Environmental harshness and unpredictability, life history, and social and academic behavior of adolescents in nine countries.

Authors

Lei Chang, University of MacauFollow
Hui Jing Lu
Jennifer E. Lansford, Duke UniversityFollow
Ann T. Skinner, Duke UniversityFollow
Marc H. Bornstein, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human DevelopmentFollow
Laurence Steinberg, Temple UniversityFollow
Kenneth A. Dodge, Duke UniversityFollow
Bin-Bin Chen, Fudan University
Qian Tian
Dario Bacchini, Second University of NaplesFollow
Kirby Deater-Deckard, University of Massachusetts AmherstFollow
Concetta Pastorelli, University of Rome La SapienzaFollow
Liane Peña Alampay, Ateneo de Manila UniversityFollow
Emma Sorbring, University West
Suha M. Al-Hassan, Hashemite UniversityFollow
Paul Oburu, Maseno UniversityFollow
Patrick S. Malone, University of South CarolinaFollow
Laura Di Giunta, University of Rome La SapienzaFollow
Liliana Maria Uribe Tirado, Universidad San Buenaventura
Sombat Tapanya, Chiang Mai UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

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 1,245 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. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Recommended Citation

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). Environmental harshness and unpredictability, life history, and social and academic behavior of adolescents in nine countries. Developmental Psychology, 55(4), 890–903. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000655