Definition
Grandparents can invest a large amount of time and resources in their grandchildren. However, all grandparents do not invest equally in their grandchildren and usually paternal grandfathers are the ones who invest the least of all grandparent types.
Introduction
Males in several species invest in offspring as a function of paternity certainty (Platek and Shackelford 2006). This applies to humans as well (e.g., Alvergne et al. 2009), although among mammals, humans are an exception. Human males typically invest in their offspring unlike 95% of males of mammalian species, but human males also have potential uncertainty in their relationship to their children. While women can be sure that the child they gave birth to is biologically related to them, men can never be 100% certain...
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References
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Danielsbacka, M., Tanskanen, A.O. (2017). Paternal Grandfather Invests Least. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1187-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1187-1
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