Open AccessMeasures of domain-specific resource allocations in life history strategy: Indicators of a latent common factor or ordered developmental sequence?
Author(s) -
Rafael Antonio García,
Tomás Cabeza de Baca,
Candace Jasmine Black,
Marcela Sotomayor-Peterson,
Vanessa SmithCastro,
Aurelio José Figueredo
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of methods and measurement in the social sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2159-7855
DOI - 10.2458/jmm.v7i1.18798
Subject(s) - psychology , trait , life history theory , structural equation modeling , developmental psychology , perspective (graphical) , cognitive psychology , life history , life course approach , social psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , ecology , biology , machine learning , programming language
The psychometric trait approach to human life history, based on common factor modeling, has recently come under some criticism for neglecting to inquire into the developmental progression that orients and executes human life history trajectories (Copping, Campbell, & Muncer, 2014). It was asserted that the psychometric approach wholly focuses on creating a higher-order latent factor of life history by subsuming individual differences with developmental and social experiences, ignoring ontogenetic progression. Implicit in the critique is the assumption that developmental perspectives and latent approaches are mutually exclusive and incompatible with each other. The response to this critique by Figueredo and colleagues (2015) proposed instead that developmental perspectives and latent trait approaches are both compatible and necessary to further research on human life history strategies. The current paper uses three independent cross-sectional samples to examine whether models of human life history are best informed by a developmental perspective, psychometric trait approach, or both.