Abstract
Sociobiologists studying humans can expand the significance of their efforts by focusing upon resources and the various behaviors used to acquire them during ontogeny. It is a commonplace observation that individuals have needs for particular kinds of resources and that these needs and the behaviors used to acquire them change over developmental time. What is perhaps not commonly recognized is that variability in access to resources is directly or indirectly responsible for significant variability in individual functioning, development, and reproductive potential. This possibility was recognized by Darwin early in the development of his theory. It became clear to him after reading Malthus that the relationship between resources and individual survival had direct consequences on population size and hence constituted one of the major factors responsible for evolutionary change.
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Charlesworth, W.R. (1988). Resources and Resource Acquisition During Ontogeny. In: MacDonald, K.B. (eds) Sociobiological Perspectives on Human Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3760-0_2
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