Life History Theory and Strategies: Part 1
See following Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
~John Adams (American Founder, Federalist, and conservative)
Fast Versus Slow, R-Selected Versus K-Selected
What determines if you grow larger or smaller? Mature slowly or quickly? Have your first sexual experience earlier or later? Have few offspring or many? Live long or short? And what does it mean for having adulthood, marriage, family, and employment delayed to a later age?
Life history theory is about the patterns observed in various populations, human and otherwise. It is the study of what, on average, the individuals of a species do and what happens at different stages of life, up to the point of death. The is about the general pattern across an entire species, suggesting there tends to two basic strategies, fast and slow. But it doesn’t apply to all species such as certain trees and reptiles, and there are exceptions within a species as well. So, it isn’t necessarily same across all populations within a species.
An example of an r-strategist is a weed that takes over quickly, Such species play a role in ecological succession, establishing the conditions for K-strategists to later take hold. The r-strategist does so by living fast and dying young, and mass procreating. The K-strategist, however, is seen in species like humans, elephants, and dolphins. They grow slower and procreate less, specifically in order to invest more energy and nutrients into physiological, neurocognitive, and social development. As such, K-strategists are typically smart, creative, playful, and socially complex. Or so goes the theory.
There is a dark side to the science, though. A number of scientific racists, with their history in eugenics, have developed the in an attempt at rationalizing race realism and genetic determinism. This just-so story is a favorite belief system among human biodiversity advocates, part of the alt-right and linked to IDW (intellectual dark web). But there is no evidence of any significant behavioral differences among human populations that can’t be explained by environmental and epigenetic factors: culture, diet and nutrition, socioeconomic status, systemic racism, etc.
For this and other reasons, the r-K selection theory has mostly fallen out of favor and, where still used, it has been heavily revised. Over the past half century, better research and theories have largely replaced it, in terms of , , and . Since decoding DNA, we’ve come to realize that genetics is more complex and nuanced than we previously understood. More recent understandings emphasize an inseparable matrix of multiple factors. Genes are merely the letters, as the building blocks. But there is no meaning without the words and grammar of epigenetics and environment.
That is why life history strategies are more relevant to present science, specifically in the form of extended life history theory. It takes the same basic observed patterns, but sees it less determined by genetics than by shared environment, with epigenetics as the intermediary, along with involvement of culture and other intergenerational factors. But we are only now coming to realize there is also a bias in this approach, maybe partly related to that of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic), as most of the research has been done in the West and mostly in the United States. Non-WEIRD populations show different results.
Before we get into that, let’s describe what was previously found in the conventional WEIRD research. In the modern world of mass urbanization and industrialization, conditions of high stress, particularly chronic (threats, violence, malnutrition, famine, disease, etc), elicit a fast life history strategy; related to the (another thing that used to be blamed on genetic determinism; ). People tend to become reactionary, in both the behavioral and ideological senses. They react, rather than thinking expansively (i.e., larger and longer term consequences), because they have a low chance of living long. But it also changes their physiology. They physically develop and sexually mature younger. The fuller human potential is sacrificed for mere survival.
A slow life history strategy is at the other extreme. It’s what humans become when human flourishing is supported and promoted. What the racists believed was limited to the superior races has been proven to be equally accessible to all humans under the best conditions of individual and public health (e.g., a well-functioning social democracy). This explains the variance within countries (e.g., American North and South) and the variances between countries (e.g., highly developed and underdeveloped). These variances have persisted because systemic factors like racism enforced privilege and oppression.
As a quick summary, Agner Fog states, “Recent research has shown that there is some room for individual differences and adjustment to the environment. Several studies have found that humans are choosing a faster life history strategy when they live in an environment where the mortality and morbidity of adults is high. A slower life history strategy is chosen where the mortality is low, where resources are predictable and defendable, and where the population density is near the carrying capacity of the environment. Economic factors and education also influence the strategy” (). Though Fog’s focus is on violence, we suspect that any kind of social or environmental stressor, from high inequality to pathogenic/parasitic disease, will have the same or similar relation to life history strategies.
The demographic profile of mortality is important. For example, hunter-gatherers that have high infant mortality but low adult mortality take up a slow strategy. The presumed reason is that this is primarily about what is affecting development and behavior as an individual grows older, and so the greatest influence is the mortality rate of their peers in indicating their own likely lifespan. So, any stressor will be muted in it’s affect on these strategies to the degree it doesn’t affect adult mortality. That is likely why life history theory has fallen out of predicted patterns once mortality consequences have been reduced (e.g., real or perceived pathogen exposure having less significance with real world pathogen threat because of public health reforms)
The pattern seen here would already be familiar to those who know the research into political ideology and personality traits. We’ll discuss that angle further on in the next parts, if only briefly. Just realize that the worst factors, particularly when chronic and cumulative (i.e., shit life syndrome), tend to result in behaviors, traits, and outcomes that most of us would consider less than optimal. This is a more leftist understanding of human nature in terms of systems, structures, conditions, and environments; along with all other things external, shared, and persistent.
