Anthony A. Volk

The evolutionary basis of risky adolescent behavior: implications for science, policy, and practice.

This article proposes an evolutionary model of risky behavior in adolescence and contrasts it with the prevailing developmental psychopathology model. The evolutionary model contends that understanding the evolutionary functions of adolescence is critical to explaining why adolescents engage in risky behavior and that successful intervention depends on working with, instead of against, adolescent goals and motivations. The current article articulates 5 key evolutionary insights into risky adolescent behavior: (a) The adolescent transition is an inflection point in development of social status and reproductive trajectories; (b) interventions need to address the adaptive functions of risky and aggressive behaviors like bullying; (c) risky adolescent behavior adaptively calibrates over development to match both harsh and unpredictable environmental conditions; (d) understanding evolved sex differences is critical for understanding the psychology of risky behavior; and (e) mismatches between current and past environments can dysregulate adolescent behavior, as demonstrated by age-segregated social groupings. The evolutionary model has broad implications for designing interventions for high-risk youth and suggests new directions for research that have not been forthcoming from other perspectives.

The influence of infant facial cues on adoption preferences

Trivers’s theory of parental investment suggests that adults should decide whether or not to invest in a given infant using a cost-benefit analysis. To make the best investment decision, adults should seek as much relevant information as possible. Infant facial cues may serve to provide information and evoke feelings of parental care in adults. Four specific infant facial cues were investigated: resemblance (as a proxy for kinship), health, happiness, and cuteness. It was predicted that these cues would influence feelings of parental care for both sexes, but that resemblance would be more important for men than women because of the importance of paternity uncertainty in the ancestral environment. Seventy-six men and 76 women participated in a hypothetical adoption task in which they made judgments of infant faces. Average zero-order, partial, and component score correlations all revealed that men placed primary emphasis on cues of resemblance, while women placed primary emphasis on cues of health and cuteness (cues of infant quality). The correlations also showed that men placed a significantly greater emphasis on cues of resemblance than did women.

Adolescent risk correlates of bullying and different types of victimization

This study examined correlates of different types of bullying and victimization relevant to the adolescent context. Of particular interest was the importance of risk factors that emerge and/or undergo significant changes during adolescence. Logistic regressions were performed using a representative sample of approximately 6,500 Canadian adolescents. We found that high-levels of victimization (7.6%), bullying (6.1%), and bully-victimization (0.9%) were quite prevalent amongst adolescents. The patterns of risk associated with each of these labels were different from each group. An examination of the different sub-types of victimization revealed that there were differences in both the prevalence and the risk patterns associated with each sub-type. Physical, verbal, and rumor victimization (the most common types) had similar risk patterns, while sexual victimization and ethnic victimization (the least most common type) each had a unique risk pattern. We conclude that emerging and/or changing risk factors associated with adolescent development are significantly related to bullying and victimization, with the specific relationships depending on the specific type of activity examined. These findings suggest that successful intervention strategies should try to be sensitive to the variations in prevalence and relationships with the risk factors.

Adolescent Bullying, Dating, and Mating

Traditionally believed to be the result of maladaptive development, bullying perpetration is increasingly being viewed as a potentially adaptive behavior. We were interested in determining whether adolescents who bully others enjoy a key evolutionary benefit: increased dating and mating (sexual) opportunities. This hypothesis was tested in two independent samples consisting of 334 adolescents and 144 university students. The data partly supported our prediction that bullying, but not victimization, would predict dating behavior. The data for sexual behavior more clearly supported our hypothesis that bullying behavior predicts an increase in sexual opportunities even when accounting for age, sex, and self-reports of attractiveness, likeability, and peer victimization. These results are generally congruent with the hypothesis that bullying perpetration is, at least in part, an evolutionary adaptive behavior.

The Meaningful Roles Intervention: An Evolutionary Approach to Reducing Bullying and Increasing Prosocial Behavior

Bullying is a problem that affects adolescents worldwide. Efforts to prevent bullying have been moderately successful at best, or iatrogenic at worst. We offer an explanation for this limited success by employing an evolutionary-psychological perspective to analyze antibullying interventions. We argue that bullying is a goal-directed behavior that is sensitive to benefits as well as costs, and that interventions must address these benefits. This perspective led us to develop a novel antibullying intervention, Meaningful Roles, which offers bullies prosocial alternatives-meaningful roles and responsibilities implemented through a school jobs program and reinforced through peer-to-peer praise notes-that effectively meet the same status goals as bullying behavior. We describe this new intervention and how its theoretical evolutionary roots may be applicable to other intervention programs.

The effect of infant fetal alcohol syndrome facial features on adoption preference

Infant facial characteristics may affect discriminative parental solicitude because they convey information about the health of the offspring. We examined the effect of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) infant facial characteristics on hypothetical adoption preferences, ratings of attractiveness, and ratings of health. As expected, potential parents were more likely to adopt “normal” infants, and they rated the FAS infants as less attractive and less healthy. Cuteness/attractiveness was the best predictor of adoption likelihood.

Supporting fathering through infant massage

Fathers may feel dissatisfied with their ability to form a close attachment with their infants in the early postpartum period, which, in turn, may increase their parent-related stress. Our study sought to determine if an infant massage intervention assisted fathers with decreasing stress and increasing bonding with their infants during this time. To address the complex father‐infant relationship, we conducted a pilot study using a mixed methodology approach. Twelve infant‐father dyads participated in the intervention, and 12 infant‐father dyads populated a wait-list control group. Paternal stress was measured using the Parenting Stress Index at baseline and at postintervention. We found infant massage instruction significantly decreased paternal stress. Our findings were also supported by the qualitative data and suggest fathers may benefit from applied postnatal education.

Paternal Care May Influence Perceptions of Paternal Resemblance

Father-child resemblance is increasingly attracting attention from researchers interested in studying paternal investment. The current study sought to determine whether a quasi-experimental infant massage intervention would increase fathers perceptions of resemblance. The study included a dozen fathers in each of two groups: the first received an intensive series of lessons on infant-father massage along with their infants, while the second group served as a neutral control. We failed to find significant correlations between paternal investment and resemblance, but we found that fathers who participated in the infant massage intervention reported significantly larger post-study ratings of resemblance and lower ratings of paternal stress. This suggests that the relationship between father-child resemblance and paternal investment may be bidirectional.

Perceptions of Parents, Mental Health, and School Among Canadian Adolescents from the Provinces and the Northern Territories

The authors examined whether perceptions of parents and personal mental health significantly influenced perceptions of school achievement and enjoyment in a large sample of Canadian adolescents. Responses from more than 10,000 Canadian adolescents in the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey were used to create a Parental Support Index, a Mental Health Index, and a School Index. They found a significant, medium-sized effect between the parent index and the school index. They found a similar but smaller effect for mental health. The findings were consistent for adolescents across the 10 southern provinces. However, among adolescents from the two northern territories the Parental Support Index was not significant whereas demographic factors and mental health played a larger role in predicting scores on the School Index.

Relations Between Adolescent Ratings of Rothbart's Temperament Questionnaire and the HEXACO Personality Inventory

Conventionally, individual differences have been assessed using temperament measures for infants and children, and personality measures for adults. We chose to explore both temperament and personality to see whether a convergence exists specifically during adolescence. A sample of 225 adolescents completed Rothbarts Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire–Revised (EATQ–R), a 4-factor temperament scale, and the HEXACO Personality Inventory–Revised (HEXACO PI–R), a 6-factor personality scale. As hypothesized, we found significant relations between the 2 measures. However, there were some important differences between the 2 measures regarding Honesty–Humility, Openness, and Frustration that highlight the unique contributions of both instruments to understanding and measuring adolescent individual differences. As there is a relatively scant history of measuring temperament or personality in adolescence, it is sometimes difficult for researchers to decide which instrument is most appropriate. The results reported here suggest that either the EATQ–R or the HEXACO PI–R could be appropriate, depending on the specific research questions being asked.