict over mate choice

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Intergenerational conflict Sexual selection Parental resource distribution Theoretical model Direct versus indirect benefits Mate preference evolution Arranged marriage Good parent In human societies, parents often have a strong influence on the mate choice of their offspring. Moreover, empirical studies show that conflict over mate choice between parents and offspring is widespread across human cultures. Here we provide the first theoretical investigation into this conflict, showing that it may result from an underlying evolutionary conflict over parental resource distribution. We present a series of evolutionary simulations in which we gradually expand a standard model of sexual selection by the stepwise addition of elements of parental involvement. In our model, females obtain resources enhancing their fecundity from both their chosen mate and their parents. Potential mates differ in their ability to provide resources and may signal this ability. Both females and their parents can develop a preference for the signal, with both preferences influencing the realized mate choice of the female. Parents may differentially allocate resources among their daughters depending on the resource-provisioning abilities of their sons-in-law. When fecundity returns on investment are diminishing, we find that parents invest most in daughters whose mates provide few resources. Subsequently, the daughters evolve to exploit this allocation rule through their mate choice, which is not in the parents' best interests. This results in a conflict over mate choice between parents and their offspring, manifested as an ongoing divergence of offspring and parental preferences. We predict that the conflict should be most pronounced when fathers, as opposed to mothers, control resource allocation. Existing models of sexual selection focus on the coevolution of an exaggerated trait in one sex and a preference for that trait in the other These models assume that mate choice is influenced only by the choosing individuals and their prospective partners. Although this approach may be instructive for most organisms, it disregards the involvement of parents in their offspring's mating decisions—a salient feature of mate choice in humans (Apostolou, 2007a). Parental influence on mate choice is commonly observed across human cultures (Minturn, Grosse, & Haider, 1969; Apostolou, 2007a). The degree of parental influence varies strongly between cultures (Apostolou, 2010a,b), from limited influence in much of Western Europe to almost complete influence in some Hindu and Islamic societies, and, in general, in collectivistic societies (Buunk, Park, & Duncan, 2010). For instance, …