Do early caregiving experiences leave an enduring or transient mark on developmental adaptation?

Highlights

• People enter close relationships with different competencies and expectations.

• These competencies are assumed to be rooted in people's early caregiving experiences.

• Early experiences may play a transient or enduring role in shaping outcomes.

• Studies suggest that early experiences may play an enduring role in some outcomes.

There are vast individual differences in the ways in which people approach close relationships. Where do these differences come from? According to developmental perspectives, including attachment theory, these differences are rooted in people's interpersonal experiences, starting with their earliest relationships. In the present review we outline alternative models on whether and how early experiences with primary caregivers shape developmental adaptation. We also review recent empirical data which suggests that, at least in some domains, early experiences can leave an enduring mark on psychological development.

Introduction

People enter close relationships with varied developmental histories, competencies, and expectations. What are the origins of these individual differences? Developmental approaches to close relationships, such as attachment theory [1, 2, 3•], assume that these individual differences are reflections of the way in which people's personalities have become organized by interpersonal experiences over the course of their lives, beginning with their earliest relationships. Indeed, a growing body of developmentally informed research has begun to explore the ways in which early experiences are manifested in close relationships and interpersonal functioning [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. Research has shown, for example, that early attachment experiences are associated with the ways in which people resolve conflict and regulate emotion in their romantic relationships [13, 14]. Moreover, evolutionary perspectives on development have emphasized the role of early experiences in shaping a broad array of outcomes that are relevant for reproduction and interpersonal functioning [15, 16, 17, 18]. Recent research inspired by evolutionary perspectives has revealed, for example, that the unpredictability of early family experiences predicts the onset and riskiness of sexual behavior [19].

One of the challenges in developmental research is that there are at least two distinct ways of conceptualizing the role of early experiences in shaping interpersonal outcomes, and these kinds of studies are not always well positioned to distinguish among them. On the one hand, some scholars have argued that early experiences serve as a foundation upon which subsequent experiences are laid. In this respect early experiences have the potential to be important because they shape what comes next. A child who experiences a supportive caregiving environment, for example, may be better positioned to develop well-functioning peer relationships. And those relationships in turn may enable the maturing individual to be more trusting of others in the context of intimate relationships. Nonetheless, this perspective also implies that, as individuals develop, early experiences recede into the background, becoming increasingly less relevant for shaping ongoing adaptation [20, 21, 22]. We refer to this perspective as the Revisionist or Contextual model of development because, at its core, it assumes that the effects of early experiences can be fully altered or revised in light of on-going experiences.

An alternative way to conceptualize the role of early experiences in development is that they serve not only as a foundation, but also as a scaffold for adaptation [23]. That is, they help organize the biological, cognitive, and interpersonal resources that enable individuals to thrive, thereby shaping adaptation in both indirect and relatively direct ways across the life course. We refer to this perspective as the Enduring Effects model because it suggests that, beyond serving as a foundation upon which future experiences are built, early experiences continue to shape the individual's skills and competencies.

Importantly, these alternative models diverge in their implications for how early experiences shape personality [24]. But, until recently, it had not been clear how they could be tested empirically. For example, it has often been assumed that, if a revisionist model is correct, researchers should expect to find little to no association between early experiences and later outcomes whereas, if an enduring effects model is correct, researchers should find sizable associations. What we have shown in our simulation research, however, is that these alternative models differ not in the size of the associations they predict between early experiences and later outcomes [25, 26••, 27]. Both models can account for a correlation of .15, for example, between early experiences and later outcomes assessed at a specific point in time. Where the models diverge is in their predictions concerning the pattern of associations between early experiences and outcomes assessed across multiple ages [25, 26••, 27]. Specifically, the revisionist-contextual model predicts that the associations between early experiences and later outcomes will approach zero as the length of time between the assessments increases (see Figure 1). In contrast, the enduring effects model predicts that these associations will stabilize at a non-zero value as the length of time between the assessments increases (see Figure 1).

The objective of much of our recent research has been (a) to document the distinctive predictions of these competing perspectives through the use of simulation and dynamic modeling methods and (b) to uncover empirical patterns from existing datasets so that we can better understand the implications of alternative developmental processes for shaping adaptation. We review some of this work below. We note upfront that our goal here is not to marshal evidence for a specific developmental perspective. Instead, we view these two alternatives as reflecting valid, but distinct, developmental processes that might be relevant in different domains.