Adversity, Adaptive Calibration, and Health: The Case of Disadvantaged Families

Abstract

Epidemiologists and medical researchers often employ an allostatic load model that focuses on environmental and lifestyle factors, together with biological vulnerabilities, to explain the deterioration of human physiological systems and chronic degenerative disease. Although this perspective has informed medicine and public health, it is agnostic toward the functional significance of pathophysiology and health deterioration. Drawing on Life History (LH) theory, the current paper reviews the literature on disadvantaged families to serve as a conceptual model of stress-health relationships in which the allocation of reproductive effort is instantiated in the LH strategies of individuals and reflects the bioenergetic and material resource tradeoffs. We propose that researchers interested in health disparities reframe chronic degenerative diseases as outcomes resulting from strategic calibration of physiological systems to best adapt, survive, and reproduce in response to demands of specific developmental contexts. These effects of adversity on later-age degenerative disease are mediated, in part, by socioemotional and cognitive mechanisms expressed in different life history strategies.

A head start for life history development? Family income mediates associations between height and immune response in men

“…More generally, it is therefore possible that our results reflect the existence of coadapted life history strategies, where traits that promote future orientation and organismal longevity cluster together in meaningful functional composites (Figueredo et al, ; Figueredo, Vasquez, Brumbach, & Schneider, ; Luoto, Krams, & Rantala, ; Minkov & Bond, ; Sherlock & Zietsch, ). The link between family income and height suggests one such composite, indicating the existence of slower life history strategies in families with higher income (cf., Cabeza de Baca, Wahl, Barnett, Figueredo, & Ellis, ; Griskevicius, Tybur, Delton, & Robertson, ; Lynch, ; Woodley of Menie et al, ). Our results are generally consistent with the hypothesis that internal factors (here: less robust immunity system) that increase susceptibility to infectious disease affect differences in life history strategies at the phenotypic (Murray, Gildersleeve, Fales, & Haselton, ) and genotypic levels (Figueredo et al, ).…”

Early-Life Stressors, Personality Development, and Fast Life Strategies: An Evolutionary Perspective on Malevolent Personality Features

“…It has been suggested that all LH traits vary on a slow-fast continuum (Del Giudice et al, 2015 ). More particular fast and slow LH strategies can be considered as coordinated and integrated patterns of metabolic, cognitive, behavioral, and personality traits (for details see Brumbach et al, 2009 ; Ellis et al, 2009 ; Figueredo et al, 2013 ; Del Giudice et al, 2015 ; de Baca et al, 2016 ). Slow LH strategies can be characterized by future oriented attitudes, a relatively long-term focus in behavioral strategies; for example, an ability to delay gratification.…”

“…which represent greater environmental harshness. Correspondingly, low SES was found to be associated with traits linked to fast LH strategies, such as impulsivity, risk-taking, and unrestricted sociosexual orientation (Brumbach et al, 2009 ; Belsky et al, 2010 ; Nettle, 2010 ; Griskevicius et al, 2011 ; de Baca et al, 2016 .). However, according to more recent findings, it is controversial to apply SES to represent harshness: some research has shown low SES as an indicator of resource scarcity whereas other studies have supported SES as a cue for mortality-morbidity threats (see Griskevicius et al, 2011 ; Belsky et al, 2012 ; Chang and Lu, 2018 for more details).…”

Early stress, parental motivation, and reproductive decision-making: applications of life history theory to parental behavior

“…Stress response systems further coordinate across other physiological systems ( e.g. , the gonadal axis) to regulate sexual maturation and reproduction [9 •• ,19,25–27]. …”