Does grandpa care, too? - Discriminative grandparental investment is associated with phenotypic resemblance and sociodemographic parameters in an Austrian sample.
Astrid Molnar, Victoria A Schimpl, Stefanie A Hofer, Lukretia E Marx, Sylvia Kirchengast
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Typical patterns of discriminative grandparental investment i.e. high investment provided by the maternal grandmother and low investment provided by the paternal grandfather, are mainly interpreted based on the "paternity uncertainty hypothesis". Accordingly, especially paternal grandfathers are confronted with a double risk of investing in genetically unrelated grandchildren. The present study focuses on the impact of phenotypic resemblance between parents and grandparents on grandparental investment. 94 female and 83 male participants aged 19 to 40 years (x = 27.4; SD = 5.8) were enrolled in the retrospective analysis. An online questionnaire, specifically developed for this study, was used for data collection. In line with predictions, the highest investment, contact frequency and best relationship were found for maternal grandmothers, while paternal grandfathers showed the lowest investment patterns. Phenotypic resemblance between parents and grandfathers enhanced grandfathers' investment significantly, but resemblance had no effect in the case of maternal grandmothers. We conclude that phenotypic similarities can be interpreted as indicators of genetic relatedness and therefore increase grandparental investment among those grandparents, who are confronted with paternity uncertainty, i.e. paternal grandmother and maternal as well as paternal grandfather.
期刊介绍:
AA is an international journal of human biology. It publishes original research papers on all fields of human biological research, that is, on all aspects, theoretical and practical of studies of human variability, including application of molecular methods and their tangents to cultural and social anthropology. Other than research papers, AA invites the submission of case studies, reviews, technical notes and short reports. AA is available online, papers must be submitted online to ensure rapid review and publication.