15 Apr
2008
15 Apr
'08
1:45 p.m.
Dear Dr. Qwerty,
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TITLE: Sex, attachment, and the development of reproductive strategies
AUTHOR: Marco Del Giudice
ABSTRACT: This paper presents an integrated evolutionary model of the development of
attachment and
human reproductive strategies. It is argued that sex differences in attachment emerge in
middle
childhood, have adaptive significance in both children and adults, and are part of
sex-specific life
history strategies. Early psychosocial stress and insecure attachment act as cues of
environmental
risk, and tend to switch development towards reproductive strategies favoring current
reproduction
and higher mating effort. However, due to sex differences in life history trade-offs
between mating
and parenting, insecure males tend to adopt avoidant strategies, whereas insecure females
tend to
adopt anxious/ambivalent strategies, which maximize investment from kin and mates. Females
are
expected to shift to avoidant patterns when environmental risk is more severe. Avoidant
and
ambivalent attachment also have different adaptive values for boys and girls, in the
context of
same-sex competition in the peer group: in particular, the competitive and aggressive
traits related
to avoidant attachment can be favored as a status-seeking strategy for males. Finally,
adrenarche is
proposed as the endocrine mechanism underlying the reorganization of attachment in middle
childhood;
the implications for the relationship between attachment and sexual development are
explored. Sex
differences in the development of attachment can be fruitfully integrated within the
broader
framework of adaptive plasticity in life history strategies, thus contributing to a
coherent
evolutionary theory of human development.
KEYWORDS: Adrenarche, Attachment, Cooperative breeding, Evolution, Life history theory,
Mating,
Middle childhood, Phenotypic plasticity, Reproductive strategies, Sexual selection, Stress
FULL TEXT: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/DelGiudice-09222007/Referees/
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* If you only wish to suggest potential commentators, please ignore prompts to
submit a proposal with expertise information.
* If you experience technical difficulties, please email bbs(a)bbsonline.org.
* Please respond to this Call no later than May 7, 2008
NOTE: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) is an international, interdisciplinary journal
providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the
biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates, or suggested by
a
BBS Associate. If you are not a BBS Associate, please follow the instructions linked
below:
http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/associnst.html
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Paul Bloom - Editor
Barbara Finlay - Editor
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
bbs(a)bbsonline.org
http://www.bbsonline.org
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