Investimento materno :um estudo das relações entre variáveis moduladoras sob enfoque evolucionista

• Ano de defesa: 2012
• Autor(a) principal: Zortéa, Tiago Carlos
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo; BR; Mestrado em Psicologia; UFES; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia
• Palavras-chave em Português: Structural Modeling; Maternal Investment; Ecological Variables; Investimento materno; Variáveis ecológicas; Variáveis Biológicas; Modelos Estruturais; Mãe e filhos; Psicologia - Modelos matemáticos; Evolução - Psicologia; Sociobiologia; Expectativa (Psicologia); Psicologia; 159.9
• Link de acesso: http://repositorio.ufes.br/handle/10/3045

Parental investment is characterized as any investment made by the parent in offspring, increasing their chances of survival (and parents’ reproductive success), at the expense of the ability to invest in other offspring. This investment is modulated by ecological variables, characteristics of parents, and of children. From this assumption, this study raises the hypothesis that these effects are mediated by the mothers’ future expectations, which is affected by immediate environmental cues indicating that this investment could not achieve the desired results in the long term (reproductive success through the parental investment, for example). The objectives of this study were, therefore, (1) to verify the emergence of the latent variables ‘ecological conditions’, ‘mother characteristics’, ‘child characteristics’, ‘future expectations’ and ‘maternal investment’; (2) to test a multifactorial model of maternal investment, that could be influenced by ecological variables and child’s and mother’s characteristics through the mother’s future expectations; and (3) verify the existence of correlation between the observed variables. 98 mothers of children aged 0-9 years participated voluntarily in this study, with family income ranging from R$ 102.00 to R$ 21,800.00, which live in the metropolitan area of Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. The instrument consisted of a questionnaire accessing (a) variables of the child, (b) variables of the mother, (c) ecological variables (d) maternal investment (participation in several types of care), and (e) future expectations, including future discount, life expectancy and feelings about the future. Although some expected correlations have occurred, and the latent constructs ‘future expectations’ and ‘maternal investment’ have emerged, the constructs ‘ecological conditions’, ‘mother characteristics’ and ‘child characteristics’ did not emerge. The obtained structural equation model indicated that future expectations of the mother were affected by sex of the child and the quality of family life and, in turn, had a mild effect on maternal investment. The quality of family life was negatively correlated with future expectations, and the mothers of girls had higher expectations for the future than mothers of boys. The proximity of mother and child had a direct and strong effect on maternal investment, not mediated by future expectations. Both future expectations and mother-child proximity correlated positively with maternal investment. Socioeconomic variables were negatively correlated with future discount, as predicted by the literature. We conclude that although future expectations partially explains maternal investment, other variables of the mother-child relationship are independent of future expectation and most directly influence investment. We suggest that the set of variables that affect future expectations vary according to socioeconomic characteristics of the sample. Future studies should investigate whether ecological and biological variables (characteristics of the mother and child) will have an impact on maternal investment only when assuming critical values, since maternal investment of the participants in this study appeared to be more sensitive to aspects of interpersonal relationships.