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A Life History Approach to Understanding Youth Time Preference

Mechanisms of Environmental Risk and Uncertainty and Attitudes Toward Risk Behavior and Education

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Abstract

Following from life history and attachment theory, individuals are predicted to be sensitive to variation in environmental conditions such that risk and uncertainty are internalized by cognitive, affective, and psychobiological mechanisms. In turn, internalizing of environmental uncertainty is expected to be associated with attitudes toward risk behaviors and investments in education. Native American youth aged 10–19 years (n = 89) from reservation communities participated in a study examining this pathway. Measures included family environmental risk and uncertainty, present and future time perspective, adolescent attachment, attitudes toward risk, investments in education, and salivary cortisol. Results support the idea that environmental risk and uncertainty are internalized during development. In addition, internalizing mechanisms significantly predicted attitudes toward risk and education: (1) lower scores on future time perspective and higher cortisol predicted higher scores on risk attitudes, and (2) higher scores on future time perspective and lower scores on problems with attachment predicted higher self-reported school performance. Gender differences were seen, with males anticipating a shorter lifespan than females, which predicted higher scores on risk attitudes and lower school performance. Implications for research on adolescent problem behavior and academic achievement are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The post-interview cortisol level was used because it was found to be a better predictor of outcome variables than pre-interview cortisol. The difference between pre- and post-interview cortisol was not used because interview times differed significantly between participants. Nevertheless, 20% of participants had higher cortisol at post-interview. This finding, in conjunction with anecdotal evidence from interviews during which participants said they were uncomfortable answering questions and wished to skip certain questions (in particular, questions about ethnic identity), suggest that many participants found the interview stressful. In laboratory research it is common practice to use instruments such as the Trier Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum et al. 1993), a procedure involving a simulated job interview followed by mental arithmetic performed before an audience, to induce a stress response.

  2. The term gender is used as opposed to sex because the focus of this research is on the development of youth attitudes toward risk behavior and education—ways of thinking that are formed within a social context and are responsive to cultural expectations. This usage follows the guidelines of the Institute of Medicine (summarized in Journal of Women's Health & Gender-Based Medicine 2001) which recommends that gender be used in studies that define groups based on self-representation as male or female, or on how social institutions respond to individuals based on their gender representation.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the tribal council for permission to carry out this research and to the participants who made this study possible. Validation experiments for the cortisol assay were done by Eleanor Brindle, Kathleen O’Connor, and Amy Snipes at the Biological Anthropology and Biodemography Laboratory at the University of Washington. This manuscript benefitted greatly from comments given by Donna Leonetti and Dawn Neill and four anonymous reviewers. This research was supported by a grant to D. S. from the Wellesley Centers for Women, Robert S. and Grace W. Stone Primary Prevention Initiatives Grant Program: Empowering Children for Life.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195–3100, USA

    Deborah E. Schechter

  2. Pleasant Point, Passamaquoddy Tribe, Perry, ME, 042677, USA

    Cyrilla M. Francis

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Schechter, D.E., Francis, C.M. A Life History Approach to Understanding Youth Time Preference. Hum Nat 21, 140–164 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-010-9084-2

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