When is an evolutionary approach useful?

Evidence that human behavior is or has been adaptive comes from the likelihood that it would have been useful in our environment of evolutionary adaptedness, that it forms a coherent whole with other characteristics, and that variants contribute or would be likely to contribute to reproductive success. Belsky et al. use the second and third of these, though on the third their evidence is somewhat tenuous. However, their thesis does integrate diverse facts about parenting and development. In general an evolutionary approach is useful if it integrates diverse facts, if it aids clinical practice, and if it helps us toward a full understanding of human nature.

Relations between levels of complexity in the behavioral sciences.

Some obstacles to progress in the behavioral sciences are discussed. An understanding of human behavior demands a firm descriptive base. This requires the recognition of successive levels of social complexity and of the dialectical relations between them: some difficulties in achieving adequate description are noted. Some principles governing the development of behavior are discussed: the importance of constraints on and predispositions for learning, the role of interpersonal relationships, the question of continuities of development, and the need to come to terms with the relations between successive levels of social complexity. The contribution of the biological concept of adaptation is emphasized. Finally, the development of snake phobias and of gender differences are used to exemplify the issues discussed.

Towards integrating the behavioural sciences to meet the threats of violence and war.

This paper provides a framework for integrating issues in the behavioural and social sciences concerned with the relations between individual aggression and war, and the steps that must be taken to reduce them. It is emphasized that violence is not an inevitable consequence of man's nature, that collective violence involves principles additional to those involved in individual acts of aggression, and that war is an institution involving diverse roles each with its attendant rights and duties. Psychological and other behavioural sciences can make considerable contributions to ameliorating the threat of war.

Roundtable: what is temperament? Four approaches.

4 current approaches to understanding temperament are discussed in the roundtable. In an introductory overview, Goldsmith outlines some of the major convergences and divergences in the understanding of this concept. Theorists representing 4 positions--Goldsmith, Buss and Plomin, Rothbart, and Thomas and Chess--outline their views by responding to each of 6 questions: How do you define temperament and explain the boundaries of the concept? What are the elements of temperatment? How does the construct of temperament permit you to approach issues or organize data in ways that are possible only if this construct is invoked? How does temperament develop? To what extent do you consider temperament to be a personological versus a relational or an interactional construct? and How does your approach deal with issues of temperamental "difficulty"? In 2 commentaries on the theorists' answers, Hinde highlights differences among their positions and indicates issues that current theories of temperament must take into consideration, and McCall draws on common aspects to propose a synthesizing definition that draws on all 4 approaches.

Teacher questionnaire compared with observational data on effects of sex and sibling status on preschool behaviour.

Teacher questionnaires are used to assess children's social behaviour in a variety of contexts. Here questionnaire data are compared with observational data for agreement: (i) over sex and sibling status group differences; and (ii) over individual rank orders on more specific behavioural items. A principal component analysis of the teachers' ratings yielded four components--sociability, aggressiveness, perseverance and calmness. Boys were seen as more sociable and aggressive, girls more persevering. Firstborns were more sociable, aggressive and calm than secondborns, who were seen as more persevering than firstborns. Some differences between children with brothers and with sisters, and between children with same-sex and different-sex sibs were also found. These differences were in general in harmony with the observational data. Comparisons of questionnaire items with observational data on the same children indicated (a) that for the majority of items there was good agreement; (b) that agreement was better for the more behaviourally defined questions; (c) that teachers rated more on the children's behaviour with their peers than on their behaviour with the teachers; (d) that agreement was better at 42 months, soon after school entry, than at 50 months; and (e) that teachers' assessments may have been more influenced by the child's interactional style with themselves at the later age.

Temperamental characteristics of 3--4-year-olds and mother-child interaction.

Comparisons are presented between the temperamental characteristics of preschool-age children from two-child families and aspects of mother-child interaction observed in the home. The data were collected when the children were 42 months old (n = 45) and 50 months old (n = 37). Although few behavioural items were directly relevant to temperament, several temperamental characteristics (Moody, Intense, Shy, Assertive) had behavioural correlates of a type that might be expected. Active and Irregular also showed meaningful patterns of correlations. Unmalleable, Dependent and Attention span did not. However, although there were no sex differences in the ratings of temperamental characteristics, the correlations between particular characteristics and behavioural items sometimes differed markedly between boys and girls, and also between firstborns and secondborns. Thus comparisons between temperamental characteristics and the behavioural data involving the whole sample were sometimes less revealing than those concerning each sex or sibling-status group separately.

Interpersonal relationships-in quest of a science.

Interpersonal relationships pose problems additional to those arising from social behaviour. If there is to be a science of interpersonal relationships, it must rest on a firm descriptive base. It is suggested that the following categories of dimensions are likely to prove useful: the content of the interactions within the relationship; their diversity; their qualities; their relative frequency and patterning; the nature of their reciprocity v. complementarity; and the intimacy, interpersonal congruency and commitment between the participants. A science of relationships will also require principles concerned with their dynamice. Three likely categories are those concerned with social constraints, with learning, and with positive and negative feedback. Principles concerned with learning will require an adequate categorization of the resources used in interpersonal interactions. The specification of these principles depends on the adequacy of the descriptive base.

Some factors influencing the effects of temporary mother-infant separation: some experiments with rhesus monkeys.

Some experiments, reported in detail elsewhere, on the effects of mother-infant separation in rhesus monkeys are here reviewed and compared. They involved 4 groups--one in which mothers were removed for 13 days leaving the infant in the social group; one in which infants were removed; one in which mothers and infants were removed and separated; and one in which mothers and infants were removed but not separated. The nature of separation experience had a profound effect on the infant's response: infants left in a familiar environment while their mothers were removed showed marked but brief 'protest' and then profound 'despair', whilst infants removed to a strange cage showed more prolonged 'protest'. A major factor determining the effects of the separation experience in the weeks following reunion is the degree to which the mother-infant relationship has been disturbed by it. The multiplicity of factors affecting the outcome of a separation experience are discussed.

Effect of a skeleton photoperiod on the daylength-dependent response to oestrogen in canaries (Serinus canarius).

Previous studies have shown that ovariectomized canaries, injected with 50 mug oestradiol benzoate thrice weekly, show more oestrogen-induced nest-building on a long day than on a short day. In this study the same effect was obtained with castrated canaries. The influence of time available for building was assessed first by comparing castrated males on skeleton long days with birds on short days, the total number of light hours being equal. More birds in the skeleton long-day group placed material in the nest, and did so with a shorter latency, than birds in the short-day group. Thus the differences between short- and long-day birds are unlikely to be due entirely to differences in the time available. However, some of the long-day birds were no more active than the short-day ones suggesting that the skeleton long-day schedule does impose some constraint. In a third experiment photorefractory females (whose ovaries do not secret oestrogen in response to long days) kept on a long skeleton-day scored similarly on all measures of building as birds kept on a full 14 h day and significantly more than birds on a short day. The results also indicate that the birds are measuring daylength by means of a diurnal rhythm of photosensitivity, an effect comparable to that of longer photoperiods on gonadal growth.