Collaborative Childrearing Among Hunter-Gatherers: Implications for Maternal and Child Wellbeing in Industrialised Societies.

Talk Summary:

Humans lived as hunter-gatherers for the majority of our evolutionary history, thus studying contemporary hunter-gatherer populations can offer insight into the socio-ecological conditions we may be psychologically adapted to.

Based on observational work conducted with hunter-gatherers societies I found that their childrearing: i) is extremely collaborative involving up to 20 caregivers; ii) relies more heavily on the involvement of child and adolescents than adult (non-maternal) caregivers; iii) is highly sensitive and responsive.

I discuss how maternal and child mental health problems in industrialised societies may be in part a product of evolutionary mismatch—maladaptation or pathology arising when an organism is exposed to evolutionarily novel conditions.

I will also outline an ongoing psychoeducation project related to these findings which aims to reduce guilt and shame and increase help-seeking among women struggling with motherhood.

The talk will end with an audience Q&A. 

Speaker bio:

Dr Nikhil Chaudhary is an Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Cambridge where he runs a dedicated Evolutionary Psychiatry lab, he is also an executive committee member of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

He completed his PhD and postdoctoral research as a member of the Hunter-Gatherer Resilience project at University College London, and he has been conducting research with BaYaka hunter-gatherers from Congo for over a decade.

His previous research investigated the evolution of human sociality and cooperation by examining the relationship between social capital and evolutionary fitness in hunter-gatherer communities.

His current work explores our vulnerability to mental health problems from an evolutionary perspective. He is particularly interested in how collaborative childrearing practices in hunter-gatherer and industrialised societies impact maternal and child psychological wellbeing.

He has also recently started a project examining how socio-ecological features of London neighbourhoods may overstimulate certain features of social cognition and increase the schizophrenia risk.

See the rest of the series, here.