The Psychology of Parenting in Evolutionary Perspective and the Case of Human Filicide

Parenting constitutes a major domain of human effort, then, but it is a remarkably underrepresented domain in discussions of human motivation (Daly and Wilson, 1988b). Arguably, psychology has neglected the subject of parental motives for want of a theoretical framework within which to understand variations therein. The requisite theoretical framework is that of evolution by selection.