Osipowicz, Karol

Sacco, Donald F

Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience

PubMed

Jefferson Digital Commons

Thomas Jefferson UniversityJefferson Digital CommonsDepartment of Neurology Faculty Papers Department of Neurology9-3-2012Life history theory and social psychology.Donald F SaccoUniversity of Southern MississippiKarol OsipowiczDepartment of Neurology, Thomas Jefferson University, Karol.Osipowicz@jefferson.eduLet us know how access to this document benefits youFollow this and additional works at: http://jdc.jefferson.edu/neurologyfpPart of the Other Medical Specialties CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Jefferson Digital Commons. The Jefferson Digital Commons is a service of ThomasJefferson University's Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). The Commons is a showcase for Jefferson books and journals, peer-reviewed scholarlypublications, unique historical collections from the University archives, and teaching tools. The Jefferson Digital Commons allows researchers andinterested readers anywhere in the world to learn about and keep up to date with Jefferson scholarship. This article has been accepted for inclusion inDepartment of Neurology Faculty Papers by an authorized administrator of the Jefferson Digital Commons. For more information, please contact:JeffersonDigitalCommons@jefferson.edu.Recommended CitationSacco, Donald F and Osipowicz, Karol, "Life history theory and social psychology." (2012).Department of Neurology Faculty Papers. Paper 53.http://jdc.jefferson.edu/neurologyfp/53EVOLUTIONARY NEUROSCIENCEA commentary onThe optimal calibration hypothesis: how life history modulates the brain’s social pain networkby Chester, D. S., Pond, R. S. Jr., Richman, S. B., and DeWall, C. N. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:10. doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00010While occupying a relatively brief space in the history of scientific inquiry, many social psychologists have nonetheless recognized the need to integrate the field’s myriad findings into a coherent, meta-theoretical framework. Chester et al. (2012), consist-ent with the spirit of this movement, have answered this call by utilizing a Life History Theory (LHT) framework to understand the relationship between attachment bonds formed during early critical developmental periods and later reactions to social rejec-tion experiences in adulthood. While attach-ment theory and social exclusion research are well-developed phenomena in their own right, the utilization of LHT clarifies how these areas of inquiry are interrelated.As the authors note, LHT has been suc-cessfully used across the biological sciences to explain how specific developmental periods require organisms to differentially allocate limited resources to navigate various aspects of survival and reproduction. At its core, LHT is a motivational framework, whereby motivational “states” are determined by the specific problems and opportunities associ-ated with an organism’s current develop-mental stage and local ecology. In the current paper, Chester and colleagues provide a theo-retical framework and supporting evidence  indicating early life stages can critically influ-ence, via calibration processes, responses in subsequent developmental periods.Consistent with the notion that evolu-tion is incapable of forward-thinking, the authors argue that early social experiences provide the data that calibrates organisms’ systems for responding to their future social environments (see Figure 1). Specifically, children’s early attachment experiences calibrate their social pain system response, which partially determines the intensity of reactions to rejection experiences in adulthood. Although intense reactions to social rejection can be adaptive, specifi-cally by helping an organism secure sub-sequent social belonging, the intensity of these responses is only beneficial provided social opportunity is actually available; oth-erwise, such chronic and intense responses to social rejection can negatively impact other vital systems (e.g., biological immune system). Whereas consistently unavailable attachment in childhood (avoidant attach-ment) communicates an environment in which social exclusion is likely to be nor-mative, variable attachment opportunity in childhood (anxious attachment) indi-cates that social belonging opportuni-ties will be unpredictable. Based on these early experiences, the authors provide evidence that avoidantly attached indi-viduals show a blunted response to social rejection (reduced activation of dACC and insula), whereas anxiously attached individuals show a heightened response to social rejection. For avoidantly attached individuals, social resources have been con-sistently unavailable and calibration of the social pain system to respond intensely to social rejection would have numerous costs (e.g., suppression of immune system), with very few opportunities (social inclusion). Conversely, anxiously attached individuals, Life history theory and social psychologyDonald F. Sacco1* and Karol Osipowicz 21 The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA2 Department of Neurology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA*Correspondence: Donald.Sacco@usm.eduEdited by:Austen Krill, University of Liverpool, UKReviewed by:Austen Krill, University of Liverpool, UKFigure 1 | Depicts the optimal calibration and response of the social pain system in relation to different life histories. Early S.E. refers to the social environment in which the social pain system is calibrated, Attachment Orientation refers to the resultant attachment style produced by early attachment experiences, Calibrated Social Pain System refers to the sensitivity of the social pain system in response to social rejection in adulthood.Frontiers in evolutionary Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org September 2012 | Volume 4 | Article 13 | 1General Commentarypublished: 03 September 2012doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00013it seems as though a LHT framework will continue to be a powerful tool for organ-izing and generating rigorous research in the study of human behavior.RefeRencesBrown, C. M., Young, S. G., Sacco, D. F., Bernstein, M. J., and Claypool, H. M. (2009). Social inclusion facilitates interest in mating. Evol. Psychol. 7, 11–27.Buss, D. M. (2009). How can evolutionary psychology successfully explain personality and individual dif-ferences? Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 4, 359–366.Chester, D. S., Pond, R. S. Jr., Richman, S. B., and DeWall, C. N. (2012). The optimal calibration hypothesis: how life history modulates the brain’s social pain network. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:10. doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00010Figueredo, A. J., Andrzejczak, D. J., Jones, D. N., Smith-Castro, V., and Montero, E. (2011). Reproductive strat-egy and ethnic conflict: slow life history as a protective factor against negative ethnocentrism in two contem-porary societies. J. Soc. Evol. Cult. Psychol. 5, 14–31.Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Delton, A. W., and Robertson, T. E. (2011). The influence of mortality and socioeco-nomic status on risk and delayed rewards: a life history theory approach. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100, 1015–1026.Holloway, R. L. (1981). Culture, symbols, and human brain evolution: a synthesis. Dialect. Anthropol. 5, 287–303.Hurford, J. R. (1991). The evolution of the critical period for language acquisition. Cognition 40, 159–201.Johnson, J. S., and Newport, E. L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: the influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cogn. Psychol. 21, 60–99.Sundie, J. M., Kenrick, D. T., Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Vohs, K. D., and Beal, D. J. (2011). Peacocks, porsches, and thorstein veblen: conspicuous consumption as a sexual signaling system. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100, 664–680.Wang, X. T., Kruger, D. J., and Wilke, A. (2009). Life his-tory variables and risk-taking propensity. Evol. Hum. Behav. 30, 77–84.Received: 26 July 2012; accepted: 16 August 2012; published online: 03 September 2012.Citation: Sacco DF and Osipowicz K (2012) Life history theory and social psychology. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:13. doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00013Copyright © 2012 Sacco and Osipowicz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu-tion and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.has the potential to inform the study and treatment of neurologically impaired individuals.Chester and colleagues also identify critical periods for the calibration of the social rejection system: (1) early on  during development when parental rejection would be devastating to survival, and (2) during adolescence, when rejection of a possible mate would reduce reproductive fitness. Interestingly, these two critical peri-ods are well aligned with critical periods in language development (e.g., Johnson and Newport, 1989; Hurford, 1991), suggesting that language and socio-affective develop-ment are inextricably linked – a postulation supported by the evolutionary evidence of con-committal language ability and societal size increases in hominids (Holloway, 1981). This allows for the extension of this hypoth-esis to not only include responses to social pain, but also linguistic function/ability as a calibratable system responsive to early life history. Interestingly, one of the major nodes of the social pain network (insula) is close in proximity and highly connected to a major node in the language network (Broca’s area), suggesting that the calibra-tion of the social pain system and language system may be related. The development of these ideas could lead to interesting research that takes advantage of both neuropsycho-logical and neuroimaging techniques.Chester and colleagues have begun an exciting dialog that combines findings from a number of fields and unites them through one common theoretical perspective. Indeed, the current research program is one of a growing number in social psychology to use LHT to not only organize a variety of social psychological phenomena, but inte-grate them within the larger scientific com-munity (e.g., Brown et al., 2009; Buss, 2009; Wang et al., 2009; Figueredo et al., 2011; Griskevicius et al., 2011; Sundie et al., 2011). Based on this expanding body of evidence, because social inclusion opportunities have been unpredictable, have a social pain sys-tem calibrated to be especially sensitive to cues signaling social rejection. Collectively, the current article effectively explains how early attachment bonds calibrate reactions to social rejection.Interestingly, the optimal calibration hypothesis is not only a powerful explana-tory framework for research on social attachment and social rejection; it may have clinical significance as well, with implications beyond social psychology. For example, an understanding of how the dACC and anterior insula are implicated in social pain system calibration may inform the understanding and treatment of indi-viduals with damage to these areas, who are being treated primarily for symptoms unrelated to the social pain system. For example, patients with left middle cerebral artery (MCA) strokes often suffer injury to the anterior insula and the frontal opercula, producing pronounced expressive dyspha-sias. Some patients respond to therapy and recover expressive language function to almost basal levels, while other patients are completely intractable to therapy. While current treatments focus specifically on the recovery of language function, such inju-ries may also disrupt social pain responses, producing heightened levels of anxiety that can interfere with treatment adherence. If considered from a LHT perspective, this therapeutic approach should also address the patient’s attachment orientation and concomitant social pain system calibration to achieve optimal therapeutic outcomes. Understanding how specific brain injuries may disrupt social pain system responses could help catalyze the development of therapeutic interventions that address both primary (language deficits) and secondary symptoms (disruption of social pain sys-tem), which may improve overall patient outcomes. Thus, this theoretical  framework Sacco and Osipowicz Life history theory and social psychologyFrontiers in evolutionary Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org September 2012 | Volume 4 | Article 13 | 2

Life history theory and social psychology.

Donald F. Sacco

Karol Osipowicz

Crossref

Life History Theory and Social Psychology

Name not available

Sacco, Donald F.

Aquila Digital Community (University of Southern Mississippi, USM)

The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Faculty Publications 9-3-2012 Life History Theory and Social Psychology Donald F. Sacco University of Southern Mississippi, Donald.Sacco@usm.edu Karol Osipowicz Thomas Jefferson University Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs Recommended Citation Sacco, D., Osipowicz, K. (2012). Life History Theory and Social Psychology. Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience, 4(SEP). Available at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/20826 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact Joshua.Cromwell@usm.edu. EVOLUTIONARY NEUROSCIENCEA commentary onThe optimal calibration hypothesis: how life history modulates the brain’s social pain networkby Chester, D. S., Pond, R. S. Jr., Richman, S. B., and DeWall, C. N. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:10. doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00010While occupying a relatively brief space in the history of scientific inquiry, many social psychologists have nonetheless recognized the need to integrate the field’s myriad findings into a coherent, meta-theoretical framework. Chester et al. (2012), consist-ent with the spirit of this movement, have answered this call by utilizing a Life History Theory (LHT) framework to understand the relationship between attachment bonds formed during early critical developmental periods and later reactions to social rejec-tion experiences in adulthood. While attach-ment theory and social exclusion research are well-developed phenomena in their own right, the utilization of LHT clarifies how these areas of inquiry are interrelated.As the authors note, LHT has been suc-cessfully used across the biological sciences to explain how specific developmental periods require organisms to differentially allocate limited resources to navigate various aspects of survival and reproduction. At its core, LHT is a motivational framework, whereby motivational “states” are determined by the specific problems and opportunities associ-ated with an organism’s current develop-mental stage and local ecology. In the current paper, Chester and colleagues provide a theo-retical framework and supporting evidence  indicating early life stages can critically influ-ence, via calibration processes, responses in subsequent developmental periods.Consistent with the notion that evolu-tion is incapable of forward-thinking, the authors argue that early social experiences provide the data that calibrates organisms’ systems for responding to their future social environments (see Figure 1). Specifically, children’s early attachment experiences calibrate their social pain system response, which partially determines the intensity of reactions to rejection experiences in adulthood. Although intense reactions to social rejection can be adaptive, specifi-cally by helping an organism secure sub-sequent social belonging, the intensity of these responses is only beneficial provided social opportunity is actually available; oth-erwise, such chronic and intense responses to social rejection can negatively impact other vital systems (e.g., biological immune system). Whereas consistently unavailable attachment in childhood (avoidant attach-ment) communicates an environment in which social exclusion is likely to be nor-mative, variable attachment opportunity in childhood (anxious attachment) indi-cates that social belonging opportuni-ties will be unpredictable. Based on these early experiences, the authors provide evidence that avoidantly attached indi-viduals show a blunted response to social rejection (reduced activation of dACC and insula), whereas anxiously attached individuals show a heightened response to social rejection. For avoidantly attached individuals, social resources have been con-sistently unavailable and calibration of the social pain system to respond intensely to social rejection would have numerous costs (e.g., suppression of immune system), with very few opportunities (social inclusion). Conversely, anxiously attached individuals, Life history theory and social psychologyDonald F. Sacco1* and Karol Osipowicz 21 The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA2 Department of Neurology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA*Correspondence: Donald.Sacco@usm.eduEdited by:Austen Krill, University of Liverpool, UKReviewed by:Austen Krill, University of Liverpool, UKFigure 1 | Depicts the optimal calibration and response of the social pain system in relation to different life histories. Early S.E. refers to the social environment in which the social pain system is calibrated, Attachment Orientation refers to the resultant attachment style produced by early attachment experiences, Calibrated Social Pain System refers to the sensitivity of the social pain system in response to social rejection in adulthood.Frontiers in evolutionary Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org September 2012 | Volume 4 | Article 13 | 1General Commentarypublished: 03 September 2012doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00013it seems as though a LHT framework will continue to be a powerful tool for organ-izing and generating rigorous research in the study of human behavior.RefeRencesBrown, C. M., Young, S. G., Sacco, D. F., Bernstein, M. J., and Claypool, H. M. (2009). Social inclusion facilitates interest in mating. Evol. Psychol. 7, 11–27.Buss, D. M. (2009). How can evolutionary psychology successfully explain personality and individual dif-ferences? Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 4, 359–366.Chester, D. S., Pond, R. S. Jr., Richman, S. B., and DeWall, C. N. (2012). The optimal calibration hypothesis: how life history modulates the brain’s social pain network. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:10. doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00010Figueredo, A. J., Andrzejczak, D. J., Jones, D. N., Smith-Castro, V., and Montero, E. (2011). Reproductive strat-egy and ethnic conflict: slow life history as a protective factor against negative ethnocentrism in two contem-porary societies. J. Soc. Evol. Cult. Psychol. 5, 14–31.Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Delton, A. W., and Robertson, T. E. (2011). The influence of mortality and socioeco-nomic status on risk and delayed rewards: a life history theory approach. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100, 1015–1026.Holloway, R. L. (1981). Culture, symbols, and human brain evolution: a synthesis. Dialect. Anthropol. 5, 287–303.Hurford, J. R. (1991). The evolution of the critical period for language acquisition. Cognition 40, 159–201.Johnson, J. S., and Newport, E. L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: the influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cogn. Psychol. 21, 60–99.Sundie, J. M., Kenrick, D. T., Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Vohs, K. D., and Beal, D. J. (2011). Peacocks, porsches, and thorstein veblen: conspicuous consumption as a sexual signaling system. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100, 664–680.Wang, X. T., Kruger, D. J., and Wilke, A. (2009). Life his-tory variables and risk-taking propensity. Evol. Hum. Behav. 30, 77–84.Received: 26 July 2012; accepted: 16 August 2012; published online: 03 September 2012.Citation: Sacco DF and Osipowicz K (2012) Life history theory and social psychology. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:13. doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00013Copyright © 2012 Sacco and Osipowicz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu-tion and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.has the potential to inform the study and treatment of neurologically impaired individuals.Chester and colleagues also identify critical periods for the calibration of the social rejection system: (1) early on  during development when parental rejection would be devastating to survival, and (2) during adolescence, when rejection of a possible mate would reduce reproductive fitness. Interestingly, these two critical peri-ods are well aligned with critical periods in language development (e.g., Johnson and Newport, 1989; Hurford, 1991), suggesting that language and socio-affective develop-ment are inextricably linked – a postulation supported by the evolutionary evidence of con-committal language ability and societal size increases in hominids (Holloway, 1981). This allows for the extension of this hypoth-esis to not only include responses to social pain, but also linguistic function/ability as a calibratable system responsive to early life history. Interestingly, one of the major nodes of the social pain network (insula) is close in proximity and highly connected to a major node in the language network (Broca’s area), suggesting that the calibra-tion of the social pain system and language system may be related. The development of these ideas could lead to interesting research that takes advantage of both neuropsycho-logical and neuroimaging techniques.Chester and colleagues have begun an exciting dialog that combines findings from a number of fields and unites them through one common theoretical perspective. Indeed, the current research program is one of a growing number in social psychology to use LHT to not only organize a variety of social psychological phenomena, but inte-grate them within the larger scientific com-munity (e.g., Brown et al., 2009; Buss, 2009; Wang et al., 2009; Figueredo et al., 2011; Griskevicius et al., 2011; Sundie et al., 2011). Based on this expanding body of evidence, because social inclusion opportunities have been unpredictable, have a social pain sys-tem calibrated to be especially sensitive to cues signaling social rejection. Collectively, the current article effectively explains how early attachment bonds calibrate reactions to social rejection.Interestingly, the optimal calibration hypothesis is not only a powerful explana-tory framework for research on social attachment and social rejection; it may have clinical significance as well, with implications beyond social psychology. For example, an understanding of how the dACC and anterior insula are implicated in social pain system calibration may inform the understanding and treatment of indi-viduals with damage to these areas, who are being treated primarily for symptoms unrelated to the social pain system. For example, patients with left middle cerebral artery (MCA) strokes often suffer injury to the anterior insula and the frontal opercula, producing pronounced expressive dyspha-sias. Some patients respond to therapy and recover expressive language function to almost basal levels, while other patients are completely intractable to therapy. While current treatments focus specifically on the recovery of language function, such inju-ries may also disrupt social pain responses, producing heightened levels of anxiety that can interfere with treatment adherence. If considered from a LHT perspective, this therapeutic approach should also address the patient’s attachment orientation and concomitant social pain system calibration to achieve optimal therapeutic outcomes. Understanding how specific brain injuries may disrupt social pain system responses could help catalyze the development of therapeutic interventions that address both primary (language deficits) and secondary symptoms (disruption of social pain sys-tem), which may improve overall patient outcomes. Thus, this theoretical  framework Sacco and Osipowicz Life history theory and social psychologyFrontiers in evolutionary Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org September 2012 | Volume 4 | Article 13 | 2

English

Frontiers - Publisher Connector

EVOLUTIONARY NEUROSCIENCE
A commentary on
The optimal calibration hypothesis: how 
life history modulates the brain’s social 
pain network
by Chester, D. S., Pond, R. S. Jr., Richman, S. 
B., and DeWall, C. N. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 
4:10. doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00010
While occupying a relatively brief space in 
the history of scientific inquiry, many social 
psychologists have nonetheless recognized 
the need to integrate the field’s myriad 
findings into a coherent, meta-theoretical 
framework. Chester et al. (2012), consist-
ent with the spirit of this movement, have 
answered this call by utilizing a Life History 
Theory (LHT) framework to understand 
the relationship between attachment bonds 
formed during early critical developmental 
periods and later reactions to social rejec-
tion experiences in adulthood. While attach-
ment theory and social exclusion research 
are well-developed phenomena in their own 
right, the utilization of LHT clarifies how 
these areas of inquiry are interrelated.
As the authors note, LHT has been suc-
cessfully used across the biological sciences to 
explain how specific developmental periods 
require organisms to differentially allocate 
limited resources to navigate various aspects 
of survival and reproduction. At its core, 
LHT is a motivational framework, whereby 
motivational “states” are determined by the 
specific problems and opportunities associ-
ated with an organism’s current develop-
mental stage and local ecology. In the current 
paper, Chester and colleagues provide a theo-
retical framework and supporting evidence 
 indicating early life stages can critically influ-
ence, via calibration processes, responses in 
subsequent developmental periods.
Consistent with the notion that evolu-
tion is incapable of forward-thinking, the 
authors argue that early social experiences 
provide the data that calibrates organisms’ 
systems for responding to their future social 
environments (see Figure 1). Specifically, 
children’s early attachment experiences 
calibrate their social pain system response, 
which partially determines the intensity 
of reactions to rejection experiences in 
adulthood. Although intense reactions to 
social rejection can be adaptive, specifi-
cally by helping an organism secure sub-
sequent social belonging, the intensity of 
these responses is only beneficial provided 
social opportunity is actually available; oth-
erwise, such chronic and intense responses 
to social rejection can negatively impact 
other vital systems (e.g., biological immune 
system). Whereas consistently unavailable 
attachment in childhood (avoidant attach-
ment) communicates an environment in 
which social exclusion is likely to be nor-
mative, variable attachment opportunity 
in childhood (anxious attachment) indi-
cates that social belonging opportuni-
ties will be unpredictable. Based on these 
early experiences, the authors provide 
evidence that avoidantly attached indi-
viduals show a blunted response to social 
rejection (reduced activation of dACC 
and insula), whereas anxiously attached 
individuals show a heightened response 
to social rejection. For avoidantly attached 
individuals, social resources have been con-
sistently unavailable and calibration of the 
social pain system to respond intensely to 
social rejection would have numerous costs 
(e.g., suppression of immune system), with 
very few opportunities (social inclusion). 
Conversely, anxiously attached individuals, 
Life history theory and social psychology
Donald F. Sacco1* and Karol Osipowicz 2
1 The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA
2 Department of Neurology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
*Correspondence: Donald.Sacco@usm.edu
Edited by:
Austen Krill, University of Liverpool, UK
Reviewed by:
Austen Krill, University of Liverpool, UK
Figure 1 | Depicts the optimal calibration and response of the social pain system in relation to 
different life histories. Early S.E. refers to the social environment in which the social pain system is 
calibrated, Attachment Orientation refers to the resultant attachment style produced by early attachment 
experiences, Calibrated Social Pain System refers to the sensitivity of the social pain system in response 
to social rejection in adulthood.
Frontiers in evolutionary Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org September 2012 | Volume 4 | Article 13 | 1
General Commentary
published: 03 September 2012
doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00013
it seems as though a LHT framework will 
continue to be a powerful tool for organ-
izing and generating rigorous research in 
the study of human behavior.
RefeRences
Brown, C. M., Young, S. G., Sacco, D. F., Bernstein, M. J., 
and Claypool, H. M. (2009). Social inclusion facilitates 
interest in mating. Evol. Psychol. 7, 11–27.
Buss, D. M. (2009). How can evolutionary psychology 
successfully explain personality and individual dif-
ferences? Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 4, 359–366.
Chester, D. S., Pond, R. S. Jr., Richman, S. B., and DeWall, 
C. N. (2012). The optimal calibration hypothesis: 
how life history modulates the brain’s social pain 
network. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:10. doi: 10.3389/
fnevo.2012.00010
Figueredo, A. J., Andrzejczak, D. J., Jones, D. N., Smith-
Castro, V., and Montero, E. (2011). Reproductive strat-
egy and ethnic conflict: slow life history as a protective 
factor against negative ethnocentrism in two contem-
porary societies. J. Soc. Evol. Cult. Psychol. 5, 14–31.
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Delton, A. W., and Robertson, 
T. E. (2011). The influence of mortality and socioeco-
nomic status on risk and delayed rewards: a life history 
theory approach. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100, 1015–1026.
Holloway, R. L. (1981). Culture, symbols, and human 
brain evolution: a synthesis. Dialect. Anthropol. 5, 
287–303.
Hurford, J. R. (1991). The evolution of the critical period 
for language acquisition. Cognition 40, 159–201.
Johnson, J. S., and Newport, E. L. (1989). Critical period 
effects in second language learning: the influence of 
maturational state on the acquisition of English as a 
second language. Cogn. Psychol. 21, 60–99.
Sundie, J. M., Kenrick, D. T., Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., 
Vohs, K. D., and Beal, D. J. (2011). Peacocks, porsches, 
and thorstein veblen: conspicuous consumption as 
a sexual signaling system. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100, 
664–680.
Wang, X. T., Kruger, D. J., and Wilke, A. (2009). Life his-
tory variables and risk-taking propensity. Evol. Hum. 
Behav. 30, 77–84.
Received: 26 July 2012; accepted: 16 August 2012; published 
online: 03 September 2012.
Citation: Sacco DF and Osipowicz K (2012) Life history 
theory and social psychology. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:13. 
doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2012.00013
Copyright © 2012 Sacco and Osipowicz. This is an open-
access article distributed under the terms of the Creative 
Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu-
tion and reproduction in other forums, provided the original 
authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright 
notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
has the potential to inform the study and 
treatment of neurologically impaired 
individuals.
Chester and colleagues also identify 
critical periods for the calibration of the 
social rejection system: (1) early on  during 
development when parental rejection 
would be devastating to survival, and (2) 
during adolescence, when rejection of a 
possible mate would reduce reproductive 
fitness. Interestingly, these two critical peri-
ods are well aligned with critical periods in 
language development (e.g., Johnson and 
Newport, 1989; Hurford, 1991), suggesting 
that language and socio-affective develop-
ment are inextricably linked – a postulation 
supported by the evolutionary evidence of 
con-committal language ability and societal 
size increases in hominids (Holloway, 1981). 
This allows for the extension of this hypoth-
esis to not only include responses to social 
pain, but also linguistic function/ability as 
a calibratable system responsive to early 
life history. Interestingly, one of the major 
nodes of the social pain network (insula) 
is close in proximity and highly connected 
to a major node in the language network 
(Broca’s area), suggesting that the calibra-
tion of the social pain system and language 
system may be related. The development of 
these ideas could lead to interesting research 
that takes advantage of both neuropsycho-
logical and neuroimaging techniques.
Chester and colleagues have begun an 
exciting dialog that combines findings from 
a number of fields and unites them through 
one common theoretical perspective. 
Indeed, the current research program is one 
of a growing number in social psychology 
to use LHT to not only organize a variety of 
social psychological phenomena, but inte-
grate them within the larger scientific com-
munity (e.g., Brown et al., 2009; Buss, 2009; 
Wang et al., 2009; Figueredo et al., 2011; 
Griskevicius et al., 2011; Sundie et al., 2011). 
Based on this expanding body of evidence, 
because social inclusion opportunities have 
been unpredictable, have a social pain sys-
tem calibrated to be especially sensitive to 
cues signaling social rejection. Collectively, 
the current article effectively explains how 
early attachment bonds calibrate reactions 
to social rejection.
Interestingly, the optimal calibration 
hypothesis is not only a powerful explana-
tory framework for research on social 
attachment and social rejection; it may 
have clinical significance as well, with 
implications beyond social psychology. 
For example, an understanding of how the 
dACC and anterior insula are implicated in 
social pain system calibration may inform 
the understanding and treatment of indi-
viduals with damage to these areas, who 
are being treated primarily for symptoms 
unrelated to the social pain system. For 
example, patients with left middle cerebral 
artery (MCA) strokes often suffer injury to 
the anterior insula and the frontal opercula, 
producing pronounced expressive dyspha-
sias. Some patients respond to therapy and 
recover expressive language function to 
almost basal levels, while other patients are 
completely intractable to therapy. While 
current treatments focus specifically on the 
recovery of language function, such inju-
ries may also disrupt social pain responses, 
producing heightened levels of anxiety that 
can interfere with treatment adherence. If 
considered from a LHT perspective, this 
therapeutic approach should also address 
the patient’s attachment orientation and 
concomitant social pain system calibration 
to achieve optimal therapeutic outcomes. 
Understanding how specific brain injuries 
may disrupt social pain system responses 
could help catalyze the development of 
therapeutic interventions that address both 
primary (language deficits) and secondary 
symptoms (disruption of social pain sys-
tem), which may improve overall patient 
outcomes. Thus, this theoretical  framework 
Sacco and Osipowicz Life history theory and social psychology
Frontiers in evolutionary Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org September 2012 | Volume 4 | Article 13 | 2


http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnevo.2012.00013

Life history theory and social psychology.

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