Description: Jay Belsky argues for a Darwinian interpretation of childhood trauma leading to "antisocial" adult behavior. There is no reason to believe that such conduct is dysfunctional and that "well-behaved" people are developmentally normal. Instead, adult aggression, promiscuity, and the like may reflect adaptation to danger and instability.
Brief description: Jay Belsky is Emeritus Professor of Human Development at the University of California, Davis. He is a coauthor of The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life.
Review Quotes: In these pages, a world expert on child development sets out to trace his own development as he gradually integrates evolutionary perspectives into a lifelong quest to understand 'how, why, and for whom' childhood circumstances shape later life. The Nature of Nurture is as important for its insider's view of paradigm shifts currently underway across the social sciences as it is for Jay Belsky's revelatory insights into human psychology and reproductive strategies.--Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mothers and Others