Descent systems, paternity uncertainty and cousin-directed altruism

Abstract

Jeon and Buss (2007) found that human altruistic tendencies towards different categories of cousins are adaptively regulated as a consequence of paternity uncertainty. Since the study sample was drawn from a large US city where the effects of patrilineality may be week, the question of whether descent systems also independently affect cousin-directed altruism remained unanswered. We replicated the cousin-directed altruism study in a population of urban Korean college students, who have lived in a highly patrilineal society. As predicted, mother's sister's children were favored the most, followed by both mother's brother's and father's sister's children. Contrary to our predictions, however, father's brother's children was more, not less, favored than either mother's brother's or father's sister's children. We discuss why this cross-cultural difference may be observed with regard to the highly patrilineal culture in Korea.