The effects of childhood unpredictability and harshness on emotional control and relationship quality: A life history perspective.

Being able to control oneself in emotionally upsetting situations is essential for good relationship functioning. According to life history theory, childhood exposure to harshness and unpredictability should forecast diminished emotional control and lower relationship quality. We examined this in three studies. In Studies 1 and 2, greater childhood unpredictability (frequent financial, residential, and familial changes), but not harshness (low SES), was associated with lower emotional control in adolescents (N = 1041) and adults (N = 327). These effects were stronger during the participants' reproductive years. Moreover, in Study 2, greater childhood unpredictability was indirectly associated with lower relationship quality through lower emotional control. In study 3, we leveraged the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (N = 160). Greater early-life unpredictability (ages 0-4) prospectively predicted lower relationship quality at age 32 via lower emotional control at the same age. This relation was serially mediated by less supportive observed early maternal care (ages 1.5-3.5) and insecure attachment representations (ages 19 and 26). Early unpredictability also predicted greater observed emotional distress during conflict interactions with romantic partners (ages 19-36). These findings point to the role of emotional control in mediating the effects of unpredictable childhood environments on relationship functioning in adulthood.

Attachment and Jealousy: Understanding the Dynamic Experience of Jealousy Using the Response Escalation Paradigm.

Jealousy is a complex, dynamic experience that unfolds over time in relationship-threatening situations. Prior research has used retrospective reports that cannot disentangle initial levels and change in jealousy in response to escalating threat. In three studies, we examined responses to the Response Escalation Paradigm (REP)-a 5-stage hypothetical scenario in which individuals are exposed to increasing levels of relationship threat-as a function of attachment orientations. Highly anxious individuals exhibited hypervigilant, slow escalation response patterns, interfered earlier in the REP, felt more jealousy, sadness, and worry when they interfered, and wanted to engage in more vigilant, destructive, and passive behaviors aimed at their partner. Highly avoidant individuals felt more anger when they interfered in the REP and wanted to engage in more partner-focused, destructive behaviors. The REP offers a dynamic method for inducing and examining jealousy and introduces a novel approach to studying other emotional experiences.

The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms: Reprise.

The influence of social norms on behavior has been a longstanding storyline within social psychology. Our 2007 Psychological Science publication presented a new rendition of this classic telling. The reported field experiment showed that social norms could be leveraged to promote residential energy conservation, but importantly, the descriptive norm was shown to increase consumption for low-consuming households. This potential destructive effect of social norms was eliminated with the addition of an injunctive message of social approval for using less energy. The article is among the 30 most-cited articles across all APS publications, which we attribute to our methodology, which measured real behavior in a large-scale field experiment and to several circumstances associated with the timing of the work. The article coincided with the explosion of social media, the emergence of behavioral economics, and a heightened level of concern about climate change. These contemporaneous activities set the stage for our work and for its high degree of citation.

Can an unpredictable childhood environment enhance working memory? Testing the sensitized-specialization hypothesis.

Although growing up in an adverse childhood environment tends to impair cognitive functions, evolutionary-developmental theory suggests that this might be only one part of the story. A person's mind may instead become developmentally specialized and potentially enhanced for solving problems in the types of environments in which the person grew up. In the current research, we tested whether these specialized advantages in cognitive function might be sensitized to emerge in currently uncertain contexts. We refer to this as the sensitized-specialization hypothesis. We conducted experimental tests of this hypothesis in the domain of working memory, examining how growing up in unpredictable versus predictable environments affects different facets of working memory. Although growing up in an unpredictable environment is typically associated with impairments in working memory, we show that this type of environment is positively associated with those aspects of working memory that are useful in rapidly changing environments. Importantly, these effects emerged only when the current context was uncertain. These theoretically derived findings suggest that childhood environments shape, rather than uniformly impair, cognitive functions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Beyond Risk and Protective Factors: An Adaptation-Based Approach to Resilience.

How does repeated or chronic childhood adversity shape social and cognitive abilities? According to the prevailing deficit model, children from high-stress backgrounds are at risk for impairments in learning and behavior, and the intervention goal is to prevent, reduce, or repair the damage. Missing from this deficit approach is an attempt to leverage the unique strengths and abilities that develop in response to high-stress environments. Evolutionary-developmental models emphasize the coherent, functional changes that occur in response to stress over the life course. Research in birds, rodents, and humans suggests that developmental exposures to stress can improve forms of attention, perception, learning, memory, and problem solving that are ecologically relevant in harsh-unpredictable environments (as per the specialization hypothesis). Many of these skills and abilities, moreover, are primarily manifest in currently stressful contexts where they would provide the greatest fitness-relevant advantages (as per the sensitization hypothesis). This perspective supports an alternative adaptation-based approach to resilience that converges on a central question: "What are the attention, learning, memory, problem-solving, and decision-making strategies that are enhanced through exposures to childhood adversity?" At an applied level, this approach focuses on how we can work with, rather than against, these strengths to promote success in education, employment, and civic life.

The CLASH model in broader life history context.

In this commentary, we address two questions: (1) Is the drive in many young men to gain status and amass resources, which frequently entails direct competition with members of outgroups, one of the key variables underlying the CLASH model? (2) Why is there so much variation in reactive aggression/violence between people living in the same environment?

Socioeconomic status, unpredictability, and different perceptions of the same risk.

In this commentary, we address three questions: (1) How might outcomes be affected by the variation in the level of deprivation, rather than the average level of deprivation? (2) Could there be differences in the subjective perception of the same risk as either intrinsic or extrinsic, depending on people's socioeconomic status (SES)? (3) What other psychological mechanisms might play a role in influencing the psychology and behavior of people from deprived backgrounds?

Secure Infant-Mother Attachment Buffers the Effect of Early-Life Stress on Age of Menarche.

Prior research indicates that being reared in stressful environments is associated with earlier onset of menarche in girls. In this research, we examined (a) whether these effects are driven by exposure to certain dimensions of stress (harshness or unpredictability) during the first 5 years of life and (b) whether the negative effects of stress on the timing of menarche are buffered by secure infant-mother attachment. Results revealed that (a) exposure to greater harshness (but not unpredictability) during the first 5 years of life predicted earlier menarche and (b) secure infant-mother attachment buffered girls from this effect of harsh environments. By connecting attachment research to its evolutionary foundations, these results illuminate how environmental stressors and relationships early in life jointly affect pubertal timing.

Low Childhood Socioeconomic Status Promotes Eating in the Absence of Energy Need.

Life-history theory predicts that exposure to conditions typical of low socioeconomic status (SES) during childhood will calibrate development in ways that promote survival in harsh and unpredictable ecologies. Guided by this insight, the current research tested the hypothesis that low childhood SES will predict eating in the absence of energy need. Across three studies, we measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) participants' energy need and gave them the opportunity to eat provided snacks. Participants also reported their SES during childhood and their current SES. Results revealed that people who grew up in high-SES environments regulated their food intake on the basis of their immediate energy need; they ate more when their need was high than when their need was low. This relationship was not observed among people who grew up in low-SES environments. These individuals consumed comparably high amounts of food when their current energy need was high and when it was low. Childhood SES may have a lasting impact on food regulation.

The effect of unpredictable early childhood environments on parenting in adulthood.

Life history theory suggests that individual differences in parenting are partially rooted in environmental conditions experienced early in life. Whereas certain conditions should promote increased investment in parenting, unpredictable and/or harsh environments should promote decreased investment in parenting, especially in men. We tested this hypothesis in 3 studies. In Study 1a, we conducted analyses on 112 parents taking part in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA), all of whom have been continuously studied starting before they were born. Parenting orientations were assessed at age 32 via an interview. Findings showed that experiencing more unpredictability at ages 0-4 (i.e., frequent changes in parental employment status, cohabitation status, and residence) prospectively forecasted more negative parenting orientations among men, but not women. This effect was serially mediated by lower early maternal supportive presence measured at ages 0-4 and insecure attachment assessed at ages 19 and 26. In Study 1b, we replicated these findings on 96 parents from the MLSRA using behavioral observations of their parental supportive presence. In Study 2, we replicated the effect of early-life unpredictability on men's parenting orientations with a sample of 435 parents. This effect was mediated by adult attachment anxiety and avoidance. Across all studies, greater early-life harshness (low socioeconomic status [SES]) did not predict adult parenting outcomes. These findings suggest that greater early-life unpredictability may be conveyed to children through less supportive parenting, which results in insecure attachment representations in adulthood. Among men, this process culminates in less positive adult parenting orientations and less supportive parenting.

Cognitive adaptations to stressful environments: When childhood adversity enhances adult executive function.

Can growing up in a stressful childhood environment enhance certain cognitive functions? Drawing participants from higher-income and lower-income backgrounds, we tested how adults who grew up in harsh or unpredictable environments fared on 2 types of executive function tasks: inhibition and shifting. People who experienced unpredictable childhoods performed worse at inhibition (overriding dominant responses), but performed better at shifting (efficiently switching between different tasks). This finding is consistent with the notion that shifting, but not inhibition, is especially useful in unpredictable environments. Importantly, differences in executive function between people who experienced unpredictable versus predictable childhoods emerged only when they were tested in uncertain contexts. This catalyst suggests that some individual differences related to early life experience are manifested under conditions of uncertainty in adulthood. Viewed as a whole, these findings indicate that adverse childhood environments do not universally impair mental functioning, but can actually enhance specific types of cognitive performance in the face of uncertainty.

Sense of control under uncertainty depends on people's childhood environment: a life history theory approach.

Past research found that environmental uncertainty leads people to behave differently depending on their childhood environment. For example, economic uncertainty leads people from poor childhoods to become more impulsive while leading people from wealthy childhoods to become less impulsive. Drawing on life history theory, we examine the psychological mechanism driving such diverging responses to uncertainty. Five experiments show that uncertainty alters people's sense of control over the environment. Exposure to uncertainty led people from poorer childhoods to have a significantly lower sense of control than those from wealthier childhoods. In addition, perceptions of control statistically mediated the effect of uncertainty on impulsive behavior. These studies contribute by demonstrating that sense of control is a psychological driver of behaviors associated with fast and slow life history strategies. We discuss the implications of this for theory and future research, including that environmental uncertainty might lead people who grew up poor to quit challenging tasks sooner than people who grew up wealthy.

Fertile and selectively flirty: women's behavior toward men changes across the ovulatory cycle.

Past research shows that men respond to women differently depending on where women are in their ovulatory cycle. But what leads men to treat ovulating women differently? We propose that the ovulatory cycle alters women's flirting behavior. We tested this hypothesis in an experiment in which women interacted with different types of men at different points in their cycle. Results revealed that women in the ovulatory phase reported more interest in men who had purported markers of genetic fitness as short-term mates, but not as long-term mates. Furthermore, behavioral ratings of the interactions indicated that women displayed more flirting behaviors when they were at high than at low fertility. Importantly, fertile women flirted more only when interacting with men who had genetic-fitness markers, not with other men. In summary, fertility not only alters women's behavior but does so in a context-dependent way that follows adaptive logic.

The fluctuating female vote: politics, religion, and the ovulatory cycle.

Each month, many women experience an ovulatory cycle that regulates fertility. Although research has found that this cycle influences women's mating preferences, we proposed that it might also change women's political and religious views. Building on theory suggesting that political and religious orientation are linked to reproductive goals, we tested how fertility influenced women's politics, religiosity, and voting in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. In two studies with large and diverse samples, ovulation had drastically different effects on single women and women in committed relationships. Ovulation led single women to become more liberal, less religious, and more likely to vote for Barack Obama. In contrast, ovulation led women in committed relationships to become more conservative, more religious, and more likely to vote for Mitt Romney. In addition, ovulation-induced changes in political orientation mediated women's voting behavior. Overall, the ovulatory cycle not only influences women's politics but also appears to do so differently for single women than for women in relationships.

Putting all your eggs in one basket: life-history strategies, bet hedging, and diversification.

Diversification of resources is a strategy found everywhere from the level of microorganisms to that of giant Wall Street investment firms. We examine the functional nature of diversification using life-history theory-a framework for understanding how organisms navigate resource-allocation trade-offs. This framework suggests that diversification may be adaptive or maladaptive depending on one's life-history strategy and that these differences should be observed under conditions of threat. In three studies, we found that cues of mortality threat interact with one index of life-history strategy, childhood socioeconomic status (SES), to affect diversification. Among those from low-SES backgrounds, mortality threat increased preferences for diversification. However, among those from high-SES backgrounds, mortality threat had the opposite effect, inclining people to put all their eggs in one basket. The same interaction pattern emerged with a potential biomarker of life-history strategy, oxidative stress. These findings highlight when, and for whom, different diversification strategies can be advantageous.

When the economy falters, do people spend or save? Responses to resource scarcity depend on childhood environments.

Just as modern economies undergo periods of boom and bust, human ancestors experienced cycles of abundance and famine. Is the adaptive response when resources become scarce to save for the future or to spend money on immediate gains? Drawing on life-history theory, we propose that people's responses to resource scarcity depend on the harshness of their early-life environment, as reflected by childhood socioeconomic status (SES). In the three experiments reported here, we tested how people from different childhood environments responded to resource scarcity. We found that people who grew up in lower-SES environments were more impulsive, took more risks, and approached temptations more quickly. Conversely, people who grew up in higher-SES environments were less impulsive, took fewer risks, and approached temptations more slowly. Responses similarly diverged according to people's oxidative-stress levels-a urinary biomarker of cumulative stress exposure. Overall, whereas tendencies associated with early-life environments were dormant in benign conditions, they emerged under conditions of economic uncertainty.

Boosting beauty in an economic decline: mating, spending, and the lipstick effect.

Although consumer spending typically declines in economic recessions, some observers have noted that recessions appear to increase women's spending on beauty products--the so-called lipstick effect. Using both historical spending data and rigorous experiments, the authors examine how and why economic recessions influence women's consumer behavior. Findings revealed that recessionary cues--whether naturally occurring or experimentally primed--decreased desire for most products (e.g., electronics, household items). However, these cues consistently increased women's desire for products that increase attractiveness to mates--the first experimental demonstration of the lipstick effect. Additional studies show that this effect is driven by women's desire to attract mates with resources and depends on the perceived mate attraction function served by these products. In addition to showing how and why economic recessions influence women's desire for beauty products, this research provides novel insights into women's mating psychology, consumer behavior, and the relationship between the two.

Ovulation leads women to perceive sexy cads as good dads.

Why do some women pursue relationships with men who are attractive, dominant, and charming but who do not want to be in relationships--the prototypical sexy cad? Previous research shows that women have an increased desire for such men when they are ovulating, but it is unclear why ovulating women would think it is wise to pursue men who may be unfaithful and could desert them. Using both college-age and community-based samples, in 3 studies we show that ovulating women perceive charismatic and physically attractive men, but not reliable and nice men, as more committed partners and more devoted future fathers. Ovulating women perceive that sexy cads would be good fathers to their own children but not to the children of other women. This ovulatory-induced perceptual shift is driven by women who experienced early onset of puberty. Taken together, the current research identifies a novel proximate reason why ovulating women pursue relationships with sexy cads, complementing existing research that identifies the ultimate, evolutionary reasons for this behavior.

Sex ratio and women's career choice: does a scarcity of men lead women to choose briefcase over baby?

Although the ratio of males to females in a population is known to influence behavior in nonhuman animals, little is known about how sex ratio influences human behavior. We propose that sex ratio affects women's family planning and career choices. Using both historical data and experiments, we examined how sex ratio influences women's career aspirations. Findings showed that a scarcity of men led women to seek high-paying careers and to delay starting a family. This effect was driven by how sex ratio altered the mating market, not just the job market. Sex ratios involving a scarcity of men led women to seek lucrative careers because of the difficulty women have in finding an investing, long-term mate under such circumstances. Accordingly, this low-male sex ratio produced the strongest desire for lucrative careers in women who are least able to secure a mate. These findings demonstrate that sex ratio has far-reaching effects in humans, including whether women choose briefcase over baby.