Open AccessTesting the Trivers-Willard Hypothesis on Polish kings and dukes
Author(s) -
Piotr Sorokowski,
Marta Kowal,
Piotr Badyna,
Agnieszka Niemczyk,
Maciej Karwowski,
Sławomir Kozieł
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
anthropological review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.262
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 2083-4594
pISSN - 1898-6773
DOI - 10.2478/anre-2019-0030
Subject(s) - gentry , offspring , test (biology) , polygyny , psychology , genealogy , demography , history , biology , population , ecology , archaeology , sociology , pregnancy , genetics
The Trivers-Willard Hypothesis (TWH), frequently investigated by evolutionary psychologists, states that human beings may have evolved to produce a greater number of sons when having a high status, and a greater number of daughters when having a low status. To test this hypothesis, we examined the sex of children of Polish high status: kings, dukes, magnates families; and of low status: peasants, burghers and gentry. Our findings do not provide evidence for the Trivers-Willard Hypothesis (TWH), as there were no differences between offspring’s sex ratio among any of the investigated social classes (with the exception of magnates families). We draw our conclusions with caution, as historical data carry many limitations.