Ego

Abstract

Various theories and models of evolutionary psychology posit that personality traits are part of adaptive strategies regulating behavioral adaptation to various environmental (ecological and/or social) conditions encountered during childhood.Life history theory provides the most comprehensive framework to understand how circumstances experienced in early life might influence personality. It proposes that personality traits develop into a certain profile depending on different conditional factors. Actual circumstances define resource allocation, that is, how the individual utilizes available resources (e.g., food, parental support, etc.) in order to maximize survival and/or reproduction. The most dominant environmental components to affect allocation strategies are level of mortality, level of stability or predictability of conditions, and level of heterogeneity of the trait in the local environment. Less favorable conditions (i.e., higher mortality rates and less parental investment) are suggested to form personality traits linked to more exploitative behavioral strategies with unrestrictive sexual behavior, whereas more advantageous circumstances proposedly shape rather prosocial behaviors and more restricted sexuality. Early childhood experiences (i.e., quality of caregiving, low socioeconomic status of the family) can be seen as indicators for such environmental factors which might also promote the development of personality profiles linked to certain life history strategies.