Evolutionary Perspectives on Infancy

✍ Scribed by Sybil L. Hart (editor), David F. Bjorklund (editor)

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 379
• Series: Evolutionary Psychology
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This unique volume is one of the first of its kind to examine infancy through an evolutionary lens, identifying infancy as a discrete stage during which particular types of adaptations arose as a consequence of certain environmental pressures. Infancy is a crucial time period in psychological development, and evolutionary psychologists are increasingly recognizing that natural selection has operated on all stages of development, not just adulthood. The volume addresses this crucial change in perspective by highlighting research across diverse disciplines including developmental psychology, evolutionary developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology, nutrition, and primatology. Chapters are grouped into four sections:

1. Theoretical Underpinnings
2. Brain and Cognitive Development
3. Social/Emotional Development
4. Life and Death

Evolutionary Perspectives on Infancy sheds new light on our understanding of the human brain and the environments responsible for shaping the brain during early stages of development. This book will be of interest to evolutionary psychologists and developmental psychologists, biologists, and anthropologists, as well as scholars more broadly interested in infancy.

✦ Table of Contents

Dedication
Contents
Part I: Introduction
1 Infancy Through the Lens of Evolutionary Developmental Science • David F. Bjorklund and Sybil L. Hart
Part II: Foundations
2 Human Evolution and the Neotenous Infant • David F. Bjorklund
3 Infant Brain Development and Plasticity from an Evolutionary Perspective • Linnea Wilder and Katerina Semendeferi
4 Childbirth and Infant Care in Early Human Ancestors: What the Bones Tell Us • Jeremy M. DeSilva
5 Infant Mortality • Hannah McDowell and Anthony A. Volk
Part III: Social Context of Infant Development
6 An Unusually Human Time: Effects of the Most Social Stage on the Most Social Species • John L. Locke and Barry Bogin
7 Attachment and Caregiving in the Mother–Infant Dyad: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology Models of their Origins in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness • Sybil L. Hart
8 How Reliance on Allomaternal Care Shapes Primate Development with Special Reference to the Genus Homo • Sarah Blaffer Hrdy and Judith M. Burkart
9 Evolutionary Perspectives on Infant-Mother Conflict • Catherine Salmon and Jessica Hehman
10 Niche Construction in Hunter-Gatherer Infancy: Growth and Health Trade-Offs Inform Social Agency • Paula Ivey Henry and Gilda A. Morelli
11 Evolutionary Perspectives on the Role of Early Attachment Across the Lifespan • Jeffry A. Simpson and Margaret M. Jaeger
Part IV: Cognitive and Social Cognitive Development
12 Beyond the Language Module: Musicality as a Stepping Stone Towards Language Acquisition • Hirokazu Doi and Nobuo Masataka
13 What Is Unique in Infant Thinking About Others? Infant Social Cognition from an Evolutionary Perspective • David Buttelmann
14 Fear Learning in Infancy: An Evolutionary Developmental Perspective • David H. Rakison
15 Jealousy and the Terrible Twos • Sybil L. Hart
16 Caring for Others: The Early Emergence of Sympathy and Guilt • Amrisha Vaish and Tobias Grossmann
Glossary
Index