Doctoral Dissertation Research: Child Health and the Proximal Ecology of Stress: Scheduling American Family Life

博士论文研究：儿童健康与压力的近端生态学：美国家庭生活安排

• 批准号: 0242575
• 负责人: Carol Worthman
• 金额: $ 1万
• 依托单位: Emory University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-03-15 至 2005-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0242575&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Child; Health

"Stress" and its role in adaptation and health are central to understanding human variation within biological anthropology. We have good measures of the effects of stress on the body, and good ecological models of general sources of social stress. Nonetheless, greater attention is needed to the social and cognitive mechanisms by which one translates into the other. The work of behavioral ecologists, while largely focused on ultimately evolutionary causes and adaptive trade-offs, nonetheless suggests that we might approach this through a focus on the deployment of two types of "resources" expended in any behavior: time and energy. Further, amongst developmentalists who focus upon ecologic stress in children, there is a tradition of comparing environmental "microniches" that set up different developmental ecologies and their corresponding outcomes. Combining these scientific traditions, this study uses a natural experimental model to consider how ecologic social stress translates into child health. Research suggests that the American "time bind" is experienced as a major stressor, and this may be related to changing work and living arrangements. This study will examine in detail the actual usage of time within metropolitan Atlanta families and families' perception of their use of time. These data are combined with hormonal markers of stress and arousal, and records of functional child health outcomes, including physical, psychological, social, and educational outcomes. The links between these outcomes and various characteristics of the daily schedules of families are considered, including tension, density, and fragility. This will extend our understanding of the day-to-day workings of "stress" by detailing specific biocultural pathways connecting social ecology to physiology and child health. The research will have a number of broader impacts. First, it will assist in the training of a graduate student in the field of biological/physical anthropology. Second, the information gathered helps us to better understand the relationship between "psychosocial stress" and the challenge of maintaining an acceptable "work/life balance." The maintenance of "work/life balance" has been of tremendous recent interest inside and outside the scientific community, including in business, where this is crucial to maintaining a well-functioning and thus productive work force. Finally, it will help us better understand the notion of "stress" itself, which has wide-ranging implications, since "stress" has been linked to personal health and well-being, and more indirectly to such social phenomena as school shootings, divorce, and child abuse, but often without sufficient understanding of how stress operates in people's daily lives.

“压力”及其在适应和健康中的作用对于理解生物人类学中的人类变异至关重要。 我们可以很好地衡量压力对身体的影响，以及社会压力的一般来源的良好生态模型。 但是，需要更加关注一个社会和认知机制，而社会和认知机制则转化为另一种。 行为生态学家的工作主要集中在最终进化的原因和适应性权衡范围内，但仍表明，我们可以通过在任何行为中使用两种类型的“资源”来解决这一问题：时间和精力。 此外，在关注儿童生态压力的发展主义者中，有一种比较环境“微观”的传统，从而建立了不同的发育生态及其相应的结果。 结合了这些科学传统，本研究使用了自然的实验模型来考虑生态社会压力如何转化为儿童健康。 研究表明，美国的“时间结合”是作为主要压力源的经历，这可能与不断变化的工作和生活安排有关。 这项研究将详细研究亚特兰大大都会家庭和家庭对时间使用时间的实际使用情况。 这些数据与压力和唤醒的荷尔蒙标记结合在一起，以及功能性儿童健康成果的记录，包括身体，心理，社会和教育成果。 这些结果与家庭日程安排的各种特征之间的联系被考虑，包括张力，密度和脆弱性。 通过详细介绍将社会生态学与生理学和儿童健康联系起来的特定生物文化途径，这将扩展我们对“压力”日常工作的理解。这项研究将产生许多更广泛的影响。 首先，它将有助于培训生物/物理人类学领域的研究生。 其次，收集的信息有助于我们更好地了解“社会心理压力”与保持“工作/生活平衡”的挑战之间的关系。 维持“工作/生活平衡”一直引起了科学界内外的巨大兴趣，包括在商业中，这对于维持功能良好的劳动力至关重要。 最后，这将有助于我们更好地理解“压力”本身的概念，这种概念具有广泛的影响，因为“压力”与个人健康和福祉联系在一起，并且与诸如学校枪击，离婚和虐待儿童等社会现象有联系，但通常没有足够的理解对人们日常生活中的压力如何运作。