in humans, parental care need not include forms of overt abuse or extreme neglect in order to influence the development of the offspring. In large measure, this is most likely due to the fact that natural selection shaped offspring to respond to subtle variations in parental behaviors as a forecast of the environmental conditions they will ultimately face following independence from the parent.42 Environmental adversity promotes forms of parental care that enhance stress responses in the offspring. To the extent that the offspring are likely to inherit comparable conditions - a reasonable assumption up until recent times - the development of increased stress reactivity might be considered as adaptive.
