Call for Commentary Proposals: Coall & Hertwig/Grandparental Investment

Dear Dr. Qwerty, When a target article or recently published book has been accepted for the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) treatment process, the editorial office sends a Call for Commentary Proposals email to thousands of BBS Associates and affiliates. The letter contains a link to the pre-copyedited article or book precis. If a recipient would like to be invited by the Editors to submit a Commentary, they must indicate the relevant expertise they would bring to bear, and what aspect of the target article or book they would anticipate commenting upon. Whether Call letter recipients are interested in submitting a proposal or not, they may also suggest others to be considered as potential commentators. Please follow the instructions below if you wish to respond to this Call letter. 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If you are invited to submit a commentary, a copyedited, corrected version of this paper will be posted in the invitation letter. The commentary invitation list is compiled by the Editors so as to balance proposals, areas of expertise, and frequency of prior commentaries in BBS. TITLE: Grandparental Investment: Past, Present and Future AUTHORS: David A. Coall & Ralph Hertwig ABSTRACT: What motivates grandparents to their altruism? We review answers from evolutionary theory, sociology, and economics. Sometimes in direct conflict with each other, these accounts of grandparental investment exist side-by-side, with little or no theoretical integration. They all account for some of the data, and none for all of that. We call for a more comprehensive theoretical framework of grandparental investment that addresses its proximate and ultimate causes, its variability due to lineage, values, norms, institutions (e.g., inheritance laws), and social welfare regimes, and that takes into account that the demographic shift to low fecundity and mortality in economically developed countries has profoundly altered basic parameters of grandparental investment. We then turn to the possible impact of grandparental acts of altruism, and examine whether benefits of grandparental care in industrialized societies may manifest in terms of less tangible dimensions such as the grandchildren’s cognitive and verbal ability, mental health and well-being. Although grandparents in industrialized societies continue to invest substantial amounts of time and money in their grandchildren, we find a paucity of studies investigating the influence that this investment has on grandchildren in low-risk family contexts. Under circumstances of duress—for instance, teenage pregnancy, maternal depression—there is converging evidence that grandparents can provide support that helps to safeguard their children and grandchildren against adverse risks. We conclude by discussing the role that grandparents could play in what has been referred to as Europe’s demographic suicide. KEYWORDS: child development; demographic transition; empathy; grandmother hypothesis; grandparental investment; grandparental solicitude; intergenerational transfers; kin altruism; maternal depression; reciprocal altruism. FULL TEXT: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Coall-08262008/Referees/ ================================================================== ================================================================== Instructions for BBS Associate Membership Commentators must be BBS Associates, or suggested by a BBS Associate. 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