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Cited by 598

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 70 of the 70 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Sex, attachment, and the development of reproductive strategies

Del Giudice, Marco·2009·Behavioral and Brain Sciences
DOI 10.1017/s0140525x09000016
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Abstract

This target article presents an integrated evolutionary model of the development of attachment and human reproductive strategies. It is argued that sex differences in attachment emerge in middle childhood, have adaptive significance in both children and adults, and are part of sex-specific life history strategies. Early psychosocial stress and insecure attachment act as cues of environmental risk, and tend to switch development towards reproductive strategies favoring current reproduction and higher mating effort. However, due to sex differences in life history trade-offs between mating and parenting, insecure males tend to adopt avoidant strategies, whereas insecure females tend to adopt anxious/ambivalent strategies, which maximize investment from kin and mates. Females are expected to shift to avoidant patterns when environmental risk is more severe. Avoidant and ambivalent attachment patterns also have different adaptive values for boys and girls, in the context of same-sex competition in the peer group: in particular, the competitive and aggressive traits related to avoidant attachment can be favored as a status-seeking strategy for males. Finally, adrenarche is proposed as the endocrine mechanism underlying the reorganization of attachment in middle childhood, and the implications for the relationship between attachment and sexual development are explored. Sex differences in the development of attachment can be fruitfully integrated within the broader framework of adaptive plasticity in life history strategies, thus contributing to a coherent evolutionary theory of human development.

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Metadata

Authors
Del Giudice, M.
Venue
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2009-02
Volume
32
Issue
1
Pages
1-21
ISSN
  • 0140-525X (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-1825
DOI
10.1017/s0140525x09000016
OpenAlex
W2030602331
Cited by
598
References
70
FWCI
38.56
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 11 d)

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Del Giudice, M. (2009). Sex, attachment, and the development of reproductive strategies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x09000016

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