Читать книгу The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development - Группа авторов - Страница 72

During the late 1980s and early 1990s two evolutionarily informed areas of the human sciences were developed–human behavioral ecology (HBE) and evolutionary psychology (EP). HBE is based on the notion that, as a response to the ecological pressures of our ancient past, our behavior has evolved to maximize inclusive fitness (that is, the proportion of our genes that is passed on either directly through offspring or indirectly via other kin: Davies et al. 2012). EP has a slightly different focus in that it considers the human mind as the product of evolutionary forces and much of our current behavior, while not necessarily adaptive today, would have been in the EEA (Barkow et al., 1992). Hence, we might feel pleasure at eating sweet and fatty foods, but the current availability of foods rich in sugar and fat often leads to the non‐adaptive state of obesity (overindulgence was rarely an option on the open savannah of the Pleistocene and is extremely rare among extant gathering‐hunting peoples).

In addition to the concept of the EEA, a branch of evolutionary biology known as life history theory has also been incorporated into the development of both HBE and EP. Life history (LH) theory deals with the strategies that animals use to allocate time and energy to the various activities during different stages of their lives (Hill, 1993). LH theory considers the trade‐off that an organism has to make in order to achieve optimal inclusive fitness given the challenges of the environment (including the social environment).

One important trade‐off is how much time and effort to allocate to development prior to reproducing. Generally, there is a trade‐off between number of offspring produced and the level of investment in growth, learning, and maintenance for each offspring produced. For example in mammals, where very large numbers are produced, such as in rabbits (up to 120 offspring each year per female), very little time and effort go into each offspring, which reach reproductive capability quite rapidly. In stark contrast, where small numbers are produced, such as in bonobos (one offspring every 4 years per female), then each has a lengthy period of development prior to reproduction. Where large numbers of offspring are produced with little investment in each, this situation is known as r selection, whereas where very few offspring are produced and each spends a lengthy period of development (and high parental investment) this is known as K selection.

To complicate matters, these two extreme strategies are also known as fast (r) and slow (K) and rather than being two strategies, we should think of them as falling on either end of a spectrum (Rubenstein & Alcock, 2018). Interestingly, in the latter years of the 20th century it became apparent that individuals within a species can also make decisions about whether to concentrate on current (fast/r) or later (slow/K) reproductive effort. As we will see, as part of an LH approach, this fast/r to slow/K continuum has been integrated into our understanding of the relationship between attachment styles and later child (and adult) behavior.