Abstract
The model of sexual selection under parental choice has been proposed to account for the control that parents exercise over their children’s mating decisions. The present paper attempts to formalize and advance this model with the purpose of providing a better understanding of how parental choice mandates the course of sexual selection. In particular, in the proposed formulation, free mate choice involves an opportunity cost which motivates parents to place their children’s mate choices under their control. When they succeed in doing so, they become a significant sexual selection force, as traits that appeal to parents in an in-law are selected and increase in frequency in the population. The degree of parental control over mating, and thus the strength of sexual selection under parental choice, is positively predicted by the size of the opportunity cost of free mate choice. The primary factors that affect the level of opportunity cost vary between society types, affecting the strength of parental choice as a sexual selection force.
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The author would like to thank Georgia Kapitsaki and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback which enabled the improvement of this work.
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Appendix: Factors
Appendix: Factors
(a) The level of available resources in a given context.
(b) The benefit parents receive in terms of desirable traits when they control mate choice.
(c) The cost that children suffer when their parents control their mating decisions.
(d) Parents’ capacity to inflict a cost to their children in order to align them with their will.
(e) The degree of children’s dependence on their parents’ resources.
(f) The potential of (b) to be converted into fitness benefits.
(h) The cost that parents can impose on their children by applying physical force.
(i) The cost that parents can impose on their children through social institutions.
(j) The psychological cost that parents can impose on their children.
(k) The risk that children face to make mistakes when they exercise mate choice.
(l) The risk that a child faces of not being able to attract a mate.
(m) The strength of parental control over mating.
(n) The impact that a wrong mate choice will have on children.
(o converging) The opportunity cost of free mate choice coming from converging genetic interests.
(o diverging) The opportunity cost of free mate choice coming from diverging genetic interests.
(p) The probability that one is actually an individual’s genetic relative.
(q) The cost parents suffer when they inflict a cost to their children.
(r) The degree of genetic relatedness.
(\( \bar{r} \)) The degree of genetic relatedness (r) multiplied by the probability (p) that one is actually an individual’s genetic relative.
(s) The personality traits of a child that negatively influence success in attracting a mate.
(t) The traits of children which may turn them prone in making unwise mate choices.
(v) An individual’s mate value.
(w) Parental resources which are diverted to children in the form of parental investment.
(x) The personality traits of a child that negatively influence success in attracting a mate.
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Apostolou, M. Sexual selection and the opportunity cost of free mate choice. Theory Biosci. 135, 45–57 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-016-0222-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-016-0222-1