Social Class, Sex, and the Ability to Recognize Emotions: The Main Effect is in the Interaction.

Previous research has demonstrated an inverse relation between subjective social class (SSC) and performance on emotion recognition tasks. Study 1 (N = 418) involved a preregistered replication of this effect using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task and the Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery. The inverse relation replicated; however, exploratory analyses revealed a significant interaction between sex and SSC in predicting emotion recognition, indicating that the effect was driven by males. In Study 2 (N = 745), we preregistered and tested the interaction on a separate archival dataset. The interaction replicated; the association between SSC and emotion recognition again occurred only in males. Exploratory analyses (Study 3; N = 381) examined the generalizability of the interaction to incidental face memory. Our results underscore the need to reevaluate previous research establishing the main effects of social class and sex on emotion recognition abilities, as these effects apparently moderate each other.

Developing evolutionary psychology: Commentary on Narvaez et al. (2022).

Narvaez et al. (2022), in their article "Evolving Evolutionary Psychology," argue that mainstream evolutionary psychology is based on misguided neo-Darwinian adaptationist thinking and an antiquated computationalist, "mind-as-computer" framework and offer their own developmentally informed theory as an alternative. While applauding Narvaez et al. for promoting the role of development in evolutionary explication and as a potential metatheory for psychology, we point out that contemporary evolutionary-developmental accounts address the shortcomings of mainstream evolutionary psychology they describe, while maintaining an adaptationist perspective that includes a central role of evolved, domain-specific information-processing mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Hidden talents in context: Cognitive performance with abstract versus ecological stimuli among adversity-exposed youth.

Adversity-exposed youth tend to score lower on cognitive tests. However, the hidden talents approach proposes some abilities are enhanced by adversity, especially under ecologically relevant conditions. Two versions of an attention-shifting and working memory updating task-one abstract, one ecological-were administered to 618 youth (Mage  = 13.62, SDage  = 0.81; 48.22% female; 64.56% White). Measures of environmental unpredictability, violence, and poverty were collected to test adversity × task version interactions. There were no interactions for attention shifting. For working memory updating, youth exposed to violence and poverty scored lower than their peers with abstract stimuli but almost just as well with ecological stimuli. These results are striking compared to contemporary developmental science, which often reports lowered performance among adversity-exposed youth.

Why and how does early adversity influence development? Toward an integrated model of dimensions of environmental experience.

Two extant frameworks - the harshness-unpredictability model and the threat-deprivation model - attempt to explain which dimensions of adversity have distinct influences on development. These models address, respectively, why, based on a history of natural selection, development operates the way it does across a range of environmental contexts, and how the neural mechanisms that underlie plasticity and learning in response to environmental experiences influence brain development. Building on these frameworks, we advance an integrated model of dimensions of environmental experience, focusing on threat-based forms of harshness, deprivation-based forms of harshness, and environmental unpredictability. This integrated model makes clear that the why and the how of development are inextricable and, together, essential to understanding which dimensions of the environment matter. Core integrative concepts include the directedness of learning, multiple levels of developmental adaptation to the environment, and tradeoffs between adaptive and maladaptive developmental responses to adversity. The integrated model proposes that proximal and distal cues to threat-based and deprivation-based forms of harshness, as well as unpredictability in those cues, calibrate development to both immediate rearing environments and broader ecological contexts, current and future. We highlight actionable directions for research needed to investigate the integrated model and advance understanding of dimensions of environmental experience.

Hidden talents in harsh environments.

Although early-life adversity can undermine healthy development, children growing up in harsh environments may develop intact, or even enhanced, skills for solving problems in high-adversity contexts (i.e., "hidden talents"). Here we situate the hidden talents model within a larger interdisciplinary framework. Summarizing theory and research on hidden talents, we propose that stress-adapted skills represent a form of adaptive intelligence that enables individuals to function within the constraints of harsh, unpredictable environments. We discuss the alignment of the hidden talents model with current knowledge about human brain development following early adversity; examine potential applications of this perspective to multiple sectors concerned with youth from harsh environments, including education, social services, and juvenile justice; and compare the hidden talents model with contemporary developmental resilience models. We conclude that the hidden talents approach offers exciting new directions for research on developmental adaptations to childhood adversity, with translational implications for leveraging stress-adapted skills to more effectively tailor education, jobs, and interventions to fit the needs and potentials of individuals from a diverse range of life circumstances. This approach affords a well-rounded view of people who live with adversity that avoids stigma and communicates a novel, distinctive, and strength-based message.

Environmental harshness and unpredictability: Do they affect the same parents and children?

Differential susceptibility theory stipulates that individuals vary in their susceptibility to environmental effects, often implying that the same individuals differ in the same way in their susceptibility to different environmental exposures. The latter point is addressed herein by evaluating the extent to which early-life harshness and unpredictability affect mother's psychological well-being and parenting, as well as their adolescent's life-history strategy, as reflected in number of sexual partners by age 15 years, drawing on data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Results indicated that mothers whose well-being and parenting proved more susceptible to harshness also proved somewhat more susceptible to environmental unpredictability, with the same being true of adolescent sexual behavior. Nevertheless, findings caution against overgeneralizing sample-level findings to all individuals.

The Value of Dimensional Models of Early Experience: Thinking Clearly About Concepts and Categories.

We review the three prevailing approaches-specificity, cumulative risk, and dimensional models-to conceptualizing the developmental consequences of early-life adversity and address fundamental problems with the characterization of these frameworks in a recent Perspectives on Psychological Science piece by Smith and Pollak. We respond to concerns raised by Smith and Pollak about dimensional models of early experience and highlight the value of these models for studying the developmental consequences of early-life adversity. Basic dimensions of adversity proposed in existing models include threat/harshness, deprivation, and unpredictability. These models identify core dimensions of early experience that cut across the categorical exposures that have been the focus of specificity and cumulative risk approaches (e.g., abuse, institutional rearing, chronic poverty); delineate aspects of early experience that are likely to influence brain and behavioral development; afford hypotheses about adaptive and maladaptive responses to different dimensions of adversity; and articulate specific mechanisms through which these dimensions exert their influences, conceptualizing experience-driven plasticity within an evolutionary-developmental framework. In doing so, dimensional models advance specific falsifiable hypotheses, grounded in neurodevelopmental and evolutionary principles, that are supported by accumulating evidence and provide fertile ground for empirical studies on early-life adversity.

Developmental programming of oxytocin through variation in early-life stress: Four meta-analyses and a theoretical reinterpretation.

Despite evidence supporting a role for oxytocin (OT) in regulating social behavior, surprisingly little is known about how this neuropeptide is calibrated during development. We systematically reviewed empirical studies in humans (k = 86 publications reporting on 66 independent samples; N = 7319) that examined associations between early-life stress and three OT system components: endogenous OT, methylation of the OT receptor gene (OXTRm), and biological and behavioral responses to intranasally administered OT. In a series of meta-analyses, we found some evidence that people who grew up under more adverse conditions tend to have lower endogenous OT (children: r = .12; adults: r = .09), that early adversity is associated with higher levels of OXTRm (r = .02), and that adults who report lower levels of childhood adversity tend to show more positive responses to intranasally administered OT (r = .12). These results were found in typical populations, and were in most cases absent in clinical samples. We discuss these findings in terms of both the prevailing medical model (focusing on the harmful effects of early-life stress) and the adaptive calibration model (focusing on developmental adaptation of biobehavioral systems to early conditions) and suggest that an adaptation-based approach could meaningfully advance research and intervention on the sequelae of early adversity.

Early external-environmental and internal-health predictors of risky sexual and aggressive behavior in adolescence: An integrative approach.

External predictive adaptive response (PAR) models assume that developmental exposures to stress carry predictive information about the future state of the environment, and that development of a faster life history (LH) strategy in this context functions to match the individual to this expected harsh state. More recently internal PAR models have proposed that early somatic condition (i.e., physical health) critically regulates development of LH strategies to match expected future somatic condition. Here we test the integrative hypothesis that poor physical health mediates the relation between early adversity and faster LH strategies. Data were drawn from a longitudinal study (birth to age 16; N = 1,388) of mostly African American participants with prenatal substance exposure. Results demonstrated that both external environmental conditions early in life (prenatal substance exposure, socioeconomic adversity, caregiver distress/depression, and adverse family functioning) and internal somatic condition during preadolescence (birthweight/gestational age, physical illness) uniquely predicted the development of faster LH strategies in adolescence (as indicated by more risky sexual and aggressive behavior). Consistent with the integrative hypothesis, the effect of caregiver distress/depression on LH strategy was mostly mediated by worse physical health. Discussion highlights the implications of these findings for theory and research on stress, development, and health.

Effects of Fathers on Adolescent Daughters' Frequency of Substance Use and Risky Sexual Behavior.

This research: (1) implements a genetically informed design to examine the effects of fathers' presence-absence and quality of behavior during childhood/adolescence on daughters' frequency of substance use during adolescence; and (2) tests substance use frequency as mediating the relation between paternal behavior and daughters' sexual risk taking. Participants were 223 sister dyads from divorced/separated biological families. Sisters' developmental exposure to socially deviant paternal behavior predicted their frequency of tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis (TAC) use. Older sisters who co-resided with fathers who were more (vs. less) socially deviant reported more frequent TAC use during adolescence. More frequent TAC use predicted more risky sexual behavior for these daughters. No effects were found for younger sisters, who spent less time living with their fathers.

Low socioeconomic status and eating in the absence of hunger in children aged 3-14.

A growing body of research indicates that one's early life experiences may play an important role in regulating patterns of energy intake in adulthood. In particular, adults who grew up under conditions characterized by low socioeconomic status (SES) tend to eat in the absence of hunger (EAH), a pattern that is not generally observed among higher-SES individuals. In the current study, we sought to examine (a) the environmental correlates of low SES that drive the association between low childhood SES and EAH and (b) whether the relationship between these variables is already manifest in children ages 3-14. Results of our study revealed that growing up in low-SES environments predicted less food security, diminished ability to meet financial needs, and less environmental predictability/safety. Further, the results indicated that reduced environmental predictability/safety in the children's environment interacted with children's current energy need to predict eating behavior. Consistent with patterns observed in adults, children from more predictable/safe environments ate food commensurate with their energy need, whereas those from less predictable/safe environments ate comparably high amounts of food across levels of energy need. These results offer needed insights into the development of environmentally-contingent energy-regulation strategies.

The Hidden Talents Approach: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges.

It is well established that people living in adverse conditions tend to score lower on a variety of social and cognitive tests. However, recent research shows that people may also develop 'hidden talents', that is, mental abilities that are enhanced through adversity. The hidden talents program sets out to document these abilities, their development, and their manifestations in different contexts. Although this approach has led to new insights and findings, it also comes with theoretical and methodological challenges. Here, we discuss six of these challenges. We conclude that the hidden talents approach is promising, but there is much scope for refining ideas and testing assumptions. We discuss our goal to advance this research program with integrity despite the current incentives in science.

Biological sensitivity to context: A test of the hypothesized U-shaped relation between early adversity and stress responsivity.

We conducted signal detection analyses to test for curvilinear, U-shaped relations between early experiences of adversity and heightened physiological responses to challenge, as proposed by biological sensitivity to context theory. Based on analysis of an ethnically diverse sample of 338 kindergarten children (4-6 years old) and their families, we identified levels and types of adversity that, singly and interactively, predicted high (top 25%) and low (bottom 25%) rates of stress reactivity. The results offered support for the hypothesized U-shaped curve and conceptually replicated and extended the work of Ellis, Essex, and Boyce (2005). Across both sympathetic and adrenocortical systems, a disproportionate number of children growing up under conditions characterized by either low or high adversity (as indexed by restrictive parenting, family stress, and family economic condition) displayed heightened stress reactivity, compared with peers growing up under conditions of moderate adversity. Finally, as hypothesized by the adaptive calibration model, a disproportionate number of children who experienced exceptionally stressful family conditions displayed blunted cortisol reactivity to stress.

Hidden talents in harsh conditions? A preregistered study of memory and reasoning about social dominance.

Although growing up in stressful conditions can undermine mental abilities, people in harsh environments may develop intact, or even enhanced, social and cognitive abilities for solving problems in high-adversity contexts (i.e. 'hidden talents'). We examine whether childhood and current exposure to violence are associated with memory (number of learning rounds needed to memorize relations between items) and reasoning performance (accuracy in deducing a novel relation) on transitive inference tasks involving both violence-relevant and violence-neutral social information (social dominance vs. chronological age). We hypothesized that individuals who had more exposure to violence would perform better than individuals with less exposure on the social dominance task. We tested this hypothesis in a preregistered study in 100 Dutch college students and 99 Dutch community participants. We found that more exposure to violence was associated with lower overall memory performance, but not with reasoning performance. However, the main effects of current (but not childhood) exposure to violence on memory were qualified by significant interaction effects. More current exposure to neighborhood violence was associated with worse memory for age relations, but not with memory for dominance relations. By contrast, more current personal involvement in violence was associated with better memory for dominance relations, but not with memory for age relations. These results suggest incomplete transfer of learning and memory abilities across contents. This pattern of results, which supports a combination of deficits and 'hidden talents,' is striking in relation to the broader developmental literature, which has nearly exclusively reported deficits in people from harsh conditions. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/e4ePmSzZsuc.

The effects of fathers on daughters' expectations for men.

Guided by paternal investment theory (PIT), the current research examines the effects of fathers on daughters' expectations for men in adulthood, and the role of these expectations in mediating women's short-term (casual or uncommitted) sexual behavior. Using a genetically informed differential sibling-exposure design (N = 223 sister pairs from divorced/separated families), we found that developmental exposure to low-quality paternal behavior (but not paternal absence per se) predicted adult women's expectations for men as partners. For older sisters, who spent much of their childhoods living with their fathers, lower-quality paternal behavior predicted lower expectations for male investment in their relationships as adults. Moreover, lower expectations for men as partners predicted higher numbers of sexual partners (past and anticipated) among these women. By contrast, for younger sisters, who spent relatively little time coresiding with their fathers, no such effects of quality of paternal behavior were observed. The current work provides evidence that exposure to low-quality paternal behavior during development may help calibrate daughters' expectations for the behavior of male relationship partners, and these expectations may shape their sexual behavior in adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Developmental Adaptation to Stress: An Evolutionary Perspective.

The assumption that early stress leads to dysregulation and impairment is widespread in developmental science and informs prevailing models (e.g., toxic stress). An alternative evolutionary-developmental approach, which complements the standard emphasis on dysregulation, proposes that early stress may prompt the development of costly but adaptive strategies that promote survival and reproduction under adverse conditions. In this review, we survey this growing theoretical and empirical literature, highlighting recent developments and outstanding questions. We review concepts of adaptive plasticity and conditional adaptation, introduce the life history framework and the adaptive calibration model, and consider how physiological stress response systems and related neuroendocrine processes may function as plasticity mechanisms. We then address the evolution of individual differences in susceptibility to the environment, which engenders systematic person-environment interactions in the effects of stress on development. Finally, we discuss stress-mediated regulation of pubertal development as a case study of how an evolutionary-developmental approach can foster theoretical integration.

Linking emotional reactivity "for better and for worse" to differential susceptibility to parenting among kindergartners.

This study used a combination of microlevel observation data and longitudinal questionnaire data to study the relationship between differential reactivity and differential susceptibility, guided by three questions: (a) Does a subset of children exist that is both more likely to respond with increasingly negative emotions to increasingly negative emotions of mothers and with increasingly positive emotions to increasingly positive emotions of mothers ("emotional reactivity")? (b) Is emotional reactivity associated with temperament markers and rearing environment? (c) Are children who show high emotional reactivity "for better and for worse" also more susceptible to parenting predicting child behavior across a year? A total of 144 Dutch children (45.3% girls) aged four to six participated. Latent profile analyses revealed a group of average reactive children (87%) and a group that was emotionally reactive "for better and for worse" (13%). Highly reactive children scored higher on surgency and received lower levels of negative parenting. Finally, associations of negative and positive parenting with externalizing and prosocial behavior were similar (and nonsignificant) for highly reactive children and average reactive children. The findings suggest that children who are emotionally reactive "for better and for worse" within parent-child interactions are not necessarily more susceptible to parenting on a developmental time scale.

The effects of paternal disengagement on women's perceptions of male mating intent.

Previous research demonstrates reliable associations between low paternal investment and daughters' precocious and risky sexual behavior. However, little is known about the psychological changes that occur in response to paternal disengagement that encourage these patterns. Here, we aim to redress this empirical gap by testing the effects of paternal disengagement on women's perceptions of male mating intent. In 4 experiments, women who described their fathers' absence (vs. a comparison state) perceived greater: mating intent in the described actions of a hypothetical dating partner (Study 1), sexual arousal in male target faces (Studies 2 and 3), and mating interest from a male confederate (Study 4). In a mixed-methods study (Study 5), women with greater developmental exposure to harsh-deviant paternal behavior perceived greater sexual intent in men's actions than women with lesser exposure. Moreover, these perceptual differences predicted unrestricted sociosexuality among women in this sample. An internal meta-analysis (N = 408) across studies provided support for a relationship between paternal disengagement and women's perceptions of male sexual intent. Together, this research suggests that low paternal investment (including primed paternal disengagement and harsh-deviant fathering) causes changes in daughters' perceptions of men that may influence their subsequent mating behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record

Sensory processing sensitivity as a marker of differential susceptibility to parenting.

In this longitudinal multiinformant study negative emotionality and sensory processing sensitivity were compared as susceptibility markers among kindergartners. Participating children (N = 264, 52.9% boys) were Dutch kindergartners (Mage = 4.77, SD = 0.60), followed across three waves, spaced seven months apart. Results show that associations between parenting and child behavior did not depend on children's negative emotionality. Sensory processing sensitivity, however, interacted with both (changes in) negative and (changes in) positive parenting in predicting externalizing, but not prosocial, behavior. Depending on the interaction, vantage sensitivity and differential susceptibility models were supported. The findings suggest that sensory processing sensitivity may be a more proximal correlate of individual differences in susceptibility, compared with negative emotionality. (PsycINFO Database Record