Life History Theory explains how environmental conditions can lead to adaptive behaviors in adulthood. One of the factors that impact early psychological development and adult well-being is the family unpredictability experienced during childhood, i.e., inconsistent parental provision of basic needs (e.g., emotional nurturance, financial stability, and meal regularity). The aim of this study was to explore the impact of childhood family unpredictability on subjective well-being and unpredictability beliefs among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted survey-type research with a quasi-experimental design involving 422 participants who completed online questionnaires on perceptions of childhood family unpredictability and current levels of subjective well-being and unpredictability beliefs. Based on their childhood perceptions, participants were categorized into three groups: low overall unpredictability, mixed unpredictability, and high overall unpredictability. We found that the low overall unpredictability group reported higher levels of subjective well-being and lower levels of self-unpredictability beliefs compared to the other two groups. Participants in the mixed unpredictability group reported moderate levels of both subjective well-being and self-unpredictability beliefs compared to the other two groups. Regarding levels of world unpredictability beliefs, all groups exhibited similar patterns. In this case, the pandemic may increase perceptions of world unpredictability, potentially overshadowing childhood experiences of predictability. Notably, the predictability in family emotional support during childhood had a significant influence on adult behavior, surpassing the impact of financial unpredictability. Our findings stress the role of family predictability in aspects related to quality of life, highlighting that beliefs related to unpredictability may lead to less healthy coping strategies in response to adversity compared to those who perceive their environment as predictable.
Collaboration is not just something humans do; it is a condition we live in. The Nature and Dynamics of Collaboration offers a timely and wide-ranging examination of how collaboration shapes human life—from its evolutionary roots to its role in contemporary science, institutions, and global challenges. The book brings together diverse examples, frameworks, and perspectives, arguing that while collaboration takes many forms, certain structures and processes are shared. It explores both what makes collaborations work and why they fail. As we face urgent collective crises, especially climate change and growing polarization, this book suggests that studying collaboration is not only intellectually important, but existentially necessary.
Research on human cooperation has presented many well-evidenced mechanisms for the sustainment of cooperation throughout evolutionary history, including direct and indirect reciprocity, reputation-based incentives, and formal punishment. These mechanisms, however, rely strongly on individuals interacting repeatedly with known others in face-to-face contexts—contexts that differ dramatically from the anonymous, invisible, and asynchronous nature of modern cyberspace (Suler, 2004). As such, examples of mass cooperation that occur in online contexts, such as online trolling—the intentional and malicious disruption of online discourse to generate chaos and provoke responses from powerful individuals and organizations—require different mechanisms to function. The current paper explores whether a lesser-known framework, Bingham and Souza’s (2009) coalitional enforcement model, can help sed light on trolling behavior.¬¬ By allowing individuals to project punitive threat cheaply and at distance, online trolling may function as a digital analogue to the rock-throwing coalitions of early human groups. We argue that this perspective offers new insights into both the nature of trolling and the broader dynamics of cooperation and punishment in online spaces.
