Dr. Jay Belsky is Robert and Natalie Read Dorne Professor of Human Development in the Department of Human Ecology and Program in Human Development at the University of California, Davis. Professor Belsky is an internationally recognized expert in the field of child development and family studies. His areas of expertise include the effects of day care, parent-child relations during the infancy and early childhood years (including attachment), the transition to parenthood, the etiology of child maltreatment and the evolutionary basis of parent and child functioning. Dr. Belsky's research is marked by a focus upon fathers as well as mothers, marriages as well as parent-child relations, and naturalistic home observations of family interaction patterns. He is a founding and collaborating investigator on the NICHD Study of Child Care and Youth Development (US) and The National Evaluation of Sure Start (UK). He is the author of more than 300 scientific articles and chapters and the author/editor of several books.

In this episode, we talk about childhood and attachment theory. We start off by talking about the evolutionary and ecological bases of parent-offspring relationships, including parent-offspring conflict, and the different evolved strategies of attachment. We also discuss modern attachment theory, and the main differences between it and classical attachment theory as developed first by John Bowlby, how it relates to life history theory, and the several different attachment styles that we have, including secure/autonomous, avoidant/dismissing, resistant/preoccupied, and disorganized. In the second part of the interview we also refer to parent-offspring conflict and child maltreatment; the risks and benefits of daycare; and differential susceptibility in children to different life circumstances during their development and different parenting styles.

Time Links:

01:22 The evolutionary bases of parent-offspring relationships

04:51 Different evolved strategies of attachment

07:10 Are people maladapted to our modern environments?

10:29 The factors behind how people develop attachment styles

13:33 Modern attachment theory and the differences between it and classical attachment theory, as developed by John Bowlby

17:08 Attachment theory and life history theory

22:43 Attachment styles

27:53 The importance of individual differences in children

31:07 Child maltreatment

36:47 The risks and benefits of daycare

41:52 Differential susceptibility in children

52:26 Follow Dr. Belsky’s work!

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