Why some adults thrive after childhood adversity

"It is beyond dispute that the Hubble Telescope, launched in 1990 (to say nothing of the James Webb Space Telescope launched 11 years later), radically transformed our understanding of the universe. To virtually everyone involved in the life sciences, Charles Darwin's theory of adaptation by natural selection in the mid-19th century and William Hamilton's insights on kin selection and inclusive fitness in the mid-20th century have functioned much like these recent telescopic wonders in understanding life on planet Earth."

"Below, Jay Belsky shares five key insights from his new book, The Nature of Nurture: Rethinking Why and How Childhood Adversity Shapes Development. Belsky is emeritus professor of human development at the University of California, Davis. What's the big idea? Seen through an evolutionary lens, early adversity can shape development in adaptive ways. And because children differ in their sensitivity to their environments, early experiences may matter a lot for some and much less for others."

Early-life adversity can produce adaptive developmental changes shaped by evolutionary processes rather than only causing dysfunction. Evolutionary principles—adaptation by natural selection, kin selection, and inclusive fitness—transform understanding of why, how, and for whom early conditions influence development. Childhood experiences interact with individual differences in environmental sensitivity, so the same adversity may have large effects for some children and minimal effects for others. The mainstream view that equates positive experiences with well-being and negative experiences with disorder is overly romanticized. Recasting adversity in evolutionary terms highlights context-contingent outcomes and the possibility that certain developmental responses to early stress may be functional in particular environments.

Read at Fast Company