Nepotism, Genes and Relationships - Essay Example

141528 PAGE TOPIC OF REPORT: NEPOTISM, GENES AND RELATIONSHIPS PSYCHOLOGY A research report of an investigation with practicals based on the hypothesis of Evolutionary Psychology with assessed results, that close relationships are influenced by principles of genetic variations and fitness maximization and not just by the culture and social learning. Practical results are based on the questionnaire about the relationships with the grandparents set against a number of hypotheses. This answers how affectional ties and dyad specific relationships influence the younger generations and their social behaviour and how nepotism plays an important part in the psychological and social make-up of an individual. INTRODUCTION Evolutionary psychology depends mainly on a large set of hypotheses, which it tries to prove or disprove by depending on sociological and psychological practicals and researches. Deriving from these hypotheses about asymmetries in grandparental solitude and the parent-grandparent relationship can be done empirically, with the best possible results. It is definitely believed in Evolutionary Psychology that it is not just the features of earlier generations that get transferred into the new generations, but behaviours, genetic peculiarities too, and all these could be found in researches being conducted in genetics, behavioural ecology, sociology, cognitive sciences etc. To prove this fact beyond doubt, with all the variables taken into account, practical experimental research has been conducted. This gives an insight into grandparental solicitudes, grandparent-parent relationships, sex and gender variations and their results, and would draw conclusions on the influence important factors like investment in younger generations and paternity uncertainty can have on the entire hypotheses. METHOD The family survey was conducted through questionnaire (enclosed as Appendix), which starts from information about the existence of grandparents, and for how long the individual had opportunity to know them. This applies only to biological grandparents and not adopted ones. It also refers to the care shown by grandparents to their grandchildren and their relationship with parents and support to their children’s parental efforts. And the last question is about parent-grandparent relationship as judged by the grandchild. Testing of these characteristics has to be done empirically, because psychology and sociology are not warring subjects, but cooperative ones. The main reason behind this particular research and its certain ambiguity is that it exists in an area where psychology merges with sociology and the demarking line is blurred. Hence, empirical research is the only method that could be suitable for both the subjects and the practical was conducted with this belief. DISCUSSION Grandparental care assumes a very important part in the social make up of grandchildren. Also according to many surveys, maternal grandparents are more influential than the paternal grandparents. This could be mainly because of the paternal uncertainty of the children. Also it could be due to the continuous friction in almost all the cultures between the daughter in law and mother in law. This was stated to be the result of friction between two competing females for the attention of a single man. But psychologists do not agree with that, because if that was true, there should have been a similar competition between the son in law and the father in law for the attention of the single female and it does not happen so. Naturally psychologists deduce that it is due to the closeness the mother has for her son which results in antagonism against the new usurper of that attention. So this friction gets transferred into the younger generation and children, either by seeing the ongoing friction, or by being told by the mother, do not remain comfortable with the paternal grandparents, as they do with the maternal grandparents. Again when we consider the parent – grandparent relationships, we tilt towards maternal side. They are definitely not alike. Relationships in the maternal side are easier than the relationships in the paternal side. Also surprising factor is that most of the cultures have similarity in these criteria. In folk psychology it is automatically assumed that sets of grandparents provide diverse support to their grandchildren and the relationship changes accordingly. Hence, relationships cannot be the same under all circumstances. It is also an accepted part of human behaviour that women take more care of children and grandchildren than men. Women reciprocate more readily than men to the needs of children. Social demands, gender stereotypes, women’s behaviour, expectations around their circles all contribute into it and they invest more in children than the men. Also unlike the ambiguity in men’s position, there exists absolute parental certainty. The general hypothesis of relationships always follows a pattern. Grandparents usually develop a good relationship with the son in law, but not so with the daughter in law. They strive hard to retain good relationship with the son, but again, not with the daughter in law. Their support to the daughter had been one of the best in human relationships. Compared to son-daughter in law combination, the combination of daughter-son in law is always preferred and perhaps there is an element of parental uncertainty in it. “A second factor that may account for discriminative grandparental care is paternity uncertainty. Because two generations of descendants are involved in grandparental solicitude, grandparents have a double possible parental uncertainty. The most uncertain grandparent is the paternal grandfather, who can be certain neither of his own nor of his son’s paternity” (Euler et al, 2001). In grandparental strategies, asymmetries are achieved by daughter support, parental uncertainty and consanguinity as three main principles. According to Eural and Weitxel (1996), (figure 1), grandparental care and control variables are given a totally new meaning. Paternal Grandparents show lesser support and intensity than maternal grandparents. Maternal grandmother is more forthcoming than the maternal grandfather and the same applies to paternal pair. Euler et al (2001, Table 1) shows consanguinity between mother-daughter, father-daughter, mother-son, father-son as positive, whereas in-law relationships are negative. Daughter support exists between her and her parents and her parents and the son in law. Paternity uncertainty exists between father and son, mother and daughter, mother in law-son in law and mother in law-daughter in law. Relationship quality is the highest between mother and daughter, followed by father and daughter, and the least between mother in law and daughter in law whereas it shows slight improvement between father in law and daughter in law. RESULTS “Researchers from various disciplines have repeatedly noted that our kinship systems have an obvious tilt to the maternal side of the family”, (Euler et al, 2001). This brings out a part of forgotten Sociology to the forefront. Animal families are always matriarchal and we have to only look at elephant families to be certain. Humans started with matriarchal families and even today, in some remote parts of the world matriarchal families exist. With the downgrading of women, no doubt, matriarchal families perished over years; but the mental set up and behavioural peculiarities remained becoming part of Evolutional Psychology. Here, we can safely presume that social norms and rigidities have failed to alter the human mental traits and compulsions. Apart from this, sex-specific reproductive strategy is another important factor here. “Both these ultimate causes, sex-specific reproductive strategy and paternity uncertainty, contribute to the obvious tilt to the maternal side in human family structures” (Euler et al, 2001). This also shows maternal grandparents assist the daughters more in their parental efforts. Both sets of grandparents do so for sons and daughters because it is assisting the continuation of their own life, their own blood ties and the contribution goes to maintain their genetic inclusive fitness and this deed, psychologically and sociologically is very satisfying. It also proves that grandparental solicitude is coloured by two generations of parental uncertainty. . “If both factors, assistance in sex-specific reproductive strategy and paternity uncertainty, are combined, we obtain an ordered prediction about discriminative grandparental investment” (Euler et al, 2001). SPSS results in the Descriptive Statistics show that they are on predictable lines showing the already explained order of decline, from maternal grandmother care, maternal grandfather care, paternal grandmother care and paternal grandfather care and here, there are no surprises. The mean statistics and deviations show the same results, as predicted. In the case processing summary, ‘missing’ has affected the variables, especially in the case of both grandfathers. Comparatively the maternal grandmother shows very less missing numbers, to be followed by the paternal grandmother. The paternal grandfather forms the highest missing rate. The mother-daughter relationship reign supreme in the whole list to be followed by mother-son, establishing once again the maternal investment and influence. CONCLUSION Social norms create rigidity between genders and relationships, because people tend to create stereotypes and adhere to them. Discriminative grandparental solicitude on predictable lines seems to be more rampant beyond earlier belief almost in all the societies. Maternal grandparents cared for grandchildren much more than the paternal grandparents and maternal and paternal grandmothers cared much more than maternal and paternal grandfathers. But maternal grandfather cared more than the paternal grandmother thus leading to the belief that the pattern does not depend entirely on the gender of grandparent. It also does not mean that grandmothers cared more than grandfathers. There is a definite tilt here. And for the caring pattern, sex of the grandchild mattered very little, though there is higher proof that grandmothers prefer very slightly granddaughters to grandsons. But it is a variable factor. Also Eural et al (2001), in their extensive study, show that separated grandfathers show distinctively less solicitude than the un-separated grandfathers, though age does not play a part here. Here heredity is taking a slightly ancient form. “Perhaps the greatest difference between modern genetic concepts and traditional folk ideas of heredity is that today we conceive of the transmissions of individual particles of hereditary material from parents to offspring, whereas older ideas postulated a blending of the hereditary elements of the two sexes,” (Fuller and Thompson, 1960, p.19). Paternal investment could be lower, because of parental uncertainty. It also compels people talking about children resembling the father even though they very often resemble the mother. This factor will again reflect on the grandparental solicitude and parent – grandparent relations, in all eight grandparent-parent dyads. There is another factor playing here that the daughter needs more support in her parental effort than the son. Daughter is not likely to get much support from her mate’s side of family and hence will heavily depend on her own parents more. Male parental care is believed to be an effort of continuous solicitude towards the female, and not towards the progeny. “ …the evidence favours the hypothesis that male parental care evolved as a form of mating effort, rather than parenting effort,” (Buller, 2005, p.390). “The relationship structures were dyad specific; asymmetrical with a tilt to the maternal side; robust; and predictable from reproductively relevant variables of the kinpersons involved, namely, sex-specific reproductive strategy, paternity uncertainty, and genetic closeness. Implications for the study of intrafamilial cultural transmission are discussed, with an emphasis on the importance of evolutionary theory for this research field”. http://jcc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/147 Field of closeness and familial affection, even though determined by individuals and their views, to a large extent could be predictable. Undoubtedly it varies according to circumstances. “Closeness ratings to fathers’ fathers also were reduced when they had grandchildren through their daughters” http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/1/63 In spite of it, it has proved by research that most of these psychological traits are very predictable and to some extent, comforting. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Badcock, Christopher (2000), Evolutionary Psychology, Polity, Cambridge. 2. Buller, David J. (2005), Adapting Minds, The MIT Press, Cambridge. 3. Crook, John Hurrell (1986), The Evolution of Human Consciousness, Clarendon Press, Oxford. 4. Ehrman, Lee and Parsons, Peter A. (1976), The Genetics of Behavior, Sinauer Associates, Inc, Sunderland. 5. Euler, Harald A., Sabine Holer and Percy A. Rohde (2001), JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 32 No. 2, March 2001 147-158, Western Washington University. 6. Fuller, John L. and Thompson, W. Robert (1960), Behavior Genetics, John Wiley £ Sons, London. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://jcc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/147 2. http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/1/63 Read More