Life History Theory

1. What is the title of your chosen reading? Who is the author?
The selected reading is entitled “A Framework for Psychopathology Based on Life History Theory: A Landmark Formulation” and is written by Dr. Riadh Abed.
2. Give a short description of the background of the reading and its author.
In this article Dr. Abed, a consultant psychiatrist, provides proposals on how life history theory (LHT) can be applied “to the classification of psychopathology and mental disorder” (Abed, 2014, p. 301). LHT is a branch of ecology and evolutionary biology; it aims to predict the observed patterns in the life histories of living organisms. This theory was developed to explain the diversity in the life history of living organisms from gestation to death.
State in your own words two of the author’s leading propositions and list the arguments supporting those propositions.
Dr. Abed (2014); through his sexual competition hypothesis (SCH), “proposes that ED in all their forms arise from intense female intrasexual competition for mates” (p. 303). By this proposition Abed is suggesting that the intensity of inner female competition for a mate leads to the development of various ED. Women think that thinness enhances their chance of finding and keeping a mate. They think that in order to retain the attention they receive a certain weight must be achieved and maintained. Unfortunately, this thought process leads to unhealthy activities that is life threatening.
In order to support this proposition, Dr. Abed (2014) “created a questionnaire study of the nonclinical female population in the United States” in which he “found a significant correlation between disordered eating and the intensity of female competition for mates” (p.303). A similar correlation was found among females in the United Kingdom as well as male homosexuals and lesbians. However, for male homosexuals, a greater vulnerability to ED was realized in comparison to their lesbian
Determine which of the problems the author laid out a solution for and which he did not. If the author did not solve all the problems identify whether he is aware of that and also if he created any new problems that were left unsolved.
This article is solely based upon proposals which the author gives no solution for. The author is well aware of the lack of solutions to the problems as that was not the goal of his work. Due to Dr. Abed’s focus on making proposals, all problems were left unsolved giving no opportunity for the creation of new problems.
9. Provide a one to two paragraph critique of the article. Describe whether you agree or disagree with the author’s arguments and explain why.
This article was very enjoyable to read; Dr. Abed’s arguments were clear and sensible. His arguments were supported due to his ability to do research on the problems. Moreover, the results correlated with his hypothesis. For example, the study of the correlation between eating disorders and intrasexual competition was proven by the questionnaire study. Not only was evidence provided through this study, but this evidence can be observed in everyday life. The image of what is attractive to the opposite sex is constantly shown in the