Chapter 7
Grandmaternal Love
People Affected: grandmothers with grandchildren younger than 33 months
Type of Emotion: conceptual reward
Conceptual Trigger: “ my grandchild is happy ”
Mental Effect: positive
Key Feature: not triggered in pre-menopausal grandmothers
Key Feature: the happier the grandchild, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: has a duration of 33 months for each grandchild
Type of Emotion: conceptual reward
Conceptual Trigger: “ my grandchild is happy ”
Mental Effect: positive
Key Feature: not triggered in pre-menopausal grandmothers
Key Feature: the happier the grandchild, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: has a duration of 33 months for each grandchild
Purpose
Grandmaternal love encourages grandmothers to help feed their grandchildren. Grandmothers primarily help by sharing experience.
Conceptual Trigger
Grandmaternal love is not triggered in pre-menopausal grandmothers. Pre-menopausal women maximize their reproduction by having more children.
Pre-menopausal grandmothers do feel cute and affection when they see grandchildren. These positive effects are mistakenly believed to be grandmaternal love.
Maternal love and grandmaternal love cause helpful conflict. Both are triggered by the happiness of the same child. This causes mothers and grandmothers to compete to make the child happy. Their competition helps maximize the child’s development.
Mental Effect
Grandmaternal love encourages grandmothers to help feed their grandchildren. Grandmothers primarily help by sharing experience.
Conceptual Trigger
Grandmaternal love is not triggered in pre-menopausal grandmothers. Pre-menopausal women maximize their reproduction by having more children.
Pre-menopausal grandmothers do feel cute and affection when they see grandchildren. These positive effects are mistakenly believed to be grandmaternal love.
Maternal love and grandmaternal love cause helpful conflict. Both are triggered by the happiness of the same child. This causes mothers and grandmothers to compete to make the child happy. Their competition helps maximize the child’s development.
Mental Effect
Grandmaternal love varies with a grandchild’s happiness. The happier a grandchild is, the stronger the positive effect. Grandmothers feel stronger love when they see their grandchildren smile.
Grandmaternal love stops when a grandchild is 33 months old. Like mothers, grandmothers maximize their reproduction by focusing on the next grandchild when the current grandchild can feed itself.
Affection and the threat of grandmaternal grief continue after 33 months.
Affection and the threat of grandmaternal grief continue after 33 months.
Happiness Dissected is a more practical version of The Origin of Emotions.
