Various human groups, from food foragers to inner-city urban Americans, have used widespread sharing of resources through kin networks as a means of buffering themselves against fluctuations in resource availability in their environments. This paper addresses the effects of progressive incorporation into a wage-labor economy on the benefits of traditional kin networks for two social classes in urban South India. Predictions regarding the effects of kin network wealth, education, and size on child and spouse characteristics and methods of financing marriages (...) are tested using various regression techniques. Despite the rapid growth of participation in a wage-labor economy, it is found that kin network characteristics still have an important impact on investment behavior among families in Bangalore in both social classes. Network wealth is found to have a positive effect on child and spouse characteristics, and large networks are found to act as significant drains on family resources. However, the results for education are broadly consistent with an interpretation of increasing family autonomy as parents’ education has a far stronger influence on child and spouse characteristics across categories than network education does. Finally, professional-class parents are found to prefer financing marriages using formal mechanisms such as savings and bank loans while working-class parents preferentially finance marriages using credit from relatives and friends. (shrink)

Supporting Hamilton’s inclusive fitness theory, archival analyses of inheritance patterns in wills have revealed that people invest more of their estates in kin of closer genetic relatedness. Recent classroom experiments have shown that this genetic relatedness effect is stronger for relatives of direct lineage (children, grandchildren) than for relatives of collateral lineage (siblings, nieces, nephews). In the present research, multilevel modeling of more than 1,000 British Columbian wills revealed a positive effect of genetic relatedness on proportions of estates allocated to (...) relatives. This effect was qualified by an interaction with lineage, such that it was stronger for direct than for collateral relatives. Exploratory analyses of the moderating role of benefactors’ sex and estate values showed the genetic relatedness effect was stronger among female and wealthier benefactors. The importance of these moderators to understanding kin investment in modern humans is discussed. (shrink)

Paternity certainty and matrilineal family ties have been used to explain the asymmetric caregiving of grandparents and aunts and uncles. The proximate mechanisms underlying biased kin investment, however, remain unclear. A central question of the study presented here was whether the parent-kin relationship is an important link in the caregiving. In a two-generational questionnaire study, we asked subjects to estimate the intensity of their relationships to parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles (emotional closeness, investment received in childhood). In addition, (...) the subjects’ parents rated their emotional closeness to their parents and siblings. We found that the parent-kin relationship was closely linked to the relatives’ child care and could partly explain asymmetric caregiving. Maternal aunts played a special role as caregivers. Especially the mother’s younger or last-born sister cared intensively for nieces and nephews, regardless of her closeness to the subjects’ mother. (shrink)

Gaulin, McBurney, and Brakeman-Wartell (1997) found that college students reported both matrilateral and sex biases in the investment of aunts and uncles (aunts invested more than uncles). They interpreted the matrilateral bias as a consequence of paternity uncertainty. We replicated that study with Orthodox Jewish college students, selected because they come from a population we presume to have higher paternity certainty than the general population. The Orthodox sample also showed matrilateral and sex biases. Comparing the two data sets, the (...) Orthodox sample reported more investment, and slightly less matrilateral and sex biases, but the differences were not statistically significant. We did find an interaction between sex of relative and group membership, resulting from greater investment by Orthodox uncles. We interpret the results as reflecting the operation of a facultative investment mechanism whose upper limit is tuned to the maximum levels of paternity certainty found in ancestral environments. Lack of a difference in matrilateral bias between groups may result from levels of paternity certainty near to, or above, that maximum in both groups. (shrink)

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 account for all of it. We call for a more comprehensive theoretical framework of grandparental investment that addresses its proximate and ultimate causes, and its variability due to lineage, values, norms, institutions (e.g., inheritance (...) laws), and social welfare regimes. This framework needs to take 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 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. (shrink)

This study examines child survival and growth in a patrilineal Ethiopian community as a function of father absence and sex. In line with evolutionary predictions for sex-biased parental investment, the absence of a father and associated constraints on household resources is more detrimental for sons’ than daughters’ survival in infancy. Father absence doubles a son’s risk of dying in infancy but has a positive influence on the well-being of female members of the household, improving daughter survival, growth, and maternal (...) nutritional status. Lack of paternal investment may be compensated for by other matrilateral kin through increased reciprocity between mother, daughter, and sister. (shrink)

Social support networks play a key role in human livelihood security, especially in vulnerable communities. Here we explore how evolutionary ideas of kin selection and intrahousehold resource competition can explain individual variation in daily support network size and composition in a south-central Ethiopian agricultural community. We consider both domestic and agricultural help across two generations with different wealth-transfer norms that yield different contexts for sibling competition. For farmers who inherited land rights from family, firstborns were more likely to report daily (...) support from parents and to have larger nonparental kin networks. Compared with other farmers, firstborns were also more likely to reciprocate their parents’ support, and to help nonparental kin without reciprocity. For farmers who received land rights from the government, middle-born farmers reported more nonparental kin in their support networks compared with other farmers; nonreciprocal interactions were particularly common in both directions. This suggests a diversification of adult support networks to nonparental kin, possibly in response to a long-term parental investment disadvantage of being middle-born sons. In all instances, regardless of inheritance, lastborn farmers were the most disadvantaged in terms of kin support. Overall, we found that nonreciprocal interactions among farmers followed kin selection predictions. Direct reciprocity explained a substantial part of the support received from kin, suggesting the importance of the combined effects of kin selection and reciprocity for investment from kin. (shrink)

Several studies have suggested a matrilateral bias in allomaternal (non-maternal) infant and child caregiving. The bias has been associated with the allomother’s certainty of genetic relatedness, where allomothers with high certainty of genetic relatedness will invest more in children because of potential fitness benefits. Using quantitative behavioral observations collected on Ngandu 8- to 12-month-old infants from the Central African Republic, I examine who is caring for infants and test whether certainty of genetic relatedness may influence investment by allomothers. Results (...) indicate a matrilateral bias in caregiving by extended kin members, but this does not affect the total level of care infants receive when fathers and siblings are included in the analysis. These results replicate a previous study done among an adjacent foraging population and emphasize the importance of examining children’s complete social environments when addressing caregiving and child development. (shrink)

In a study of the kin investment of aunts and uncles we show that the laterality effect expected as a result of paternity uncertainty is statistically reliable but somewhat smaller than the sex effect. Matrilateral aunts invest significantly more than patrilateral aunts, and the same is true for uncles. Regardless of laterality, however, aunts invest significantly more than uncles. Multivariate controls show that the matrilateral bias is fully independent of any age or distance confounds that might result from sex (...) differences in age at marriage or dispersal. We discuss our results in relation to recent findings on the kin investment of grandparents (Euler and Weitzel 1996). In addition, we propose a simple method for estimating the level of paternity uncertainty from kin investment data; application of this method to our data on aunts and uncles suggests that between 13% and 20% of children are not the offspring of their putative father. Our parallel analyses of Euler and Weitzel’s (1996) data on grandparental investment suggest a similar estimate, that paternity uncertainty lies between 9% and 17%. (shrink)

The effects of grandparental investment in relatives are apparent in human groups, suggesting that a postreproductive period in humans is selective. Although investment of relatives in kin produces obvious benefits for kin groups, selection for a postreproductive period in humans is not supported by evidence from chimpanzees. Instead, grandparental investment is likely a recent phenomenon of longevity, rather than an evolved feature.

In the analysis of intergenerational transfer, several improvements can be made. First, following kin selection theory, grandparents have kin other than grandchildren in which to invest and therefore any investigation into grandparents should take this perspective. Secondly, how transfers actually enhance the survivorship of younger relatives such as grandchildren must be better measured, especially in the ethnographic literature. Finally, the problem of indirect investments or targeting must be considered.

Birth order has been examined over a wide variety of dimensions in the context of modern populations. A consistent message has been that it is better to be born first. The analysis of birth order in this paper is different in several ways from other investigations into birth order effects. First, we examine the effect of birth order in an egalitarian, small-scale, kin-based society, which has not been done before. Second, we use a different outcome measure, fertility, rather than outcome (...) measures of social, psychological, or economic success. We find, third, that being born late in an egalitarian, technologically simple society rather than being born early has a positive outcome on fertility, and fourth, that number of older siblings and sibling set size are even stronger predictors of fertility, especially for males. (shrink)

The role of olfaction in kin recognition and parental investment is documented in many mammalian/vertebrate species. Research on humans, however, has only focused on whether parents are able to recognize their children by smell, not whether humans use these cues for investment decisions. Here we show that fathers exhibit more affection and attachment and fewer ignoring behaviors toward children whose smell they can identify than toward those whose smell they cannot recognize. Thus, olfaction might serve as a means (...) for males to determine their genetic relatedness to purported offspring. We also demonstrate that mothers’ olfactory recognition and hedonistic ratings are linked with the use of physical punishment. Mothers report using more punishment with children whose odor they cannot recognize and less with children whose odor they rated as more pleasant. These results provide the first preliminary evidence in humans that olfactory cues may guide parents in the allocation of care. (shrink)

Previous research indicates that birth order is a strong predictor of familial sentiments, with middleborns less family-oriented than first- or last-borns. In this research, effects of sex and birth order on the actual frequency of contact with maternal and paternal kin were examined in two studies. In Study 1, one hundred and forty undergraduates completed a questionnaire relating to the amount of time they spent in contact with specific relatives, while in Study 2, one hundred and twelve undergraduates completed the (...) same questionnaire with the addition of two questions relating to the subjects’ parents’ birth orders. Subjects were more likely to have frequent contact with maternal, as opposed to paternal, kin and women experienced more frequent contact than men with relatives in general. The birth order of subjects did not appear to have a significant influence on contact but the birth order of the subjects’ parents did, with the offspring of middleborn mothers having relatively little contact with maternal grandparents and the offspring of middleborn fathers having relatively little contact with paternal grandparents. These sex and birth order differences are discussed in relation to possible differences in how women and men use kinship ties and in terms of how birth order may influence parental solicitude. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the intracultural variability of parental and alloparental caregiving among the Aka foragers of the Central African Republic. It has been suggested that maternal kin offer higher frequencies of allocare than paternal kin and that maternal investment in infants will decrease when alloparental assistance is provided. Behavioral observations were conducted on 15 eight- to twelve-monthold infants. The practice of brideservice and the flexibility of Aka residence patterns offered a means to test the effect of maternal (...) residence on parental and alloparental investment. There was significant variation in the frequency of investment and who supplied care to infants depending on whether mothers resided with their kin or their husbands’ kin. However, in spite of the variation in allocare, when all categories of caregivers were examined collectively, infants received similar overall levels of care. (shrink)

This response outlines more reasons why we need the integrative framework of grandparental investments and intergenerational transfers that we advocated in the target article. We discusses obstacles that stand in the way of such a framework and of a better understanding of the effects of grandparenting in the developed world. We highlight new research directions that have emerged from the commentaries, and we end by discussing some of the things in our target article about which we may have been wrong.

In this paper I examine the intracultural variability of parental and alloparental caregiving among the Aka foragers of the Central African Republic. It has been suggested that maternal kin offer higher frequencies of allocare than paternal kin and that maternal investment in infants will decrease when alloparental assistance is provided. Behavioral observations were conducted on 15 eight- to twelve-monthold infants. The practice of brideservice and the flexibility of Aka residence patterns offered a means to test the effect of maternal (...) residence on parental and alloparental investment. There was significant variation in the frequency of investment and who supplied care to infants depending on whether mothers resided with their kin or their husbands’ kin. However, in spite of the variation in allocare, when all categories of caregivers were examined collectively, infants received similar overall levels of care. (shrink)

カギとなるのは「世間」という存在。西洋史学の第一人者が、日本社会の基底にある根本的な問題を、現代人のために、わかりやすく解き明かす。.

Putting migrant remittances into house construction and rebuilding is generally seen as either conspicuous consumption or productive investment, but in both cases the perspective is economistic. This article argues that only when the cultural dimension of economic action is understood will it be possible to comprehend migrant spending on houses. Specifically, this article seeks to understand why, in the case of the rural Tagalog village in this study, located in upland Batangas Province in the Philippines, overseas labour migrants build (...) houses that they do not even live in, but are given to parents or simply left unoccupied. The explanation is framed in relation to the meanings of houses in a culture of bilateral kinship, which the Philippines shares with most parts of Southeast Asia, but inflected by distinct colonial influences. The article demonstrates the ways in which houses as memorials serve as idioms of ties of relatedness within kin groups and the broader community, ties that are being transformed by global migration and experienced differently yet maintained, renegotiated yet sustained transnationally. (shrink)

The seventeenth-century Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards has become popular again in contemporary theological discussion. Central to Edwards' theology is his concept of beauty. Delattre wrote the standard work on this topic half a century ago. However, Delattre approaches Edwards mainly as a philosopher, and he does not address how Edwards employs the concept of beauty to explain and defend traditional Reformed doctrines. Recent writings by McClymond, Holmes, and others have shown that defending the Reformed tradition is a fundamental concern of (...) Edwards. This work reveals how Edwards, starting with the common notion that beauty means the appropriate proportional relationship, develops a theological aesthetic that contributes to a rational understanding of major doctrines such as the Trinity, Christology, and eschatology. It shows that Edwards is both an innovative speculative theologian and a staunch defender of Reformed orthodoxy. (shrink)

The book is a collection of essays written by Gustavo Esteva over the last 20 years. In this book, Gustavo Esteva, renowned in Mexico as a philosopher on education and on developmentalism, collects four major areas of his writings: on learning, development, autonomy, and interculturality. A memorial to a great thinker, this book stimulates thoughts on developmentalism across the global south.

Recent findings support the idea that the belief in free will serves as the basis for moral responsibility, thus promoting the punishment of immoral agents. We theorized that free will extends beyond morality to serve as the basis for accountability and the capacity for change more broadly, not only for others but also for the self. Five experiments showed that people attributed higher freedom of will to negative than to positive valence, regardless of morality or intent, for both self and (...) others. In recalling everyday life situations and in classical decision making paradigms, negative actions, negatives outcomes, and negative framing were attributed higher free will than positive ones. Free will attributions were mainly driven by action or outcome valence, but not intent. These findings show consistent support for the idea that free will underlies laypersons’ sense-making for accountability and change under negative circumstances. (shrink)

By melodic landscape, this paper points to natural milieus such as mountains whose motifs are caught up in contrapuntal relations. With Merleau-Ponty, the structure of the world is a symphony, and the production of life which implicates both organism and environment as unfurling of Umwelt is ‘a melody that sings itself’. For the Chinese culture, mountains have been deemed virtuous in Confucianism, immortal by Daoists, and spiritual for a Buddhist to reach a substrate level of pure stream of a-subjective consciousness. (...) A Chinese painter-poet within the ‘mountain-water’ genre would consider mountains as performance of events, a concert of vibration of light, shape and sound, movement and rest. Insofar as art is to create energy transfer, Chinese artists of mountains aim at concerting with nature as organised by rhythms and conspecifics, unfolding contrapuntal melodies with all kinds of counterpoints. As Deleuze and Guattari's notion of refrains are the three forces or tempos of chaos, earth and world confronting/converging one another, this paper endeavours to find out, first, how Deleuze and Guattari's geological, organic and alloplastic stratifications can be put alongside mountains, animals, plants and arts, and second, how this notion can contribute to our new appreciation of the way Chinese mountains in arts can give out music. (shrink)

This paper takes Deleuze's idea ‘to green’ as a qualitative predicate which becomes a rhizomatic event where Jesper Hoffmeyer's ‘plant being’ contemplates through waves and rhythms, hence affects and percepts. The article then brings forward an intertwined group of Chinese ideograms which are designed with plant-radicals, making up an ecosystem towards the establishment of a new Chinese ecocriticism under the banner of biosemiotics. Such an effort will, hopefully, widen the scope and dimension of the new field of environmental humanities, with (...) an emphasis on the scenario of affective attuning to the agency of vegetal life. The main purpose is to put Deleuze and Guattari's form-event assemblage within the stratification of regimes of signs in A Thousand Plateaus, in order to establish a ‘natureculture’ continuity not only between science and art, but also between a Western rethinking of language/culture and a Chinese ecosystem/ecocriticism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT ‘Mind moment analysis’ is a professional counselling technique rooted in early Buddhist teachings. Employing the process of cognition discussed in Madhupiṇḍika Sutta as its theoretical foundation, mind moment analysis takes form in seven iterative steps for the therapeutic practitioner to help clients deconstruct disturbing mental phenomena, detach from mental turbulence and discern wholesome and unwholesome mind acts. After cultivating stability and clarity of mind, practitioners collaborate with clients to investigate the root causes of craving beneath conceptual proliferations and mindfully (...) choose constructive thoughts, thereby resulting in reduced suffering. This paper introduces the theoretical background of mind moment analysis, uses a case example of this therapeutic intervention with sample transcript verbatim to illustrate each step, and discusses the treatment components of the intervention. (shrink)

Augment the propositional language with two modal operators: □ and ■. Define ⧫ to be the dual of ■, i.e. ⧫=¬■¬. Whenever (X) is of the form φ → ψ, let (X⧫) be φ→⧫ψ . (X⧫) can be thought of as the modally qualified counterpart of (X)—for instance, under the metaphysical interpretation of ⧫, where (X) says φ implies ψ, (X⧫) says φ implies possibly ψ. This paper shows that for various interesting instances of (X), fairly weak assumptions suffice for (...) (X⧫) to imply (X)—so, the modally qualified principle is as strong as its unqualified counterpart. These results have surprising and interesting implications for issues spanning many areas of philosophy. (shrink)

kk states that knowing entails knowing that one knows, and K¬K states that not knowing entails knowing that one does not know. In light of the arguments against kk and K¬K⁠, one might consider modally qualified variants of those principles. According to weak kk, knowing entails the possibility of knowing that one knows. And according to weakK¬K⁠, not knowing entails the possibility of knowing that one does not know. This paper shows that weak kk and weakK¬K are much stronger than (...) they initially appear. Jointly, they entail kk and K¬K⁠. And they are susceptible to variants of the standard arguments against kk and K¬K⁠. This has interesting implications for the debate on positive introspection and for deeper issues concerning the structure and limits of knowability. (shrink)