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Perspectives on Neuroscience

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Developmental Adaptation to Stress: An Evolutionary Perspective.

Bruce J Ellis¹, Marco Del Giudice²

¹Department of Psychology and Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA;

Annual Review of Psychology

|August 21, 2018

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Early stress may not only cause harm but also trigger adaptive survival strategies. This evolutionary perspective highlights how stress can shape development for better resilience in challenging environments.

Keywords:

childhood stress developmental plasticity developmental programming differential susceptibility evolution life history theory puberty stress response systems

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Area of Science:

Developmental science
Evolutionary biology
Psychology

Background:

Prevailing models often link early stress to negative outcomes like toxic stress.
An alternative evolutionary-developmental view suggests stress can also foster adaptive strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the theoretical and empirical literature on adaptive responses to early stress.
To explore concepts like adaptive plasticity, conditional adaptation, and the life history framework.
To examine stress response systems as plasticity mechanisms and individual differences in stress susceptibility.

Main Methods:

Literature review of theoretical and empirical studies.
Integration of concepts from evolutionary biology and developmental psychology.
Case study analysis of stress-mediated pubertal development.

Main Results:

Early stress can lead to the development of costly but adaptive strategies for survival and reproduction.
Physiological stress response systems and neuroendocrine processes act as plasticity mechanisms.
Individual differences in environmental susceptibility create systematic person-environment interactions.

Conclusions:

An evolutionary-developmental approach offers a complementary perspective to traditional models of stress and development.
This framework can integrate diverse findings and foster theoretical advancements in understanding stress responses.
Further research is needed to fully elucidate the mechanisms and implications of adaptive stress responses.