Behavioral and Brain Sciences最新文献

This commentary complements Ellis et al.'s two-tiered framework by using panel data and emphasizing the role of population density in decelerating life history (LH) strategy. We show that mortality cues and energetic constraints do not operate in isolation, demonstrating how density-dependent competition shapes LH strategies over time and underscoring the need for a dynamic, multifaceted approach to LH development.

Ellis, Reid, and Kramer advance a two-tier model of extrinsic mortality and life history strategies, emphasizing that extrinsic mortality can promote higher reproduction. The article implies this second tier operates via conscious, volitional processes. I present evidence that extrinsic mortality events are not merely environmental cues but also bereavement-inducing events that can define histories principally by disrupting, not facilitating, life strategies.

Ellis et al.'s two-tiered model compellingly integrates biological and psychosocial pathways through which extrinsic mortality shapes life history strategies. An understated, yet important, implication of their framework is the role of social inequalities in signaling mortality risk - particularly through differential exposure to bereavement - and how it may give rise to distinct life history strategies and outcomes.

The two-tiered model of developmental plasticity is elegant and presented with impressive interdisciplinary synthesis. We suggest that yet more - social context and nutrition behavior - will need to be incorporated into empirical research. Drawing from anthropology, nutrition, and neuroscience, we highlight connections that may help generate new approaches for studying the developmental calibration of life history in humans.

Environmental factors do not directly drive life history outcomes. Rather, their influence is mediated by cognitive and affective processes. Here we review several psychological processes, which mediate the influence of environmental mortality on life history strategies in both Tier 1 and 2 from the target article.

The relationship between local extrinsic mortality rates and the timing of life-history milestones can be better understood when examined through food environments rather than by population "types," like small-scale societies or high-income countries. By mapping observed life-history variation onto food environments, which mediate the fundamental relationship between mortality and fertility, the explanatory value of a 2-tiered model becomes less compelling.

Simulations, correlational studies, and laboratory experiments have recently shown that cues to high-resource competition may be steering individuals toward increasingly less favorable attitudes toward reproduction and slower life-history strategies. This work suggests that, alongside extrinsic mortality, it may be fruitful to examine the role of competitive stress cues in shaping life-history strategies.

Life history strategies are linked to reproduction. Fast life history strategies place a particular burden on women biologically, socially, and politically. From the point of view of women's rights and gender equality, slower life history strategies are the more optimal solution. In the article, I show how feminism has an important role to play in slowing down life history strategies.

Hierarchical response models are advancing our understanding of the facultative adjustment of development and reproduction to the environment. E, R, and K's manuscript brings together a vast array of empirical data to support their Tier 2 model highlighting the importance of both the energetic and local mortality environments for reproductive development and timing. We propose that incorporating existing hierarchical response models, as well as analyses from industrial societies, will aid the hunt for underlying mechanisms that embody the local mortality environment impacting reproductive schedules.

Building upon the two-tiered model of life history strategies introduced by Ellis, Reid, and Kramer (2024), we discuss avenues for future research that apply the theory to sexual and gender minority individuals. We propose that minority stress and suicide exposure may serve as extrinsic ambient mortality cues among sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations. We also identify a feature of pubertal development requiring more consideration.