dc.contributor.author | Chang, L., Lu, H. J., Lansford, J. E., Skinner, A. T., Bornstein, M. H., Steinberg, L., Dodge, K. A., Chen, B. B., Tian, Q., Bacchini, D., Deater-Deckard, K., Pastorelli, C., Alampay, L. P., Sorbring, E., Al-Hassan, S. M., Oburu, P., Malone, P. S., Di Giunta, L., Tirado, L. M. U., & Tapanya, S. (2019). | |
dc.description.abstract | Safety is essential for life. To survive, humans and other animals have developed sets
of psychological and physiological adaptations known as life history (LH) tradeoff strategies
in response to various safety constraints. Evolutionarily selected LH strategies in turn
regulate development and behavior to optimize survival under prevailing safety conditions.
The present study tested LH hypotheses concerning safety based on a 6-year longitudinal
sample of 1245 adolescents and their parents from 9 countries. The results revealed that,
invariant across countries, environmental harshness and unpredictability (lack of safety) was
negatively associated with slow LH behavioral profile, measured 2 years later, and slow LH
behavioral profile was negatively and positively associated with externalizing behavior and
academic performance, respectively, as measured an additional 2 years later. These results
support the evolutionary conception that human development responds to environmental
safety cues through LH regulation of social and learning behaviors. | en_US |