Adaptive Calibration in Early Development: Brief Measures of Perceived Childhood Harshness and Unpredictability

Objective A burgeoning literature inspired by life history theory suggests that psychological and behavioral processes become adaptively calibrated to the levels of harshness and unpredictability encountered in early developmental environments. The current research develops and validates brief scales intended to measure perceptions of childhood harshness (resource scarcity) and unpredictability. Methods Data were collected from adults in the U.S. (total N= 3252). Study 1 was used to design the measures and confirm reliability. Study 2 provided evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 assessed associations between the perceived harshness and unpredictability scales and indicators of life history strategies. Results The scales showed good convergent validity (e.g., moderate-to-strong associations with adverse childhood experiences, impulsivity, and a lack of self-control) and discriminant validity (e.g., null-to-low associations with social desirability, sex, and age), as well as associations with biometric (e.g., age of menarche and sexual debut), behavioral (e.g., number of sexual partners, age of first offspring, number of offspring), and psychometric (e.g., scores on the K-SF-42 and Mini-K) indicators of life history strategies. Conclusions These scales provide easy-to-administer retrospective measures of perceived childhood harshness and unpredictability and facilitate research testing hypotheses related to adaptive calibration.

Automated summary

This study develops and validates brief scales to measure perceptions of childhood harshness and unpredictability. The scales show good convergent and discriminant validity and associations with various indicators of life history strategies.