Violence against stepchildren

Current Directions in Psychological Science

Volumn 5, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 77-80

  Daly, Martin ^a   Wilson, Margo I ^b  

^a MCMASTER UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0030305187     PISSN: 09637214     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.ep10772793     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. R. Laurent, Manslaughter trial ordered in death of 2-year-old boy, Montreal Gazette (March 14, 1992), p. A3; C. Buckie, Man accused in boy's death denies charge, Montreal Gazette (April 3, 1993), p. A3; M. King, Man convicted of manslaughter in infant's death, Montreal Gazette (April 22, 1993), p. A3.
2. R. Laurent, Manslaughter trial ordered in death of 2-year-old boy, Montreal Gazette (March 14, 1992), p. A3; C. Buckie, Man accused in boy's death denies charge, Montreal Gazette (April 3, 1993), p. A3; M. King, Man convicted of manslaughter in infant's death, Montreal Gazette (April 22, 1993), p. A3.
3. R. Laurent, Manslaughter trial ordered in death of 2-year-old boy, Montreal Gazette (March 14, 1992), p. A3; C. Buckie, Man accused in boy's death denies charge, Montreal Gazette (April 3, 1993), p. A3; M. King, Man convicted of manslaughter in infant's death, Montreal Gazette (April 22, 1993), p. A3.
4. The great majority of stepparental homicides, in Canada and elsewhere, are perpetrated by men, but of course small children seldom live with stepmothers. Stepparents of both sexes are overrepresented as both abusers and killers, relative to same-sex genetic parents, but stepmother homes are too rare for reliable estimation of rates.
5. M.I. Wilson, M. Daly, and S.J. Weghorst, Household composition and the risk of child abuse and neglect, Journal of Biosocial Science, 12, 333-340 (1980).
6. M. Daly and M.I. Wilson, Child abuse and other risks of not living with both parents, Ethology and Sociobiology, 6, 197-210 (1985).
7. S.J. Creighton, An epidemiological study of abused children and their families in the United Kingdom between 1977 and 1982, Child Abuse and Neglect, 9, 441-448 (1985).
8. M. Daly and M.I. Wilson, Evolutionary social psychology and family homicide, Science, 242, 519-524 (1988).
9. M. Daly and M.I. Wilson, Some differential attributes of lethal assaults on small children by stepfathers versus genetic fathers, Ethology and Sociobiology, 15, 207-217 (1994).
10. M.I. Wilson and M. Daly, Risk of maltreatment of children living with stepparents, in Child Abuse and Neglect: Biosocial Dimensions, R.J. Gelles and J.B. Lancaster, Eds. (Aldine de Gruyter, New York, 1987).
11. J.L. Lightcap, J.A. Kurland, and R.L. Burgess, Child abuse: A test of some predictions from evolutionary theory, Ethology and Sociobiology, 3, 61-67 (1982).
12. M.V. Flinn, Step- and genetic parent/ offspring relationships in a Caribbean village, Ethology and Sociobiology, 9, 335-369 (1988); K. Kim and B. Ko, An incidence survey of battered children in two elementary schools of Seoul, Child Abuse and Neglect, 14, 273-276 (1990); D.E.H. Russell, The prevalence and seriousness of incestuous abuse: Stepfathers vs. biological fathers, Child Abuse and Neglect, 8, 15-22 (1984).
13. M.V. Flinn, Step- and genetic parent/ offspring relationships in a Caribbean village, Ethology and Sociobiology, 9, 335-369 (1988); K. Kim and B. Ko, An incidence survey of battered children in two elementary schools of Seoul, Child Abuse and Neglect, 14, 273-276 (1990); D.E.H. Russell, The prevalence and seriousness of incestuous abuse: Stepfathers vs. biological fathers, Child Abuse and Neglect, 8, 15-22 (1984).
14. M.V. Flinn, Step- and genetic parent/ offspring relationships in a Caribbean village, Ethology and Sociobiology, 9, 335-369 (1988); K. Kim and B. Ko, An incidence survey of battered children in two elementary schools of Seoul, Child Abuse and Neglect, 14, 273-276 (1990); D.E.H. Russell, The prevalence and seriousness of incestuous abuse: Stepfathers vs. biological fathers, Child Abuse and Neglect, 8, 15-22 (1984).
15. K. Hill and H. Kaplan, Tradeoffs in male and female reproductive strategies among the Ache, part 2, in Human Reproductive Behavior, L. Betzig, M. Borgerhoff Mulder, and P. Turke, Eds. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1988).
16. C. Hobart, Conflict in remarriages, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 15, 69-86 (1991); J.W. Santrock and K. A. Sitterle, Parent-child relationships in stepmother families, in Remarriage and Stepparenting: Current Research and Theory, K. Pasley and M. Ihinger-Tallman, Eds. (Guilford Press, New York, 1987); L.K. White and A. Booth, The quality and stability of remarriages: The role of stepchildren, American Sociological Review, 50, 689-698 (1985).
17. C. Hobart, Conflict in remarriages, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 15, 69-86 (1991); J.W. Santrock and K. A. Sitterle, Parent-child relationships in stepmother families, in Remarriage and Stepparenting: Current Research and Theory, K. Pasley and M. Ihinger-Tallman, Eds. (Guilford Press, New York, 1987); L.K. White and A. Booth, The quality and stability of remarriages: The role of stepchildren, American Sociological Review, 50, 689-698 (1985).
18. C. Hobart, Conflict in remarriages, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 15, 69-86 (1991); J.W. Santrock and K. A. Sitterle, Parent-child relationships in stepmother families, in Remarriage and Stepparenting: Current Research and Theory, K. Pasley and M. Ihinger-Tallman, Eds. (Guilford Press, New York, 1987); L.K. White and A. Booth, The quality and stability of remarriages: The role of stepchildren, American Sociological Review, 50, 689-698 (1985).
19. L.R. Bryan, M. Coleman, L. Ganong, and S.H. Bryan, Person perception: Family structure as a cue for stereotyping, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 169-174 (1986). Unfortunately, by calling these attributions stereotypes and myths, researchers have misleadingly implied that they are unfounded.
20. M. Daly and M.I. Wilson, Stepparenthood and the evolved psychology of discriminative parental solicitude, in Infanticide and Parental Care, S. Parmigiani and F. vom Saal, Eds. (Harwood Science Publishers, Chur, Switzerland, 1993).
21. M. Daly and M.I. Wilson, Discriminative parental solicitude and the relevance of evolutionary models to the analysis of motivational systems, in The Cognitive Neurosciences, M. Gazzaniga, Ed. (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995).
22. See, e.g., N. Howell, Demography of the Dobe !Kung (Academic Press, New York, 1979). This argument against the social-saccharin hypothesis specifically applies only to stepparenthood, which has long been an incidental consequence of remarriage, and not to the apparently novel Western practice of adopting children unrelated to either parent.
23. J. Dupâquier, E. Hélin, P. Laslett, M. Livi-Bacci, and S. Segner, Eds., Marriage and Remarriage in Populations of the Past (Academic Press, London, 1981).
24. E. Voland, Differential infant and child mortality in evolutionary perspective: Data from late 17th to 19th century Ostfriesland, in Human Reproductive Behavior, L. Betzig, M. Borgerhoff Mulder, and P. Turke, Eds. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1988).
25. M. Daly and M.I. Wilson, Evolutionary psychology and marital conflict: The relevance of stepchildren, in Sex, Power, Conflict: Feminist and Evolutionary Perspectives, D.M. Buss and N. Malamuth, Eds. (Oxford University Press, New York, in press).
26. D. Symons, If we're all Darwinians, what's the fuss about? in Sociobiology and Psychology, C. Crawford, M. Smith, and D. Krebs, Eds. (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1987).