Secure Infant-Mother Attachment Buffers the Effect of Early-Life Stress on Age of Menarche

@article{Sung2016SecureIA,
  title={Secure Infant-Mother Attachment Buffers the Effect of Early-Life Stress on Age of Menarche},
  author={So-Young Sung and Jeffry A. Simpson and Vladas Griskevicius and Sally I-Chun Kuo and Gabriel L. Schlomer and Jay Belsky},
  journal={Psychological Science},
  year={2016},
  volume={27},
  pages={667 - 674}
}
Prior research indicates that being reared in stressful environments is associated with earlier onset of menarche in girls. In this research, we examined (a) whether these effects are driven by exposure to certain dimensions of stress (harshness or unpredictability) during the first 5 years of life and (b) whether the negative effects of stress on the timing of menarche are buffered by secure infant-mother attachment. Results revealed that (a) exposure to greater harshness (but not… 
View on SAGE
escholarship.org
55 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
2
Background Citations
25
Results Citations
2

55 Citations

Attachment insecurity and the biological embedding of reproductive strategies: Investigating the role of cellular aging

The effect of childhood unpredictability on co-parenting relationships during the transition to parenthood: A life history approach

Recent extensions to life history theory posit that exposure to environmental unpredictability during childhood should forecast negative parental behaviors in adulthood. In the current research, this…

The effect of early-life harshness and unpredictability on intimate partner violence in adulthood: A life history perspective

According to life history theory, exposure to harshness and/or unpredictability early in life should promote a fast life history strategy. Such a strategy entails, among other traits, elevated…

Childhood Relationship with Mother as a Precursor to Ageism in Young Adults

Separate lines of research have shown that a) relationships with parents in early life influence attachment and b) there is a relationship between attachment and levels of ageism in adulthood. We…

Family Experiences and Parent Personality as Antecedents of Pubertal Timing in Girls and Boys

Home environment at ages 4-5 years predicted pubertal timing better than home environment at other ages for both girls and boys, but parent personality was more predictive than home experiences (e.g., divorce, parental harshness, family conflict).

Attachment anxiety in young adulthood is associated with childhood unpredictability and predicts intentions to engage in unprotected sex

The influence of harshness and unpredictability on female sexual development: Addressing gene–environment interplay using a polygenic score

Harshness, unpredictability, and AAM were indirectly related to lifetime and past year sexual partner number via age at first sexual intercourse and the PGS did not account for any of the associations and no significant interactions were detected.

Earlier age at menarche as a transdiagnostic mechanism linking childhood trauma with multiple forms of psychopathology in adolescent girls

Abstract Background Although early life adversity (ELA) increases risk for psychopathology, mechanisms linking ELA with the onset of psychopathology remain poorly understood. Conceptual models have…

Sexual initiation among Canadian youth: A model comparison approach of evolutionary hypotheses shows greatest support for extrinsic mortality cues, intergenerational conflict, and early life psychosocial stressors

A Pathway to Meaning in Life: Early Parental Support, Attachment, and the Moderating Role of Alexithymia

The subjective experience of a sense of meaning in life is an important aspect of psychological well-being. Developmental experiences that contribute to attachment security or insecurity may shape…
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 57 REFERENCES

Infant Attachment Security and the Timing of Puberty

The hypothesis that infant attachment insecurity, compared with infant attachment security, at the age of 15 months predicts earlier pubertal maturation is tested and a conditional-adaptational view of individual differences in attachment security is supported.

Childhood experience and the onset of menarche: a test of a sociobiological model.

In this study, the effect of family stressors on menarche was mediated by neither behavior problems nor weight, contrary to the predictions, and the most provocative proposition advanced by Belsky et al. received empirical support.

Evolution, stress, and sensitive periods: the influence of unpredictability in early versus late childhood on sex and risky behavior.

Results show that unpredictable rather than merely harsh childhood environments exert unique effects on risky behavior later in life consistent with a faster life history strategy, and suggest that there is a developmentally sensitive period for assessing environmental unpredictability during the first 5 years of life.

Family rearing antecedents of pubertal timing.

Analysis of Pubertal measurements showed that mothering and fathering, earlier and later in childhood, predicted pubertal development, but only for girls, with negative parenting appearing most influential; maternal harsh control predicted earlier menarche.

The development of reproductive strategy in females: early maternal harshness --> earlier menarche --> increased sexual risk taking.

To test a proposition central to J. Draper's (1991) evolutionary theory of socialization-that pubertal maturation plays a role in linking early rearing experience with adolescent sexual risk taking and, perhaps, other risk taking-the authors subjected longitudinal data on 433 White, 62 Black, and 31 Hispanic females to path analysis.

Reproductive traits following a parent–child separation trauma during childhood: A natural experiment during World War II

A traumatic experience in childhood is associated with significant alterations in reproductive and marital traits, which characterize both women and men, which are relevant to the 9.2 million child refugees living throughout the world today.

Impact of fathers on daughters' age at menarche: a genetically and environmentally controlled sibling study.

It is suggested that early exposure to disordered paternal behavior, followed by family disruption and residential separation from the father, can lead to substantially earlier menarche.

Effects of Harsh and Unpredictable Environments in Adolescence on Development of Life History Strategies

It is suggested that the environmental parameters of harshness and unpredictability have concurrent effects on life history development in adolescence, as well as longitudinal effects into young adulthood, and life history traits appear to be stable across developmental time from adolescence intoYoung adulthood.

Timing of pubertal maturation in girls: an integrated life history approach.

  • B. Ellis
  • Psychology
    Psychological bulletin
  • 2004
5 middle-level theories--energetics theory, stress-suppression theory, psychosocial acceleration theory, paternal investment theory, and child development theory--each of which applies the basic assumptions of life history theory to the question of environmental influences on timing of puberty in girls are reviewed.

Sex, attachment, and the development of reproductive strategies

It is argued that sex differences in attachment emerge in middle childhood, have adaptive significance in both children and adults, and are part of sex-specific life history strategies, thus contributing to a coherent evolutionary theory of human development.
...