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24 - Evolutionary Biology of Hormonal Responses to Social Challenges in the Human Child

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2012

By
Mark V. Flinn
Edited by
Michael P. Muehlenbein
Michael P. Muehlenbein
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
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Summary

Human children are remarkably tuned-in to their social environments. They are informational sponges, absorbing bits of knowledge from others at a phenomenal pace, equipped with life's most sophisticated and creative communication system (human language). This sensitivity to social interactions is interwoven with the ontogeny of flexible cognitive skills – including empathy, self awareness, social-scenario building, and theory of mind (ToM) – that are the foundation of human relationships. In this chapter I examine the neuroendocrine systems that facilitate the development of these distinctively human sociocognitive adaptations.

Neuroendocrine systems may be viewed as complex sets of mechanisms designed by natural selection to communicate information among cells and tissues. Steroid and peptide hormones, associated neurotransmitters, and other chemical messengers guide behaviors of mammals in many important ways (Ellison,2001; Lee et al., 2009; Panksepp, 2009). Analysis of patterns of hormone levels in naturalistic contexts can provide important insights into the evolutionary functions of the neuroendocrine mechanisms that guide human behaviors. Here I focus on the apparent evolutionary paradox of neuroendocrine response to psychosocial stressors.

Acute and chronic stressful experiences are associated with a variety of negative health outcomes in humans, including susceptibility to upper respiratory infections (Cohen et al., 2003), anxiety and depression (Heim and Nemeroff, 2001), and coronary heart disease (McEwen, 1998). The effects of psychosocial stress can be substantial: in the rural community of Bwa Mawego, Dominica, where I have studied child health for the past 22 years, overall morbidity among children for the 3–6 days following an acute stress event is more than double the normal rate (Flinn and England, 2003).

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Human Evolutionary Biology , pp. 405 - 424
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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