Butler Stephen
Department of Psychology, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jun 22;12:623675. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.623675. eCollection 2021.
With the transition toward densely populated and urbanized market-based cultures over the past 200 years, young people's development has been conditioned by the ascendancy of highly competitive skills-based labor markets that demand new forms of embodied capital (e.g., education) for young people to succeed. Life-history analysis reveals parental shifts toward greater investment in fewer children so parents can invest more in their children's embodied capital for them to compete successfully. Concomitantly, the evolution of market-based capitalism has been associated with the rise of extrinsic values such as individualism, materialism and status-seeking, which have intensified over the last 40-50 years in consumer economies. The dominance of extrinsic values is consequential: when young people show disproportionate extrinsic relative to intrinsic values there is increased risk for mental health problems and poorer well-being. This paper hypothesizes that, concomitant with the macro-cultural promotion of extrinsic values, young people in advanced capitalism (AC) are obliged to develop an identity that is market-driven and embedded in self-narratives of success, status, and enhanced self-image. The prominence of extrinsic values in AC are synergistic with neuro-maturational and stage-salient developments of adolescence and embodied in prominent market-driven criterion such as physical attractiveness, displays of wealth and material success, and high (educational and extra-curricular) achievements. Cultural transmission of market-driven criterion is facilitated by evolutionary tendencies in young people to learn from older, successful and prestigious individuals () and to copy their peers. The paper concludes with an integrated socio-ecological evolutionary account of market-driven identities in young people, while highlighting methodological challenges that arise when attempting to bridge macro-cultural and individual development.
在过去200年向人口密集和城市化的市场文化转型过程中，年轻人的发展受到高度竞争的技能型劳动力市场崛起的制约，这种市场要求年轻人具备新形式的具体资本（如教育）才能取得成功。生活史分析表明，父母的育儿策略已转向对更少子女进行更多投资，以便父母能够更多地投资于子女的具体资本，使其成功竞争。与此同时，基于市场的资本主义的演变与个人主义、物质主义和追求地位等外在价值观的兴起相关联，这些价值观在过去40至50年的消费经济中不断强化。外在价值观的主导地位影响重大：当年轻人表现出相对于内在价值观而言不成比例的外在价值观时，心理健康问题和幸福感较低的风险就会增加。本文假设，随着宏观文化对外在价值观的推崇，发达资本主义（AC）中的年轻人不得不形成一种由市场驱动的身份认同，并融入成功、地位和提升自我形象的自我叙事中。AC中外在价值观的突出与青少年的神经成熟和阶段显著发展相互协同，并体现在诸如身体吸引力、财富和物质成功展示以及高（教育和课外）成就等突出的市场驱动标准中。年轻人向年长、成功和有声望的个体学习并模仿同龄人这种进化倾向，促进了市场驱动标准的文化传播。本文最后对年轻人中由市场驱动的身份认同进行了综合社会生态进化阐述，同时强调了在试图弥合宏观文化与个体发展时出现的方法学挑战。
