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Contributors
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- By Avishek Adhikari, Susanne E. Ahmari, Anne Marie Albano, Carlos Blanco, Desiree K. Caban, Jonathan S. Comer, Jeremy D. Coplan, Ana Alicia De La Cruz, Emily R. Doherty, Bruce Dohrenwend, Amit Etkin, Brian A. Fallon, Michael B. First, Abby J. Fyer, Angela Ghesquiere, Jay A. Gingrich, Robert A. Glick, Joshua A. Gordon, Ethan E. Gorenstein, Marco A. Grados, James P. Hambrick, James Hanks, Kelli Jane K. Harding, Richard G. Heimberg, Rene Hen, Devon E. Hinton, Myron A. Hofer, Matthew J. Kaplowitz, Sharaf S. Khan, Donald F. Klein, Karestan C. Koenen, E. David Leonardo, Roberto Lewis-Fernández, Jeffrey A. Lieberman, Michael R. Liebowitz, Sarah H. Lisanby, Antonio Mantovani, John C. Markowitz, Patrick J. McGrath, Caitlin McOmish, Jeffrey M. Miller, Jan Mohlman, Elizabeth Sagurton Mulhare, Philip R. Muskin, Navin Arun Natarajan, Yuval Neria, Nicole R. Nugent, Mayumi Okuda, Mark Olfson, Laszlo A. Papp, Sapana R. Patel, Anthony Pinto, Kristin Pontoski, Jesse W. Richardson-Jones, Carolyn I. Rodriguez, Steven P. Roose, Moira A. Rynn, Franklin Schneier, M. Katherine Shear, Ranjeeb Shrestha, Helen Blair Simpson, Smit S. Sinha, Natalia Skritskaya, Jami Socha, Eun Jung Suh, Gregory M. Sullivan, Anthony J. Tranguch, Hilary B. Vidair, Tor D. Wager, Myrna M Weissman, Noelia V. Weisstaub
- Edited by Helen Blair Simpson, Columbia University, New York, Yuval Neria, Columbia University, New York, Roberto Lewis-Fernández, Columbia University, New York, Franklin Schneier, Columbia University, New York
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- Book:
- Anxiety Disorders
- Published online:
- 10 November 2010
- Print publication:
- 26 August 2010, pp vii-xii
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6 - New concepts in the evolution and development of anxiety
- from Section 1 - Evolving concepts of anxiety
- Edited by Helen Blair Simpson, Columbia University, New York, Yuval Neria, Columbia University, New York, Roberto Lewis-Fernández, Columbia University, New York, Franklin Schneier, Columbia University, New York
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- Book:
- Anxiety Disorders
- Published online:
- 10 November 2010
- Print publication:
- 26 August 2010, pp 59-68
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- Chapter
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Summary
This chapter views anxiety as an organized group of adaptive functions by which an organism senses, evaluates, and responds to cues of danger in its external (or internal) environment. The mechanism of evolution, natural selection, is primarily supported by evidence provided in the remarkable variation in domesticated species. One of the major difficulties that psychiatrists have with evolutionary accounts of the origin of major mental illnesses is the apparently incapacitating effects of these conditions and effects that should have led to their disappearance from the gene pool in the more hostile environments of our prehistoric past. The evolution of social relationships based on mutual attachment in mammals provides a new set of behaviors, motivational systems, and dangers within which a new variant of anxiety can evolve. Social and other environmental interactions can either intensify anxiety and/or preserve the life and comfort of the patient with anxiety disorder.
Commentary
- Edited by Carol M. Worthman, Emory University, Atlanta, Paul M. Plotsky, Emory University, Atlanta, Daniel S. Schechter, Constance A. Cummings
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- Book:
- Formative Experiences
- Published online:
- 26 May 2010
- Print publication:
- 07 April 2010, pp 184-190
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
This study illustrates, in a very convincing way, that widely different parent-infant interaction patterns can evolve to become stable and adaptive components of two different but equally successful sub-cultures, existing within the same geographical and linguistic context. When I recall Fouts's observations that in the Bofi farmer tribe it is routine for parents to leave their 2- to 4-year-old toddlers with their 5- to 7-year-old siblings all day without adult supervision, I realized that such practices in our culture are likely to be grounds for removal of children from parental custody by child welfare agencies.
The implications of Fouts's paper are far-reaching. Those of us in the health care and social welfare professions must not simply assume that certain forms of mother-child interactions are “healthy” and other practices are “pathological.” Furthermore, it strongly suggests that we review our ideas of “resilience” and “vulnerability,” as well as our efforts to design interventions, in the light of a broader context of biological and social evolution.
Comments
The results of these studies lead to a number of further questions. Ideally, we would like to know, in some detail, how the cultural, psychological, and biological components of the two Bofi tribes' different early caregiving patterns interact in preparing their children for the different kinds of lives they will lead when they are adolescents and adults. But we know a great deal less about biological than about cultural or psychological components of early parenting effects on the developing young.