Andrzej Łukasik

Personality Traits as a Mediator between Reproductive Life History Strategies and Worldview. The Moderating Role of Sex

With regard to human, life history theory postulates the existence of a continuum of reproductive life history strategies (LHS): fast strategy–slow strategy. Earlier studies show that the personality dimensions of the Big Five and worldview are correlated with LHS. In the present study we tested the hypothesis that the dimensions of the Big Five are mediators between LHS and worldview. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the model in a sample of 259 participants; additionally, the moderating role of the sex variable was included. In accordance with the hypothesis, the dimensions of the Big Five turned out to be mediators between LHS and worldview. The analysis of moderated mediation showed a signifi cant role of the sex variable in the tested model. According to the assumptions of life history theory, this indicates the role of early childhood experiences in shaping the worldview, however, the role of sex in relation to the diversity of these experiences and their impact on shaping reproductive strategies requires further research

Care of the self and human development
Trivers (1974) argued that offspring demand much more parental investment than parents want to give. This conflict of interest stems from a genetic conflict. Parents are genetically equally related to all of their offspring (the coefficient of relatedness r = 0.5; children share 50% genes of each of parents) and, for the parents, they present the same value as the “vehicle” of their genes. For this reason, parents are selected to balance investment among their offspring. For the offspring, it is a different standpoint: for each “full” sibling (r = 0.5) its value is twice as much to the other sibling (because it has 100% of its own genes, and the second sibling shares only 50% of its genes), and its value is fourfold higher than the value of a half-sibling (r = 0.25). The “selfish” children, driven by their own genetic interest, try to obtain more parental investment than their parents intend to provide, even at their siblings’  disadvantage. In this situation, a parent–offspring conflict arises that concerns the distribution of parental investment, and what is important, one can expect a sibling rivalry for these resources. In this paper the social and psychological consequences of parent – offspring conflict are discussed: i.a. infanticide, mate preference conflict, sibling rivalry and allomothering as a way in which parent–offspring can be reduced

The Life History Theory as a Theory of Human Development

The life history theory (LHT) is an evolutionary theory derived from evolutionary biology. According to it, species choose a reproductive strategy that maximizes adaptation (i.e., increases the chances of surviving and producing offspring) on the basis of influences contained in the environment which impacts development in the early stages of life. LHT, due to its connections with such psychological theories as psychosocial acceleration, the evolutionary theory of socialization, or the attachment theory, is also a developmental psychology theory which points to specific development paths within an evolutionary frame. The aim of this article is to shed light on LHT from the point of view of developmental psychology – a question as yet absent from the Polish literature of the subject.