The DOI matches its OpenAlex record; 12 of the 12 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Childhood Experience, Interpersonal Development, and Reproductive Strategy: An Evolutionary Theory of Socialization
Abstract
The concept of "reproductive strategy" drawn from the field of behavioral ecology is applied to the study of childhood experience and interpersonal development in order to develop an evolutionary theory of socialization. The theory is presented in terms of 2 divergent development pathways considered to promote reproductive success in the contexts in which they have arisen. One is characterized, in childhood, by a stressful rearing environment and the development of insecure attachments to parents and subsequent behavior problems; in adolescence by early pubertal development and precocious sexuality; and, in adulthood, by unstable pair bonds and limited investment in child rearing, whereas the other is characterized by the opposite. The relation between this theory and prevailing theories of socialization, specifically, attachment, social-learning, and discrete-emotions theory, is considered and research consistent with our evolutionary theory is reviewed. Finally, directions for future research are discussed.
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Cites
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Self-citationHormones, emotional dispositions, and aggressive attributes in young adolescents
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Differential susceptibility to the environment: an evolutionary--neurodevelopmental theory
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Metadata
- Authors
- Belsky, J., Steinberg, L. D., & Draper, P.
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1991-08
- Volume
- 62
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 647
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2118405234
- Cited by
- 1,943
- References
- 12
- FWCI
- 66.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Childhood Experience, Interpersonal Development, and Reproductive Strategy: An Evolutionary Theory of Socialization. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01558.x
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- Belsky, J., Steinberg, L. D., & Draper, P. (1991). Childhood Experience, Interpersonal Development, and Reproductive Strategy: An Evolutionary Theory of Socialization. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01558.x
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
