Expanding the ecology of human development: An evolutionary perspective.

Author(s):  
Jay Belsky
Author(s):  
Robin M. Bernstein ◽  
Barry Bogin

An evolutionary and biocultural approach is taken to the study of human growth and development. The evolutionary perspective focuses on the unusual process of human postnatal growth and development, a process that takes two decades to complete and traverses the stages of infancy, childhood, juvenility, and adolescence. Human childhood and adolescence are highly unusual even compared to our closest living relatives, perhaps unique. The biocultural perspective of human development focuses on the constant interaction taking place during all phases of human development between genes and hormones within the body and the sociocultural environment that surrounds the body. While humans are often considered to be cooperative breeders, depending on social group helpers to successfully rear offspring, it may be more accurate to understand humans as practising biocultural reproduction as an adaptation to minimise risks to health.


2010 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-77
Author(s):  
Uzma Zia

‘The Evolution of Development Policy: A Reinterpretation’ by S. N. Haider Naqvi is an excellent and timely discourse on development paradigms. The author lucidly traces evolution of different development paradigms and in the process not only thoroughly explains, what each paradigm stands but also critically evaluates each paradigm. The book is organised into seven parts. Part I, comprising ‘preliminaries’ gives an overview of the evolution of thinking on development policy. The analytical framework highlights the faults in the structure of development policy. To set the framework for analysing development policy, the book argues that an evolutionary perspective on development policy should be examined under three paradigms: traditional development paradigm; the liberalist paradigm and the human development paradigm. The author takes pains to describe various important aspects of this framework. The author also argues that some aspects of the traditional development paradigm have been misunderstood and in the process elucidate the subject.


Author(s):  
Tania Zittoun ◽  
Jaan Valsiner ◽  
Dankert Vedeler ◽  
Joao Salgado ◽  
Miguel M. Goncalves ◽  
...  

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria José Sotelo ◽  
Luis Gimeno

The authors explore an alternative way of analyzing the relationship between human development and individualism. The method is based on the first principal component of Hofstede's individualism index in the Human Development Index rating domain. Results suggest that the general idea that greater wealth brings more individualism is only true for countries with high levels of development, while for middle or low levels of development the inverse is true.


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