Evolution & Human Behavior
Volume 28, Issue 3 , Pages 199-210 , May 2007

Influences on communication about reproduction: the cultural evolution of low fertility

  • Lesley Newson

      Affiliations

    • School of Psychology, University of Exeter, EX4 4QG England, UK
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author.
  • ,
  • Tom Postmes

      Affiliations

    • School of Psychology, University of Exeter, EX4 4QG England, UK
  • ,
  • S.E.G. Lea

      Affiliations

    • School of Psychology, University of Exeter, EX4 4QG England, UK
  • ,
  • Paul Webley

      Affiliations

    • School of Psychology, University of Exeter, EX4 4QG England, UK
  • ,
  • Peter J. Richerson

      Affiliations

    • Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
  • ,
  • Richard Mcelreath

      Affiliations

    • Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA

Received 17 August 2006 ,Accepted 2 January 2007.

References 

  1. Alstott AL. No exit: What parents owe their children and what society owes parents. New York: Oxford University Press; 2004;
  2. Axinn WG, Barber JS. Mass education and fertility transition. American Sociological Review. 2001;66(4):481–505
  3. Axinn WG, Yabiku ST. Social change, the social organization of families, and fertility limitation. American Journal of Sociology. 2001;106(5):1219–1261
  4. Barber JS, Pearce LD, Chaudhury I, Gurung S. Voluntary associations and fertility limitation. Social Forces. 2002;80:1369–1401
  5. Behrman JR, Kohler HP, Watkins SC. Social networks and changes in contraception use over time: Evidence from a longitudinal study in rural Kenya. Demography. 2002;39:713–718
  6. Bongaarts J, Watkins SC. Social interactions and contemporary fertility transitions. Population And Development Review. 1996;22:639–682
  7. Borgerhoff Mulder M. Kipsigis bridewealth payments. In:  Betzig L, et al. editor. Human Reproductive Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1988;p. 405–427
  8. Borgerhoff Mulder M. The demographic transition: Are we any closer to an evolutionary explanation?. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 1998;13:266–270
  9. Boulay M, Valente TW. The relationship of social affiliation and interpersonal discussion to family planning knowledge, attitudes and practice. International Family Planning Perspectives. 1999;25:112–118
  10. Boyd R, Richerson P. Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: Chicago University Press; 1985;
  11. Boyd R, Gintis H, Bowles S, Richerson PJ. The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2003;100(6):3531–3535
  12. Buss DM. Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 1989;12:1–49
  13. Buss DM, Shackelford TK, Kirkpatrick LA, Larson RJ. A half century of mate preferences: The cultural evolution of values. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 2001;63:491–503
  14. Caldwell JC, Caldwell P. The cultural-context of high fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. Population And Development Review. 1987;13(3):409–437
  15. Cavelli-Sforza L, Feldman M. Cultural transmission and evolution: A quantitative approach. In: Monographs in Population Biology. Vol. 16:Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1981;
  16. Chagnon N. Life histories, blood revenge, and warfare in a tribal population. Science. 1988;239:985–992
  17. Cronk L. Low socio-economic status and female biased parental investment: The Mukogodo example. American Anthropologist. 1989;91:414–429
  18. Cronk L. Human behavioral ecology. Annual Review of Anthropology. 1991;20:25–53
  19. Durham WH. Coevolution: Genes, culture, and human diversity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; 1991;
  20. Foley R. The adaptive legacy of human evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology. 1996;4:194–203
  21. Godley J. Kinship networks and contraceptive choice in Nang Rong, Thailand. International Family Planning Perspectives. 2001;27(1):4–10
  22. Hamilton WD. The genetical evolution of social behaviour, I. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 1964;7:1–16
  23. Hawkes K, O'Connell JF, Blurton-Jones NG. Hadza women's time allocation, offspring provisioning, and the evolution of long post-menopausal lifespans. Current Anthropology. 1997;38:551–577
  24. Hill K. Life history theory and evolutionary anthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology. 1993;2:78–88
  25. Hill K, Hurtado AM. Ache life history: The ecology and demography of a foraging people. New York: Aldine de Gruyter; 1996;
  26. Hrdy SB. Mother nature: A history of mothers, infants, and natural selection. New York: Pantheon; 1999;
  27. Irons W. Cultural and biological success. In:  Chagnon N,  Irons W editor. Evolutionary biology and human social behavior: An anthropological perspective. Belmont, CA: Duxbury Press; 1979;p. 257–272
  28. Kaplan HS, Lancaster JB, Johnson SE, Bock JA. Does observed fertility maximise fitness among New Mexican men? A test of an optimality model and a new theory of parental investment in the embodied capital of offspring. Human Nature. 1995;6:325–360
  29. Kohler HP. Fertility and social interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2001;
  30. Krebs JR, Dawkins R. Animal signals, mind-reading and manipulation. In:  Krebs JR,  Davies NB editor. Behavioral ecology. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific; 1984;p. 380–402
  31. Lorimer F. Culture and human fertility. Zurich: UNESCO; 1954;
  32. Low BS. Ecological demography: A synthetic focus in evolutionary anthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology. 1993;1:177–187
  33. Low BS. Sex, wealth and fertility: Old rules in new environments. In:  Cronk L,  Chagnon N,  Irons W editor. Human behavior and adaptations: An anthropological perspective. New York: Aldine de Gruyter; 1999;
  34. Low BS. Why sex matters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 2000;
  35. Lumsden CJ, Wilson EO. Genes, mind, and culture. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press; 1981;
  36. Mace R. The co-evolution of human fertility and wealth inheritance strategies. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B-Biological Sciences. 1998;353:1367–1389
  37. Mace R. Evolutionary ecology of human life history. Animal Behavior. 2000;59:1–10
  38. Mack D. The assault on parenthood: How our culture undermines the family. New York: Simon and Schuster; 1997;
  39. McCullagh P, Nelder JA. Generalized linear models. London: Chapman and Hall; 1989;
  40. Newson L, Postmes T, Lea SEG, Webley P. Why are modern families small? Toward an evolutionary and cultural explanation for the demographic transition. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 2005;9:360–375
  41. Notestein FW. Economic problems of population change. In: The economics of population and food supplies. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of Agricultural Economics. London: Oxford University Press; 1945;p. 13–31
  42. Ogburn WF, Nimkoff MF. Technology and the changing family. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; 1955;
  43. Postmes T, Haslam SA, Swaab R. Social influence in small groups: An interactive model of social identity formation. European Review of Social Psychology. 2005;16:1–42
  44. Richerson PJ, Boyd R. The evolution of subjective commitment to groups: A tribal instincts hypothesis. In:  Nesse RM editors. The evolution of commitment. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation; 2001;p. 186–220
  45. Richerson PJ, Boyd R. Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago: Chicago University Press; 2005;
  46. Richerson PJ, Boyd R, Henrich J. Cultural evolution of human cooperation. In:  Hammerstein P editors. Genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2003;p. 357–388
  47. Schmitt DP. Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2005;28(2):247–275
  48. Symons D. The evolution of human sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press; 1979;
  49. Thornton A, Frick T. Social change and the family: Comparative perspectives from the West, China, and South Asia. Sociological Forum. 1987;2(4):746–779
  50. Tooby J, Cosmides L. The psychological foundations of culture. In:  Barkow JH,  Cosmides L,  Tooby J editor. The adapted mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1992;p. 19–136
  51. Turke P. Evolution and the demand for children. Population And Development Review. 1989;15:61–90
  52. Turner JC. Social influence. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press; 1991;
  53. Valente TW, Watkins SC, Jato MN, van de Straten A, Tsitsol LM. Social network associations with contraceptive use among Cameroonian women in voluntary association. Social Science & Medicine. 1997;45:677–687
  54. Voland E. Evolutionary ecology of human reproduction. Annual Review of Anthropology. 1998;27:347–374
  55. Wang F, Lee J, Campbell C. Marital fertility control among the Qing nobility: Implications for two types of preventive checks. Population Studies. 1995;49:383–400
  56. Watkins SC. From local to national communities: The transformation of demographic regimes in Western Europe, 1870–1960. Population And Development Review. 1990;16:241–272
  57. Watkins SC, Danzi AD. Women's gossip and social-change: Childbirth and fertility-control among Italian and Jewish women in the United States, 1920–1940. Gender & Society. 1995;9(4):469–490
  58. Weinstein M, Sun TH, Chang MC, Freedman R. Household composition, extended kinship, and reproduction in Taiwan—1965–1985. Population Studies—A Journal Of Demography. 1990;44(2):217–239
  59. Zelinsky W. The hypothesis of the mobility transition. Geographical Review. 1971;61:219–249

 This research was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council Grant (RES-000-22-1261).

PII: S1090-5138(07)00004-9

doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.01.003

Evolution & Human Behavior
Volume 28, Issue 3 , Pages 199-210 , May 2007