The development of the child unpredictability schema: Regulation through maternal life history trade-offs.

Abstract

Guided by life history theory, the present study (a) developed and provided preliminary validation data for a self-report measure of a childhood unpredictability schema (i.e., a worldview where children perceive other people and future outcomes as unreliable and unpredictable) and (b) tested for the effects of maternal life history strategy and its behavioral components on development of the child's unpredictability schema. Because maternal life history strategy may impact her child's physical, mental, and cognitive/ emotional functioning, the authors included both a general measure of the mother's life history strategy and specific measures of her parental effort and mating effort. Sixtyfive 10 -12-year-old children and their mothers participated in the current study. The sample was economically disadvantaged and ethnically diverse (53% of mothers were of Hispanic/Latino descent). Consistent with life history theory, both maternal mating effort and parental effort were associated with the child's unpredictability schema, with less mating effort and more parental effort predicting a less developed schema. Results also revealed a quadratic "floor effect," whereby higher levels of parental effort showed a curvilinear association with lower levels (i.e., less developed) of child unpredictability schema. The new measure of child unpredictability schema performed as expected and may prove useful for future research in this domain.

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

“…Growing up under such household conditions should orient individuals to prioritize mating effort over parental obligations and impact the development of children. Consistent with this view, research examining low-income mothers and their elementary school children found that both decreased parental effort and increased mating effort were associated with a more highly developed child unpredictability schema [15 • ]. Retrospective examination of family unpredictability designated by inconsistency in discipline/nurturance, family meals, and income was associated with a more developed unpredictability schema in college students [16].…”

“…, moving residences and schools, changes in caregivers and/or parental relationships [12–14]). Work focusing on the unpredictability schema has found a link between these family-level indicators of unpredictability and increased perception of unpredictability [15 • ,16]. Growing up under such household conditions should orient individuals to prioritize mating effort over parental obligations and impact the development of children.…”

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

“…An antagonistic behavioral strategy should be enacted by schemas and a worldview that conspecifics and the environment is unreliable (Ross & Hill, 2002). Recent evidence suggests that low-investing maternal parenting predicted greater perceptions of unpredictability in middle childhood (Cabeza de Baca, Barnett, & Ellis, 2016). Prior experience with violent events also appears to increase risk perceptions of future hazardous events in adults (Blum et al, 2014) and post-traumatic stress symptomatology in children (Garfin et al, 2014).…”

Are Expectations the Missing Link between Life History Strategies and Psychopathology?

“…In humans, childhood adversity and family unpredictability have been implicated in the development of a childhood unpredictability schema that is associated with future discounting, impulsivity, and risk taking ( Hill et al, 1997 ; Ross and Hill, 2002 ; Cabeza de Baca et al, 2016 ). These unpredictability schema may in turn shape our internalized working models of attachment and ultimately our perceptions of social support and how we perceive others will react to meeting our needs ( Collins and Feeney, 2004 ).…”