ArticleHuman nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)2026
Sex Biases in Patterns of Parental Investment.
Article in Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Most research on human parental investment has focused on overall parental effort or resource allocation, overlooking the fact that human investment spans a broad suite of material, instructional, and social forms of investment. This array of investment enables examination of how evolutionary processes have elaborated parental care into distinct domains. Where daughters and sons historically faced different recurrent adaptive problems, selection should have favoured biases in parental investment that cultivate in each offspring the competencies relevant to its sex-specific challenges (e.g., navigating greater reproductive costs for daughters; navigating contest competition for sons). Likewise, mothers and fathers should differ in parental investment domains where their own evolutionary and life histories afforded greater sex-specific expertise. To test these hypotheses, we used linear mixed-effect models to analyse 105 adults' (49.5% female) ratings of parental investment received across 73 behaviours organised into 13 domains. Results were largely consistent with predictions. Daughters received more parental investment in mating and relationship guidance, protection, and material support. Sons received greater parental investment in athletic training, permissiveness regarding sexual behaviour, and competitive encouragement. Mothers invested more than fathers in direct care, bonding, social and moral guidance, and discipline. Fathers invested more in athletics, and mechanical and practical skills. Domains linked to adaptive challenges common to both sexes (e.g., direct care) showed no offspring-sex differences in parental investment. The patterns accord with the evolutionary hypothesis that parental investment maps onto sex-differentiated adaptive problems. Discussion explores hypotheses about the interactions between socialisation practices of parents and sex-linked predispositions in offspring.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.