ABSTRACT
Life history (LH) strategies are results of trade-offs that species must make due to inhabiting certain ecological niches. Although it is assumed that, through the process of developmental plasticity, similar trade-offs are made by individuals in response to a certain level of harshness and unpredictability of their local environments, the study results on this matter are not consistent. In LH-oriented psychological research, such inconsistencies are often explained as a consequence of significant individual differences in phenotypical quality and owned resources, which make studying trade-offs difficult due to different costs and benefits of the same behaviors taken by different individuals. To verify if traditional LH patterns can be found among individuals with more comparable qualities, than in the general population, the current study was conducted on a group of male criminal offenders, who are typically associated with a fast LH strategy. Our results did not show any support for either LH trade-offs or unidimensional character of LH strategies in the criminal group studied. The traditional biodemographic LH traits, that we used to assess a LH strategy, merged into three well-known LH dimensions (mating, parenting, and somatic effort) that yet turned out to be entirely independent from each other. Moreover, each LH dimension turned out to be uniquely related to a different aspect of the developmental environment. The implications of the obtained results are discussed.
Subject(s)
Criminals , Life History Traits , Humans , Male , Reproduction/physiologyABSTRACT
A high risk of morbidity-mortality caused by a harsh and unpredictable environment is considered to be associated with a fast life history (LH) strategy, commonly linked with criminal behavior. However, offenders are not the only group with a high exposure to extrinsic morbidity-mortality. In the present study, we investigated the LH strategies employed by two groups of Polish men: incarcerated offenders (N = 84) as well as soldiers and firefighters (N = 117), whose professions involve an elevated risk of injury and premature death. The subjects were asked to complete the Mini-K (used as a psychosocial LH indicator) and a questionnaire which included a number of biodemographic LH variables. Although biodemographic and psychosocial LH indicators should be closely linked with each other, the actual connection between them is unclear. Thus, this study was driven by two aims: comparing LH strategies in two groups of men with a high risk of premature morbidity-mortality and investigating the relationship between the biodemographic and psychosocial LH dimensions. The study showed that incarcerated men employed faster LH strategies than soldiers and firefighters, but only in relation to biodemographic variables (e.g., number of siblings, age of sexual initiation, life expectancy). No intergroup differences emerged regarding psychosocial LH indicators. Moreover, the correlation analysis showed a weak association between biodemographic and psychosocial LH indicators. The results strengthen the legitimacy of incorporating biodemographic LH traits into research models and indicate the need for further research on the accuracy of the Mini-K. The possible explanations for the intergroup differences in LH strategies are discussed.
