Father Involvement, Reproductive Strategies, and the Sensitive Period

Abstract

After a long period of relative neglect, the role of the male in child-rearing is at last getting some attention in the social-behavioral and biological sciences (e.g., Mackey, 1985,1986; Taub, 1984). One reason for this new interest is the powerful concept of parental investment of Robert L. Trivers (Trivers, 1972,1985), which implies that under some circumstances males should invest substantially in their offspring.1 Patricia Draper and Henry Harpending (1982) have recently applied the parental investment concept to human reproductive strategies. They hypothesize that the young child’s experience of receiving (or not receiving) male parental investment in effect “sets” the reproductive strategy that individual will follow once he or she has reached puberty. Thus, for Draper and Harpending, early childhood is a sensitive period for reproductive strategies, and father’s role in early child-rearing in part determines adolescent sexual behavior.