Abstract:The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how the check sheet of the Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program (NIDCAP) can be quantified and used in research. Using the quantified NIDCAP measures, the hypothesis that Caucasian male infants are less behaviorally competent while in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was explored. Participants included 42 very preterm NICU infants. Eighty-five NIDCAP behaviors were quantified into scores ranging from 0 to 1, indicating the percentage… Show more
“…Behavioral data were recorded while simultaneously measuring biological parameters (HR, RR, and SCR). Using the behavioral data sheets, the newborn’s behavior was later quantified for stress behaviors of total frequency per domain for each of three subsystems: autonomic behaviors, motor behaviors, and state behaviors 15 . A total behavioral arousal/stress score was computed by adding the three domains as previously described 16 .…”
“…Del Giudice's characterization of the stress-stricken male as being more aggressive, more dominant, and more competitive may be considered as the early selection of boys to raise the cutoff point of survival, leaving only the highly fit individuals for adult stages when same-sex competition determines the odds for reproduction. This is buttressed by a series of studies in the obstetric literature from this decade, indicating the greater vulnerability of male fetuses as compared to female fetuses (Anderson & Doyle 2008;Deulofeut et al 2007;Ingemarsson 2003;Jones et al 2005;Pressler & Hepworth 2002).…”
This target article presents an integrated evolutionary model of the development of attachment and human reproductive strategies. It is argued that sex differences in attachment emerge in middle childhood, have adaptive significance in both children and adults, and are part of sex-specific life history strategies. Early psychosocial stress and insecure attachment act as cues of environmental risk, and tend to switch development towards reproductive strategies favoring current reproduction and higher mating effort. However, due to sex differences in life history trade-offs between mating and parenting, insecure males tend to adopt avoidant strategies, whereas insecure females tend to adopt anxious/ambivalent strategies, which maximize investment from kin and mates. Females are expected to shift to avoidant patterns when environmental risk is more severe. Avoidant and ambivalent attachment patterns also have different adaptive values for boys and girls, in the context of same-sex competition in the peer group: in particular, the competitive and aggressive traits related to avoidant attachment can be favored as a status-seeking strategy for males. Finally, adrenarche is proposed as the endocrine mechanism underlying the reorganization of attachment in middle childhood, and the implications for the relationship between attachment and sexual development are explored. Sex differences in the development of attachment can be fruitfully integrated within the broader framework of adaptive plasticity in life history strategies, thus contributing to a coherent evolutionary theory of human development.MARCO DEL GIUDICE is an evolutionary developmental psychologist at the Center for Cognitive Science, University of Turin, Italy. Still at the beginning of his research career, he has published in leading psychology and biology journals, including Developmental Psychology, Developmental Science, and Evolution. He is especially interested in the dynamics of developmental plasticity, the evolution of human life history, and the origins of individual differences in behavioral strategies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.