Going that extra mile: individuals travel further to maintain face-to-face contact with highly related kin than with less related kin

The theory of inclusive fitness has transformed our understanding of cooperation and altruism. However, the proximate psychological underpinnings of altruism are less well understood, and it has been argued that emotional closeness mediates the relationship between genetic relatedness and altruism....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2013-01, Vol.8 (1), p.e53929-e53929
Main Authors: Pollet, Thomas V, Roberts, Sam G B, Dunbar, Robin I M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Altruism
Animal behavior
Biology
Child
Children
Comparative analysis
Cooperation
Costs
Emotions
Evolution
Family - psychology
Female
Fitness
Humans
Interdisciplinary aspects
Interpersonal Relations
Likelihood Functions
Male
Mediation
Medicine
Object Attachment
Parents
Psychology
Reproductive fitness
Siblings
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Social networks
Surveys and Questionnaires
Travel
Travel - psychology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The theory of inclusive fitness has transformed our understanding of cooperation and altruism. However, the proximate psychological underpinnings of altruism are less well understood, and it has been argued that emotional closeness mediates the relationship between genetic relatedness and altruism. In this study, we use a real-life costly behaviour (travel time) to dissociate the effects of genetic relatedness from emotional closeness. Participants travelled further to see more closely related kin, as compared to more distantly related kin. For distantly related kin, the level of emotional closeness mediated this relationship--when emotional closeness was controlled for, there was no effect of genetic relatedness on travel time. However, participants were willing to travel further to visit parents, children and siblings as compared to more distantly related kin, even when emotional closeness was controlled for. This suggests that the mediating effect of emotional closeness on altruism varies with levels of genetic relatedness.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0053929