I wonder if anyone did a systematic study of spouse vs offspring preference in humans.
My hypothesis would be that when not "allowed" to sacrifice self men would choose to save spouse over a child, and that women would choose to save a child over spouse, and that female preference would be stronger than the male one, and that a size of sex effect in women would be negatively correlated with the number of children and positively with their age.
Interesting! I don't remember seeing a study looking at that issue. Your prediction sounds plausible to me, although so do others - e.g., that men would be more likely to save the child than the spouse, even if less likely than women to do so.
Yes also possible. The main idea here is that men would be much more invested in protecting the other parent than women which basically extends the society/community pattern of "men being more disposable women being more valuable (even as chattels)" into the family unit and that children are biologically cheaper for most men, even with confidence in paternity (tho that's by default never complete).
It's also inspired by entirely anecdatal answers to this question from a few parents of both sexes.
Makes sense. On the other hand, disposability could just as well mean men would risk their lives for kids as for mates. And men are as closely related to their kids as women are, so in terms of genetic relatedness, we wouldn't expect to see a difference in willingness to save kids. I'd love to see data on this!
I wonder if anyone did a systematic study of spouse vs offspring preference in humans.
My hypothesis would be that when not "allowed" to sacrifice self men would choose to save spouse over a child, and that women would choose to save a child over spouse, and that female preference would be stronger than the male one, and that a size of sex effect in women would be negatively correlated with the number of children and positively with their age.
Interesting! I don't remember seeing a study looking at that issue. Your prediction sounds plausible to me, although so do others - e.g., that men would be more likely to save the child than the spouse, even if less likely than women to do so.
Yes also possible. The main idea here is that men would be much more invested in protecting the other parent than women which basically extends the society/community pattern of "men being more disposable women being more valuable (even as chattels)" into the family unit and that children are biologically cheaper for most men, even with confidence in paternity (tho that's by default never complete).
It's also inspired by entirely anecdatal answers to this question from a few parents of both sexes.
Makes sense. On the other hand, disposability could just as well mean men would risk their lives for kids as for mates. And men are as closely related to their kids as women are, so in terms of genetic relatedness, we wouldn't expect to see a difference in willingness to save kids. I'd love to see data on this!
The man might be sure his children are his but who’s going to raise them if mom dies? Better to save mom and start new family.
Makes sense sadly - especially if the child is very young.