Amid the changes that have diversified family life, studies have shown the continuing importance of attachment to kin through established patterns such as ties among full siblings and newer patterns such as efforts by donor-conceived individuals to find their donor siblings. Sociologists have good explanations for the diversity of family forms but not for the persistence of kinship ties. This article argues that evolutionary processes focused on genetic relatedness can provide a partial explanation for both the persistence and expansion of kinship ties. It proposes that the easing of social constraints on family-related behaviors and the resulting expansion of choices may have increased the importance of genetic relatedness in producing the current patterns. To illustrate this perspective, this article examines the consistency between patterns of financial assistance to kin and Hamilton’s rule, derived from the evolutionary theory of inclusive fitness, using the 1985 to 2019 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).

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在家庭生活多样化的变化中，研究表明，通过既定模式（例如兄弟姐妹之间的联系）和新模式（例如捐赠者受孕的个体努力寻找捐赠者兄弟姐妹），对亲属的依恋仍然很重要。社会学家对家庭形式的多样性有很好的解释，但对亲属关系的持续存在却没有。本文认为，关注遗传相关性的进化过程可以为亲属关系的持续和扩展提供部分解释。它提出，社会对家庭相关行为的限制的放松以及由此产生的选择的扩大可能增加了遗传相关性在产生当前模式中的重要性。为了说明这一观点，本文使用 1985 年至 2019 年收入动态面板研究 (PSID) 的波浪，检验了对亲属的经济援助模式与汉密尔顿规则之间的一致性，该规则源自包容性适应性的进化理论。

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