(Press-News.org) The benefits of skin-to-skin contact for both parents and infants are already recognised, but other behaviours common in hunter-gatherer societies may also benefit families in economically developed countries
Parents and children may benefit from a larger network of people being involved in care-giving, as seen in hunter-gatherer societies
Increasing staff-to-child ratios in nurseries to bring them closer to highly attentive hunter-gatherer ratios could support learning and wellbeing
More peer-to-peer, active and mixed-age learning, as seen in hunter-gatherer communities, may help school children in developed countries
Hunter-gatherers can help us understand the conditions that children may be psychologically adapted to because we lived as hunter-gatherers for 95% of our evolutionary history. And paying greater attention to hunter-gatherer childhoods may help economically developed countries improve education and wellbeing.
Published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, a new study by Dr Nikhil Chaudhary, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, and Dr Annie Swanepoel, a child psychiatrist, calls for new research into child mental health in hunter-gatherer societies. They explore the possibility that some common aspects of hunter-gatherer childhoods could help families in economically developed countries. Eventually, hunter-gatherer behaviours could inform ‘experimental intervention trials’ in homes, schools and nurseries.
The authors acknowledge that children living in hunter-gatherer societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries. They also stress that hunter-gatherer children invariably face many difficulties that are not experienced in developed countries and, therefore, caution that these childhoods should not be idealised.
Drawing on his own observations of the BaYaka people in Congo and the extensive research of anthropologists studying other hunter-gatherer societies, Dr Chaudhary highlights major differences in the ways in which hunter-gatherer children are cared for compared to their peers in developed countries. He stresses that “contemporary hunter-gatherers must not be thought of as ‘living fossils’, and while their ways of life may offer some clues about our prehistory, they are still very much modern populations each with a unique cultural and demographic history”.
Physical contact and attentiveness
Despite increasing uptake of baby carriers and baby massage in developed countries, levels of physical contact with infants remain far higher in hunter-gatherer societies. In Botswana, for instance, 10-20 week old !Kung infants are in physical contact with someone for around 90% of daylight hours, and almost 100% of crying bouts are responded to, almost always with comforting or nursing – scolding is extremely rare.
The study points out that this exceptionally attentive childcare is made possible because of the major role played by non-parental caregivers, or ‘alloparents’, which is far rarer in developed countries.
Non-parental caregivers
In many hunter-gatherer societies, alloparents provide almost half of a child’s care. A previous study found that in the DRC, Efe infants have 14 alloparents a day by the time they are 18 weeks old, and are passed between caregivers eight times an hour.
Dr Chaudhary said: “Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary history. Such differences seem likely to create the kind of evolutionary mismatches that could be harmful to both caregivers and children.”
“The availability of other caregivers can reduce the negative impacts of stress within the nuclear family, and the risk of maternal depression, which has knock-on effects for child wellbeing and cognitive development."
The study emphasises that alloparenting is a core human adaptation, contradicting ‘intensive mothering’ narratives which emphasise that mothers should use their maternal instincts to manage childcare alone. Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel write that ‘such narratives can lead to maternal exhaustion and have dangerous consequences’.
Care-giving ratios
The study points out that communal living in hunter-gatherer societies results in a very high ratio of available caregivers to infants/toddlers, which can even exceed 10:1.
This contrasts starkly with the nuclear family unit, and even more so with nursery settings, in developed countries. According to the UK’s Department of Education regulations, nurseries require ratios of 1 carer to 3 children aged under 2 years, or 1 carer to 4 children aged 2-3.
Dr Chaudhary said: “Almost all day, hunter-gatherer infants and toddlers have a capable caregiver within a couple of metres of them. From the infant’s perspective, that proximity and responsiveness, is very different from what is experienced in many nursery settings in the UK.”
“If that ratio is stretched even thinner, we need to consider the possibility that this could have impacts on children's wellbeing.”
Children providing care and mixed-age active learning
In hunter-gatherer societies, children play a significantly bigger role in providing care to infants and toddlers than is the case in developed countries. In some communities they begin providing some childcare from the age of four and are capable of sensitive caregiving; and it is common to see older, but still pre-adolescent children looking after infants.
By contrast, the NSPCC in the UK recommends that when leaving pre-adolescent children at home, babysitters should be in their late teens at least.
Dr Chaudhary said: “In developed countries, children are busy with schooling and may have less opportunity to develop caregiving competence. However, we should at least explore the possibility that older siblings could play a greater role in supporting their parents, which might also enhance their own social development.”
The study also points out that instructive teaching is rare in hunter-gatherer societies and that infants primarily learn via observation and imitation. From around the age of two, hunter-gatherer children spend large portions of the day in mixed-age (2-16) ‘playgroups’ without adult supervision. There, they learn from one another, acquiring skills and knowledge collaboratively via highly active play practice and exploration.
Learning and play are two sides of the same coin, which contrasts with the lesson-time / play-time dichotomy of schooling in the UK and other developed countries.
Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel note that “Classroom schooling is often at odds with the modes of learning typical of human evolutionary history.” The study acknowledges that children living in hunter-gather societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries:
“Foraging skills are very different to those required to make a living in market-economies, and classroom teaching is certainly necessary to learn the latter. But children may possess certain psychological learning adaptations that can be practically harnessed in some aspects of their schooling. When peer and active learning can be incorporated, they have been shown to improve motivation and performance, and reduce stress.” The authors also highlight that physical activity interventions have been shown to aid performance among students diagnosed with ADHD.
The study calls for more research into children’s mental health in hunter-gatherer societies to test whether the hypothesised evolutionary mismatches actually exist. If they do, such insights could then be used to direct experimental intervention trials in developed countries.
Working with a team from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel hope that greater collaboration between evolutionary anthropologists and child psychiatrists/psychologists can help to advance our understanding of the conditions that children need to thrive.
Reference
N. Chaudhary & A. Swanepoel, ‘What Can We Learn from Hunter-Gatherers about Children’s Mental Health? An Evolutionary Perspective’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2023). DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13773
Media contact
Tom Almeroth-Williams, Communications Manager (Research), University of Cambridge: researchcommunications@admin.cam.ac.uk / tel: +44 (0) 7540 139 444
END
Hunter-gatherer childhoods may offer clues to improving education and wellbeing in developed countries, Cambridge study argues
2023-03-08
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Revolutionary new bone cancer drug could save children’s lives
2023-03-08
Peer reviewed – experimental study – human cells and mice
Researchers at the University of East Anglia have developed a new drug that works against all of the main types of primary bone cancer.
Cancer that starts in the bones, rather than cancer that has spread to the bones, predominantly affects children.
Current treatment is gruelling, with outdated chemotherapy cocktails and limb amputation.
Despite all of this, the five-year survival rate is poor at just 42 per cent – largely because of how rapidly bone cancer spreads to the lungs.
But a new study published today shows how a new drug called ‘CADD522’ blocks ...
Clogged leg arteries underdiagnosed and undertreated in women
2023-03-08
Sophia Antipolis, 8 March 2023: Treatments for peripheral artery disease (PAD) were largely developed in men and are less effective in women, according to a review published today in European Heart Journal – Quality of Care and Clinical Outcomes, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 The paper highlights the biological, clinical and societal reasons why the condition may be missed in women, who respond less well to treatment and have worse clinical outcomes.
“Greater understanding is needed about why we are failing to address the health outcome gap between genders,” said author Mary Kavurma, an associate professor at the Heart Research Institute, ...
Poor sleep linked to years of poor cardiovascular health
2023-03-08
Poor sleep could lead to between two and seven years worth of heightened heart disease risk and even premature death, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Sydney in collaboration with Southern Denmark University.
The study analysed data from over 300,000 middle-aged adults from the UK Biobank and found that different disturbances to sleep are associated with different durations of compromised cardiovascular health later in life compared to healthy sleepers.
In particular, men with clinical ...
Gender targets miss the mark for women in leadership
2023-03-08
Gender diversity experts at the University of South Australia are urging governments to rethink their approach to gender targets as new research shows that they do not lead to expected improvements in gender equity for women in leadership.
Examining the effects of gender targets in the Australian public service, researchers found that when gender targets were imposed, they didn’t always achieve their intended outcomes.
In Australia, women make up only 19 per cent of CEOs, and less than a third of key management positions (32 per cent). In the Australian public sector, women represent 60 per cent of the workforce, yet ...
CHOP researchers find rate of fatal opioid poisonings among children more than doubled over 13-year span
2023-03-08
Philadelphia, March 8, 2023 – Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found opioids were responsible for more than half of all fatal poisonings in children ages 5 and younger, more than double the proportion of fatal poisonings caused by opioids in 2005. Additionally, over-the-counter drugs still contribute to fatal poisonings in this age group despite increased regulation. The findings, published today in the journal Pediatrics, underscore the need for improved intervention to prevent further fatal poisonings.
More than half of all reported poisonings affect children ages 5 and younger and have the ...
Bumblebees learn new “trends” in their behavior by watching and learning
2023-03-07
A new study has shown that bumblebees pick up new “trends” in their behaviour by watching and learning from other bees, and that one form of a behaviour can spread rapidly through a colony even when a different version gets discovered.
The research, led by Queen Mary University of London and published in PLOS Biology, provides strong evidence that social learning drives the spread of bumblebee behaviour – in this case, precisely how they forage for food.
A variety of experiments were set up to establish this. The researchers designed a two-option puzzle box that could be opened either by pushing a red tab ...
UMass Chan investigators identify new pattern recognition system that monitors disease-causing bacteria in C. elegans
2023-03-07
A study published in Immunity by physician-scientist Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, and MD/PhD students Nicholas D. Peterson and Samantha Y. Tse describes a new manner of detecting microbial infection that intercepts pathogen-derived signals of growth to assess the relative threat of virulent bacteria. A nuclear hormone receptor in the nematode C. elegans senses a toxic metabolite produced by the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa to activate innate immunity. These data reveal an ancient strategy that informs the origins ...
Blood test identifies acute myeloid leukemia patients at greater risk for relapse after bone marrow transplant
2023-03-07
Blood test identifies acute myeloid leukemia patients at greater risk for relapse after bone marrow transplant
A small portion of adults in remission from a deadly blood cancer had persisting mutations that were detected, which predicted their risk of death from having the cancer return
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health show the benefits of screening adult patients in remission from acute myeloid leukemia (AML) for residual disease before receiving a bone marrow transplant. The findings, published in JAMA, support ongoing research aimed ...
Whistleblowers losing faith in media impact
2023-03-07
The whistleblowers who once trusted journalism are losing faith in the institution.
A new study from the University of Georgia found that many whistleblowers who reached out to journalists in the past no longer believe media has the same ability to motivate change, and they feel let down by a system they once trusted.
“If you don’t believe that an outlet or journalist can carry you across the finish line—meaning can affect change, attract enough attention and attract the attention of the right people—then you’re losing faith,” said Karin Assmann, study lead and assistant professor in UGA’s Grady College of Journalism ...
STEP Demo pilot plant achieves supercritical CO2 fluid conditions
2023-03-07
SAN ANTONIO — March 7, 2023 —The Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) Demo pilot plant, a $155 million, 10-megawatt supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) test facility at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, developed in partnership with GTI Energy and GE Research and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, has successfully achieved its first operation with CO2 at supercritical fluid conditions in its compressor section. This accomplishment represents significant progress toward ...