Integrating affordance-management and life-history perspectives, we propose that the perception of ecological affordances—the opportunities and threats an environment poses for goal achievement—varies as people’s goal priorities change across developmental life stages. The same environment can be perceived as posing an opportunity at one life stage, but as posing a threat or being irrelevant at other stages, shifting how individuals manage these affordances. By examining environmental dimensions tied to recurring adaptive challenges in human history—genetic relatedness, physical violence, and sex-age ratio—we explore human-environment interactions across the lifespan, offering insights into lifelong flexibility in ecological navigation.
