Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Grandparental Investment

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonym

Grandparental solicitude

Definition

Grandparental investment refers to the various types of care (like solicitude, looking after grandchildren, getting in contact, investing time, and tangible resources) grandparents may provide for their grandoffspring.

Introduction

Evolutionary psychologists assume that grandparenthood is not only a social role (Kahana and Kahana 1971) but has profound implications for reproductive success (Voland et al. 2005). From birth on, children are highly dependable on their parents and require a great amount of parental investment (Trivers 1972). According to the cooperative breeding hypothesis, substantial child care is provided by helpers other than the biological parents (alloparents; Hrdy 1999). In the EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptedness), two parents would not have been enough to rear highly dependent human children for many years until they have reached adulthood. Humans are therefore characterized by a network of family helpers....

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aldous, J. (1995). New views of grandparents in intergenerational context. Journal of Family Issues, 16, 104–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cherlin, A. J., & Furstenberg, F. F., Jr. (1994). Stepfamilies in the United States: A reconsideration. Annual Review of Social Research, 20, 359–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chrastil, E. R., Getz, W. M., Euler, H. A., & Starks, P. T. (2006). Paternity uncertainty overrides sex chromosome selection for preferential grandparenting. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 206–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clutton-Brock, T. H. (1991). The evolution of parental care. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coall, D. A., & Hertwig, R. (2010). Grandparental investment: Past, present, and future. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 1–59.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Coall, D. A., & Hertwig, R. (2011). Grandparental investment: A relic of the past or a resource for the future? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 93–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1983). Sex, evolution, and behavior (2nd ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danielsbacka, M., Tanskanen, A. O., & Rotkirch, A. (2015). The impact of genetic relatedness and emotional closeness on intergenerational relations. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77, 889–907.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dench, G., & Ogg, J. (2002). Grandparenting in Britain. London: Institute of Community Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Euler, H. A. (2011). Grandparents and extended kin. In T. K. Shackelford & C. A. Salmon (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of evolutionary family psychology (pp. 181–207). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Euler, H. A., & Michalski, R. (2007). Grandparental and extended kin relationships. In C. A. Salmon & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Family relationships: An evolutionary perspective (pp. 230–255). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Euler, H. A., & Weitzel, B. (1996). Discriminative grandparental solicitude as reproductive strategy. Human Nature, 7, 39–59.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Green, D. M., & Swets, J. A. (1966). Signal detection theory and psychophysics. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–52.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, W.D. (1966). The moulding of senescence by natural selection. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 12, 12-45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haselton, M. G., & Nettle, D. (2006). The paranoid optimist: An integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 47–66.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J. F., Blurton Jones, N. G., Alvarez, H. P., & Charnov, E. L. (1998). Grandmothering, menopause, and the evolution of human life histories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 95, 1336–1339.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–83.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hill, K., & Hurtado, A. M. (2009). Cooperative breeding in South American hunter-gatherers. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 276, 3863. rspb20091061.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hrdy, S. B. (1999). Mother nature. Natural selection and the female of the species. London: Chatto & Windus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahana, E., & Kahana, B. (1971). Theoretical and research perspectives on grandparenthood. Aging and Human Development, 3, 98–105.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirchengast, S., & Putz, B. (2016). Discriminative grandparental investment – The impact of grandchild’s gender and sociodemographic parameters. Anthropological Review, 79, 151–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laham, S. M., Gonsalkorale, K., & von Hippel, W. (2005). Darwinian grandparenting: Preferential investment in more certain kin. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 63–72.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lussier, G., Deater-Deckard, K., Dunn, J., & Davies, L. (2002). Support across two generations: Children’s closeness to grandparents following parental divorce and remarriage. Journal of Family Psychology, 16, 363–376.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Macintyre, S., & Sooman, A. (1991). Non-paternity and prenatal genetic screening. The Lancet, 338, 869–871.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matthews, S. H., & Sprey, J. (1985). Adolescents’ relationships with grandparents: An empirical contribution to conceptual clarification. Journal of Gerontology, 40, 621–626.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Maynard Smith, J. (1964). Group selection and kin selection. Nature, 201, 1145–1147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McBurney, D., Simon, J., Gaulin, S. J. C., & Geliebter, A. (2002). Matrilateral biases in the investment of aunts and uncles: Replication in a population presumed to have high paternity uncertainty. Human Nature, 13, 391–402.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Monserud, M. A. (2008). Intergenerational relationships and affectual solidarity between grandparents and young adults. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 70, 182–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pashos, A. (2000). Does paternal uncertainty explain discriminative grandparental solicitude? A cross-cultural study in Greece and Germany. Evolution and Human Behavior, 21, 97–109.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pashos, A., & McBurney, D. H. (2008). Kin relationships and the caregiving biases of grandparents, aunts and uncles: A two generational questionnaire study. Human Nature, 19, 311–330.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pashos, A., Schwarz, S., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2016). Kin investment by step-grandparents – More than expected. Evolutionary Psychology, 14, 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sear, R., & Mace, R. (2008). Who keeps children alive? A review of the effects of kin on child survival. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, M. S. (1988). Research in developmental sociobiology: Parenting and family behavior. In K. B. MacDonald (Ed.), Sociobiological perspectives on human development (pp. 271–292). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, M. S. (1991). An evolutionary perspective on grandparent-grandchild relationships. In P. K. Smith (Ed.), The psychology of grandparenthood. An international perspective (pp. 157–176). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steinbach, I., & Henke, W. (1998). Großelterninvestment – eine empirische interkulturelle Studie. L’Anthropologie, 26, 293–301.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strassmann, B. I., & Garrard, W. M. (2011). Alternatives to the grandmother hypothesis: A meta-analysis of the association between grandparental and grandchild survival in patrilineal populations. Human Nature, 22, 201–222.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man: 1871–1971 (pp. 136–179). Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Voland, E., Chasiotis, A., & Schiefenhövel (Eds.). (2005). Grandmotherhood – The evolutionary significance of the second half of female life. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Voracek, M., Haubner, T., & Fisher, M. L. (2008). Recent decline in nonpaternity rates: A cross-temporal meta-analysis. Psychological Reports, 103, 799–811.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, G. C. (1957). Pleiotropy, natural selection, and the evolution of senescence. Evolution, 11, 398–411.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, M., Musch, J., Enczmann, J., & Fischer, J. (2012). Estimating the prevalence of nonpaternity in Germany. Human Nature, 23, 208–217.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Wuppertal, School of Human and Social Sciences, Gaußstr. 20, 42097, Wuppertal, Germany

    Sascha Schwarz

  2. Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany

    Alexander Pashos

  3. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Harald A. Euler

Authors
  1. Sascha Schwarz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alexander Pashos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Harald A. Euler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sascha Schwarz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Nicole Barbaro

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Schwarz, S., Pashos, A., Euler, H.A. (2016). Grandparental Investment. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1182-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1182-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation