Adaptive calibration of children's physiological responses to family stress: the utility of evolutionary developmental theory: comment on Del Giudice et al. (2012) and Sturge-Apple et al. (2012)

Children's physiological reactions to stress are presented from the broader theoretical perspective of adaptive calibration to the environment, as rooted in life history theory. Del Giudice, Hinnant, Ellis, and El-Sheikh (2012) focus on children's physiological responses to a stressful task as a consequence of their history of family stress. Sturge-Apple, Davies, Martin, Cicchetti, and Hentges (2012) focus on the ways that children respond to a novel laboratory manipulation as a combined function of their temperament patterns and the harshness of their parental environment. The theoretical perspective employed provides an overarching framework that not only accounts for the findings presented here but also has heuristic value for future research on responses to early environmental risk. Future work in this area will benefit by inclusion of additional sympathetic nervous system (SNS) markers and neurotransmitters, inclusion of the role of gene expression in adaptive calibration, broader consideration of protective factors in the child's environment, and longitudinal work demonstrating the effects of adaptive calibration on children's future life history strategies and outcomes.