Trivers

Trivers is a surname most prominently associated with the American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist Robert L. Trivers (born 1943). His theoretical work has profoundly influenced the study of social behavior across species and beyond biology into psychology and anthropology.

Key contributions include the theory of parental investment, which posits that the amount of care and resources a parent provides to offspring shapes mating strategies, sexual selection, and parental roles. He also introduced the concept of reciprocal altruism, explaining how cooperative behavior can evolve when individuals exchange benefits over time, even among non-relatives. Another core idea is parent-offspring conflict, the notion that offspring and parents may have competing interests over resource allocation, leading to predictable behavioral dynamics. In collaboration with Willard, he formulated the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, which suggests that parental condition can influence offspring sex ratios in species where the reproductive success of sons and daughters is differentially affected by parental status.

Trivers’ theories have been widely cited and integrated into multiple disciplines, contributing to the development of behavioral ecology, sociobiology, and related fields. The surname Trivers is primarily recognized through Robert L. Trivers, though the name may appear in other contexts as well.