Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:40:13.322Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Strengths, altered investment, risk management, and other elaborations on the behavioural constellation of deprivation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Gillian V. Pepper
Affiliation:
Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE2 4HH, United Kingdom. [email protected]@newcastle.ac.ukhttp://gillianpepper.com/www.danielnettle.org.uk
Daniel Nettle
Affiliation:
Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE2 4HH, United Kingdom. [email protected]@newcastle.ac.ukhttp://gillianpepper.com/www.danielnettle.org.uk

Abstract

We are grateful to have received so many insightful commentaries from interested colleagues regarding our proposed behavioural constellation of deprivation (BCD) and our thoughts on its causes and consequences. In this response article, we offer some clarifications regarding our perspective and tackle some common misperceptions, including, for example, assumptions that the BCD is adaptive and that it should include all behaviours that vary with socioeconomic status. We then welcome some excellent proposals for extensions and modifications of our ideas, such as the conceptualisation of the BCD as a risk-management strategy and the calls for a greater focus on strengths and differential investment rather than deficits and disinvestment. Finally, we highlight some insightful explorations of the implications of our ideas for ethics, policy, and practice.

Type
Authors' Response
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreoni, J. & Sprenger, C. (2012) Risk preferences are not time preferences. American Economic Review 102(7):3357–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldini, R. (2015) Harsh environments and “fast” human life histories: What does the theory say? bioRxiv 14647(1):110.Google Scholar
Blackman, T., Harvey, J., Lawrence, M. & Simon, A. (2001) Neighbourhood renewal and health: evidence from a local case study. Health & Place 7(2):93103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Copping, L. T., Campbell, A. & Muncer, S. (2014) Psychometrics and life history strategy: the structure and validity of the High K Strategy Scale. Evolutionary Psychology: An International Journal of Evolutionary Approaches to Psychology and Behavior 12(1):200222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duflo, E. & Banerjee, A. (2011) Poor economics: a radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty. Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Dunkel, C. S. & Decker, M. (2010) Convergent validity of measures of life-history strategy. Personality and Individual Differences 48(5):681–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunkel, C. S., Summerville, L. A, Mathes, E. W. & Kesserling, S. N. (2014) Using the California Q-sort measure of life history strategy to predict sexual behavioral outcomes. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0445-5.Google ScholarPubMed
Ellis, B. J., Figueredo, A. J., Brumbach, B. H. & Schlomer, G. L. (2009) Fundamental dimensions of environmental risk: The impact of harsh versus unpredictable environments on the evolution and development of life history strategies. Human Nature 20(2):204–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Figueredo, A. J. (2007) The Arizona Life History Battery. Available at: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ajf/alhb.html.Google Scholar
Figueredo, A. J., Vásquez, G., Brumbach, B. H. & Schneider, S. M. R. (2007) The K-factor, covitality, and personality. Human Nature 18(1):4773.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frankenhuis, W. E., Gergely, G. & Watson, J. S. (2013) Infants may use contingency analysis to estimate environmental states: An evolutionary, life-history perspective. Child Development Perspectives 7(2):115–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gifford, R. & Nilsson, A. (2014) Personal and social factors that influence pro-environmental concern and behaviour: A review. International Journal of Psychology 49(3):141–57.Google ScholarPubMed
Giosan, C. (2006) High-K strategy scale: A measure of the high-K independent criterion of fitness. Evolutionary Psychology 4:394405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Delton, A. W. & Robertson, T. E. (2011b) The influence of mortality and socioeconomic status on risk and delayed rewards: A life history theory approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100(6):1015–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hill, S. E., Prokosch, M. L., DelPriore, D. J., Griskevicius, V. & Kramer, A. (2016) Low childhood socioeconomic status promotes eating in the absence of energy need. Psychological Science 27(3):354–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kidd, C., Palmeri, H. & Aslin, R. N. (2013) Rational snacking: Young children's decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition 126(1):109–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pepper, G. V. & Nettle, D. (2014b) Perceived extrinsic mortality risk and reported effort in looking after health: Testing a behavioural ecological prediction. Human Nature 25(3):378–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Promislow, D. E. L. & Harvey, P. H. (1990) Living fast and dying young: A comparative analysis of life history variation among mammals. Journal of Zoology 220(3):417–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott-Phillips, T. C., Dickins, T. E. & West, S. A. (2011) Evolutionary theory and the ultimate-proximate distinction in the human behavioral sciences. Perspectives on Psychological Science 6(1):3847.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stearns, S. C. (1977) The evolution of life history traits: a critique of the theory and a review of the data. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 8:145–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stearns, S. C. (1992) The evolution of life histories. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, B. J. & Chapman, G. B. (2005) The combined effects of risk and time on choice: Does uncertainty eliminate the immediacy effect? Does delay eliminate the certainty effect? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 96(2):104–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar