Children,childhood, and development in evolutionary perspective |
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Authors: | David F. Bjorklund Bruce J. Ellis |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA;2. John and Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Arizona, McClelland Park, 650 North Park Ave, Tucson, AZ 85721-0078, USA |
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Abstract: | We examine children, childhood, and development from an evolutionary perspective. We begin by reviewing major assumptions of evolutionary–developmental psychology, including the integration of “soft” developmental systems theory with ideas from mainstream evolutionary psychology. We then discuss the concept of adaptive developmental plasticity and describe the core evolutionary concept of developmental programming and some of its applications to human development, as instantiated in life history theory and the theory of differential susceptibility to environmental influence. We then discuss the concept of adaptation from an evolutionary–developmental perspective, including ontogenetic and deferred adaptations, and examine the development of some adaptations of infancy and childhood from the domains of folk psychology and folk physics. We conclude that evolutionary theory can serve as a metatheory for developmental science. |
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Keywords: | Evolutionary&ndash developmental psychology Developmental systems theory Life history theory Differential susceptibility Ontogenetic adaptations Deferred adaptations Folk psychology Folk physics |
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