Genomic conflict is perplexing because it causes the fitness of a species to decline rather than improve. Many diverse forms of genomic conflict have been identified, but this extant tally may be incomplete. Here, we show that the unusual characteristics of the sex chromosomes can, in principle, lead to a previously unappreciated form of sexual genomic conflict. The phenomenon occurs because th...

Care is complex but recent advances are helping to unravel this complexity. The factors that promote the evolutionary origins of care and those promoting the subsequent evolution, diversification and maintenance of care are not the same. Theoretical and empirical research suggest that the origin of parental care will depend primarily on offspring survival in the absence of care, as long as ther...

BACKGROUND In species across taxa, offspring have means to influence parental investment (PI). PI thus evolves as an interacting phenotype and indirect genetic effects may strongly affect the co-evolutionary dynamics of offspring and parental behaviors. Evolutionary theory focused on explaining how exaggerated offspring solicitation can be understood as resolution of parent-offspring conflict, ...

OBJECTIVES To explore the intergenerational cycle of violence, the present study examined the relationship between parental approval and children's approval of corporal punishment (CP) and the subsequent relationship between children's CP experience and preference for hitting to resolve interpersonal conflict. METHOD Participants consisted of 102 families, parents, and children, ages 3-7 year...

The struggle to balance work responsibilities with family obligations may be most difficult for working parents of the youngest children, those five and under. Any policy changes designed to ease the difficulties for these families are likely to be controversial, requiring a careful effort to weigh both the costs and benefits of possible interventions while respecting diverse and at times confl...

Research on the attachment theory has contributed to a better understanding of the parental or caregiver relationship with their children. However, research on adult attachment and perceptions of relational conflict is minimal. This study looked at the relationship between adult attachment, self-esteem and romantic relationship conflict. Participants (N = 120) completed a questionnaire with mea...

This study examined the interplay between interparental conflict and child cortisol reactivity to interparental conflict in predicting child maladjustment in a sample of 178 families and their kindergarten children. Consistent with the allostatic load hypothesis (McEwen & Stellar, 1993), results indicated that interparental conflict was indirectly related to child maladjustment through its asso...

Preschool children (N = 107) were divided into 4 groups on the basis of maternal report; home and shelter groups exposed to verbal and physical conflict, a home group exposed to verbal conflict only, and a home control group. Parental ratings of behavior problems and competencies and children's self-report data were collected. Results show that verbal conflict only was associated with a moderat...

Animals that provide care to their offspring are likely to face time constraints and, consequently, need to trade-off allocations of time among different behavioural activities. Parental allocation of time is often influenced by intrafamilial conflicts including conflicts of interests between parent and offspring and between parents over optimal parental effort. We investigated effects of offsp...