Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Roles Of Parents In Shaping Fathering Across Generations In Cebu, Philippines, Lee T. Gettler, Patty X. Kuo, Abet Bas, Judith B. Borja

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: This study examined how parental caregiving and parent–child closeness are associated with future fathering among 335 Filipino men who are participants in a long-running birth cohort study.

Background Few studies have multidecade longitudinal data to test the pathways through which parenting is transmitted across generations, with most relevant research conducted in the United States, Europe, and other similar settings. The roles of mothers and fathers in shaping their sons’ future parenting is particularly understudied despite fathers having the potential to positively influence child health and development.

Method: Participants’ mothers (Generation 1 [G1]) reported on caregiving during Generation 2 (G2) …

Sociosexuality, Testosterone, And Life History Status: Prospective Associations And Longitudinal Changes Among Men In Cebu, Philippines, Lee T. Gettler, Patty X. Kuo, Stacy Rosenbaum, Josephine L. Avila, Thomas W. Mcdade, Christopher W. Kuzawa

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Sociosexuality is defined as an individual's interest in uncommitted sexual activity and can be measured in terms of both psychological orientations and behavioral expression. In socio-ecological contexts in which adults monogamously partner and cooperate to raise children, individuals with unrestricted sociosexuality are likely to prioritize mating/competition over committed partnering and parenting. Given the importance of mother-father cooperation in the evolutionary past, humans may have the capacity to facultatively and opportunistically downregulate sociosexuality to focus on priorities related to invested partnering and parenting. To date, no prior studies have used longitudinal data to track within-individuals changes in sociosexuality as it relates …

Fathers’ Cortisol And Testosterone In The Days Around Infants’ Births Predict Later Paternal Involvement, Patty X. Kuo, Julia M. Braungart-Rieker, Jennifer E. Burke Lefever, Mallika S. Sarma, Molly O'Neill, Lee T. Gettler

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Human paternal behavior is multidimensional, and extant research has yet to delineate how hormone patterns may be related to different dimensions of fathering. Further, although studies vary in their measurement of hormones (i.e., basal or reactivity), it remains unclear whether basal and/or reactivity measures are predictive of different aspects of men’s parenting. We examined whether men’s testosterone and cortisol predicted fathers’ involvement in childcare and play with infants and whether fathers’ testosterone and cortisol changed during fathers’ first interaction with their newborn. Participants were 298 fathers whose partners gave birth in a UNICEF-designated “baby-friendly” hospital, which encourages fathers to hold …

Exploring The Links Between Early Life And Young Adulthood Social Experiences And Men’S Later Life Psychobiology As Fathers, Mallika S. Sarma, Patty X. Kuo, Sonny Agustin Bechayda, Christopher W. Kuzawa, Lee T. Gettler

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Early life cues of environmental harshness and unpredictability have been hypothesized to influence within-species variation in the timing of life history transitions and the dynamics of reproductive strategies, such as investments in mating and parenting. It is also believed that adolescence is an influential developmental period for male reproductive strategies, with those who achieve greater social and sexual success during that period maintaining faster life history strategies into adulthood. If correct, such early life and post-pubertal experiences could also help shape the psychobiological pathways that mediate reproductive strategies, including the well-documented physiological shifts that occur when some men become parents. …