Visiting parents in times of COVID-19: The impact of parent-adult child contacts on the psychological health of the elderly

Using the 8th wave of the SHARE and the SHARE Corona Survey, we investigated whether the disruption of parent–adult child contacts due to social distancing restrictions increased the symptoms of depression among old age individuals during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We model the relationship between the disruption of parent–adult child contacts and the mental health of the elderly using a recursive simultaneous equation model for binary variables. Our findings show that the likelihood of disruption of parent–adult child contacts was higher with adult children who do not live with or close to their parents (i.e., in the same household or in the same building) for whom contact disruption increases about 15 %. The duration of restrictions to movement and lockdowns also has a positive and significant effect on parent-child contact disruption: an additional week of lockdown significantly increases the probability of parent-child contact disruption, by about 1.5 %. The interventions deemed essential to reduce the spread of the pandemic, such as the “stay-at-home” order, necessarily disrupted personal parent–child contacts and the social processes that facilitate psychological well-being, increasing the probability of suffering from a deepening depressed mood by about 17 % for elderly parents.     

Parental preferences for the facial traits of their offspring's partners can enhance parental inclusive fitness

Physical appearance provides a wealth of information concerning an individual's biological fitness and reproductive quality, but we do not know whether parents make use of this information when evaluating potential partners for their offspring. This is critical to our understanding of human mate choice, because parents frequently influence their offspring's mating decisions, either directly, for instance through arranged marriages, or indirectly, through manipulating their offspring's partner choice. Here, we used facial images that varied in attractiveness, masculinity, health, and symmetry to assess both reproductively-aged daughters' and their parents' preferences in potential mates for the daughters. In line with our predictions, both daughters and their parents had clear preferences for markers of genetic quality, although the daughters showed significantly stronger preferences for these markers than their parents. Contrary to previous research, parents and daughters did not have stronger preferences for markers of genetic quality if they perceived the daughter to be more attractive. Parents' preferences for the facial markers of genetic quality in their offspring's partner may help maximize inclusive fitness.     

杉木育种亲本生长和结实性状早期测评与选择

为推进杉木(Cunninghamia lanceolata)育种进程,对广东乐昌市龙山林场和韶关市曲江区国有小坑林场杉木第3代育种园亲本群体的早期(3 a生)生长和结实性状进行分析.结果表明,同一育种园亲本无性系在生长性状(树高、胸径、单株材积、冠幅)和结实能力上存在显著差异,生长性状的差异甚至达到极显著水平(P<0....