Recent years have witnessed an upsurge of interest among theorists and researchers in autobiographical recollections, life stories, and narrative approaches to understanding human behavior and expe...

The psychology of life stories.

Biological reactivity to psychological stressors comprises a complex, integrated, and highly conserved repertoire of central neural and peripheral neuroendocrine responses designed to prepare the organism for challenge or threat. Developmental experience plays a role, along with heritable, polygenic variation, in calibrating the response dynamics of these systems, with early adversity biasing their combined effects toward a profile of heightened or prolonged reactivity. Conventional views of such high reactivity suggest that it is an atavistic and pathogenic legacy of an evolutionary past in which threats to survival were more prevalent and severe. Recent evidence, however, indicates that (a) stress reactivity is not a unitary process, but rather incorporates counterregulatory circuits serving to modify or temper physiological arousal, and (b) the effects of high reactivity phenotypes on psychiatric and biomedical outcomes are bivalent, rather than univalent, in character, exerting both risk-augmenting and risk-protective effects in a context-dependent manner. These observations suggest that heightened stress reactivity may reflect, not simply exaggerated arousal under challenge, but rather an increased biological sensitivity to context, with potential for negative health effects under conditions of adversity and positive effects under conditions of support and protection. From an evolutionary perspective, the developmental plasticity of the stress response systems, along with their structured, context-dependent effects, suggests that these systems may constitute conditional adaptations: evolved psychobiological mechanisms that monitor specific features of childhood environments as a basis for calibrating the development of stress response systems to adaptively match those environments. Taken together, these theoretical perspectives generate a novel hypothesis: that there is a curvilinear, U-shaped relation between early exposures to adversity and the development of stress-reactive profiles, with high reactivity phenotypes disproportionately emerging within both highly stressful and highly protected early social environments.

https://cals.arizona.edu/fcs/sites/cals.arizona.edu.fcs/files/D&P%20Boyce%20&%20Ellis%202005.pdf

Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary–developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity

The novelty P3: an event-related brain potential (ERP) sign of the brain's evaluation of novelty

Over the last ten years the basic knowledge of brain structure and function has vastly ex- panded, and its incorporation into the developmental sciences is now allowing for more complex and heuristic models of human infancy. In a continuation of this effort, in this two-part work I integrate current interdisciplinary data from attachment studies on dyadic affective communications, neuroscience on the early developing right brain, psychophysiology on stress systems, and psychiatry on psychopath- ogenesis to provide a deeper understanding of the psychoneurobiological mechanisms that underlie infant mental health. In this article I detail the neurobiology of a secure attachment, an exemplar of adaptive infant mental health, and focus upon the primary caregiver's psychobiological regulation of the infant's maturing limbic system, the brain areas specialized for adapting to a rapidly changing environment. The infant's early developing right hemisphere has deep connections into the limbic and autonomic nervous systems and is dominant for the human stress response, and in this manner the attachment relationship facilitates the expansion of the child's coping capcities. This model suggests that adaptive infant mental health can be fundamentally defined as the earliest expression of flexible strategies for coping with the novelty and stress that is inherent in human interactions. This efficient right brain function is a resilience factor for optimal development over the later stages of the life cycle.

/pdf/effects-of-a-secure-attachment-relationship-on-right-brain-50zhgw99e2.pdf

Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health

The clinical concept of psychopathy (“psychopathic personality”) is generally considered to entail persistent behavioral deviancy in the company of emotional–interpersonal detachment. However, longstanding debates continue regarding the appropriate scope and boundaries of the concept. Here, we review alternative historic descriptions of the disorder together with empirical findings for the best-established assessment instruments in use with adolescents and youth as a basis for formulating an integrative, triarchic model of psychopathy. The essence of the triarchic model is that psychopathy encompasses three distinct phenotypic constructs: disinhibition, which reflects a general propensity toward problems of impulse control; boldness, which is defined as the nexus of social dominance, emotional resiliency, and venturesomeness; and meanness, which is defined as aggressive resource seeking without regard for others (“dysaffliated agency”). These differing phenotypic components are considered in terms of relevant etiologic and developmental pathways. The triarchic conceptualization provides a basis for reconciling and accommodating alternative descriptive accounts of psychopathy, and a framework for coordinating research on neurobiological and developmental processes contributing to varying manifestations of the disorder.

/pdf/triarchic-conceptualization-of-psychopathy-developmental-gz826oazw2.pdf

Triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy: developmental origins of disinhibition, boldness, and meanness.

Nearly 2,000 years ago the Greek physician Galen postulated that much of human behavior could be predicted according to an individual's temperament. Now one of the country's most original thinkers provides startling new evidence to support Galen's ancient classification scheme of melancholic and sanguine adults.

Galen's Prophecy: Temperament In Human Nature

Further evidence of an association between behavioral inhibition and anxiety disorders: Results from a family study of children from a non-clinical sample

Nancy Snidman

Papers

Galen's Prophecy: Temperament In Human Nature

Further evidence of an association between behavioral inhibition and anxiety disorders: Results from a family study of children from a non-clinical sample

What Is Temperament