Toward a Comparative Developmental Ecology of Human Sleep

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511499999.009

6 - Toward a Comparative Developmental Ecology of Human Sleep

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009

Carol M. Worthman and

Melissa K. Melby

Edited by

Mary A. Carskadon

Show author details

Carol M. Worthman: Affiliation:
Emory University
Melissa K. Melby: Affiliation:
Emory University
Mary A. Carskadon: Affiliation:
Brown University, Rhode Island

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This exploratory comparative survey of the ecology of human sleep arises from a question posed by a pediatrician who studies mood disorders and sleep (Dahl, 1996; Dahl et al., 1996). In an attempt to gain insights into sleep regulation from ecological theory and research, he questioned what anthropologists know about sleep. The bald, if somewhat overstated, answer was: zero. Sleep, in its ubiquity, seeming nonsociality, apparent universality, and presumed biologically driven uniformity, has been overlooked as a background variable. Amazingly, it has not engaged a discipline dedicated to the study of human behavior, human diversity, and their cultural biological bases. A notable exception is the evolutionary-ethologically informed approach to the anthropological study of sleep pioneered by the work of McKenna and colleagues on sleep arrangements, infant state regulation, and risk for sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS (McKenna, 1991, 1992, 1996; Mosko, McKenna, Dickel, & Hunt, 1993). Harkness and Super have also documented cultural variation in infant sleep in relation to their studies of child care practices (Harkness & Super, 1996; Super, Harkness, van Tijen, van der Vlugt, Fintelman, & Kijksta, 1996), and scattered reports document sleep behavior (Ferreira de Souza Aguiar, Pereira da Sliva, & Margues, 1991).

Type: Chapter
Information: Adolescent Sleep Patterns
Biological, Social, and Psychological Influences
, pp. 69 - 117

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511499999.009 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abbott, S (1992). Holding on and pushing away: Comparative perspectives on an eastern Kentucky child-rearing practice. Ethos 20:33–65CrossRef Google Scholar

Adler, SR (1995). Refugee stress and folk belief: Hmong sudden deaths. Social Science and Medicine 40(12):1623–1629CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Ajilore, O, Stickgold, R, Rittenhouse, C, Hobson, J (1995). Nightcap: Laboratory and home-based evaluation of a portable sleep monitor. Psychophysiology 32:92–98CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Allison, T, Cicchetti, DV (1976). Sleep in mammals: Ecological and constitutional correlates. Science 194:732–734CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Allison, T, Van, Twyver H (1970). The evolution of sleep. Natural History 79: 56–65Google Scholar

Anderson, J (1984). Ethology and ecology of sleep in monkeys and apes. Advances in the Study of Behavior 14:165–229CrossRef Google Scholar

Armstrong, K L, Quinn, RA, Dadds, MR (1994). The sleep patterns of normal children. Medical Journal of Australia 161:202–206Google Scholar PubMed

Bailey, RC, Devore, I (1989). Research on the Efe and Lese populations of the Ituri forest, Zaire. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 78:459–471CrossRef Google Scholar

Bakeman R, Adamson L, Konner M, Barr R (1997). Sequential analyses of! Kung infant communication: Inducing and recruiting. In E. Amsel & K. Renninger, eds., Change and Development: Issues of Theory, Method, and Application, pp. 173–192. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Barry, HI, Paxson, LM (1971). Infancy and early childhood: Cross-cultural codes 2. Ethnology 10:466–508Google Scholar

Barth F (1965). Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology, vol. 19. London: Athlone Press, University of London

Barth F (1975). Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea. New Haven: Yale University Press

Barth F (1981). Features of Person and Society in Swat. Collected Essays on Pathans: Selected Essays of Fredrick Barth. vol. 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul

Barth F (1985). The Last Wali of Swat. New York: Columbia University Press

Barth F (1993). Balinese Worlds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Bateson G, Mead M (1942). Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences

Berger, R, Phillips, N (1995). Energy conservation and sleep. Behav Brain Res 69:65–73CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Bockarie, MJ, Alexander, N, Bockarie, F, Obam, E, Barnish, G, Alpers, G (1996). The late biting habit of parous Anopheles mosquitoes and pre-bedtime exposure of humans to infective female mosquitoes. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 90:23–25CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Brown, PJ (1981). Cultural adaptations to endemic malaria in Sardinia. Medical Anthropology 5:311–339CrossRef Google Scholar

Brown, PJ (1986). Cultural and genetic adaptations to malaria: Problems of comparison. Human Ecology 14:311–332CrossRef Google Scholar

Burton RF (1893). Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to al-Madinah and Meccah. vol. 1. London: Tylston and Edwards

Campbell, SS, Tobler, I (1984). Animal sleep: A review of sleep duration across phylogeny. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 8:269–300CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Carskadon, MA (1990). Patterns of sleep and sleepiness in adolescents. Pediatrician 17:5–12Google Scholar PubMed

Chisholm J (1983). Navajo Infancy: An Ethological Study of Child Development. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine

Condon R (1983). Inuit Behavior and Seasonal Change in the Canadian Arctic. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press

Condon R (1987). Inuit Youth: Growth and Change in the Canadian Arctic. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press

Dahl, RE (1996). The impact of inadequate sleep on children's daytime cognitive function. Seminars in Pediatric Neurology 3:44–50CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Dahl, RE, Ryan, ND, Matty, MK, Birmaher, B, al-Shabbout, M, Williamson, , Kupfer, DJ, (1996). Sleep onset abnormalities in depressed adolescents. Biological Psychiatry 39:400–410CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Damasio A (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Avon Books

d'Aquili E, Laughlin C (1979). The neurobiology of myth and ritual. In E. d'Aquili, C. Laughlin, & J. McManus, eds., The Spectrum of Ritual, pp. 152–182. New York: Columbia University Press

Dowse, GK, Turner, KJ, Stewart, GA, Alpers, MP, Woolcock, AJ (1985). The association between Dermatophagoides mites and the increasing prevalence of asthma in village communities within the Papua New Guinea highlands. Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology 75:75–83CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Drucker-Colín, R (1995). The function of sleep is to regulate brain excitability in order to satisfy the requirements imposed by waking. Behav Brain Res 69:117–124CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Eibl-Eibesfeldt I (1989). Human Ethology: Foundations of Human Behavior. New York: Aldine de Gruyter

Ferreira de Souza, Aguiar G, Pereira da, Silva H, Marques, N (1991). Patterns of daily allocation of sleep periods: A case study in an Amazonian riverine community. Chronobiologia 18:9–19Google Scholar

Gantley, M, Davies, DP, Murcote, A (1993). Sudden infant death syndrome: Links with infant care practices. British Medical Journal 306:16–20CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Genton, B, al-Yaman, F, Beck, HP, Hii, J, Mellor, S, Narara, A, Gibson, N, Smith, T, Alpers, MP (1995). The epidemiology of malaria in the Wosera area, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, in preparation for vaccine trials. I. Malariometric indices and immunity. Ann Trop Med Parasitol 89(4):359–376CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Grazia de Simoni, M, Imeri, L, Matteo, W, Perego, C, Simard, S, Tarrazzino, S (1995). Sleep regulation: Interactions among cytokines and classical neurotransmitters. Advances in Neuroimmunology 5:189–200CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Harkness S, Super CM, eds. (1996). Parents’ Cultural Belief Systems: Their Origins, Expressions, and Consequences. New York: Guilford Press

Hart, BL (1990). Behavioral adaptation to pathogens and parasites: Five strategies. Neurosci Biobeh Rev 14:273–294CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Herdt, G (1989). Father presence and ritual homosexuality: Paternal deprivation and masculine development in Melanesia. Ethos 17:326–370CrossRef Google Scholar

Herdt G ed. (1982). Rituals of Manhood. Berkeley: University of California Press

Hill K, Hurtado AM (1996). Ache Life History: The Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People. Foundations of Human Behavior. New York: Aldine de Gruyter

Hobson J (1989). Sleep. New York: Scientific American Library

Hobson, J, Spagna, T, Malenka, R (1978). Ethology of sleep studied with time-lapse photography: Postural immobility and sleep-cycle phase in humans. Science 201:1251–1253CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Hobson J, Steriade M (1986). The neuronal basis of behavioral state control. In V. Mountcastle, ed., Intrinsic Regulatory Systems of the Brain, vol. 4, Handbook of Physiology, pp. 701–823. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society

Hobson J, Stickgold R (1996). The conscious state paradigm: A neurocognitive approach to waking, sleeping, and dreaming. In M. Gazzaniga, ed., The Cognitive Neurosciences, pp. 1373–1389. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Hurtado, AM, Hill, KR (1987). Early dry season subsistence ecology of Cuiva (Hiwi) foragers of Venezuela. Human Ecology 15:163–187CrossRef Google Scholar

Hurtado, AM, Hill, KR (1990). Seasonality in a foraging society: Variation in diet, work effort, fertility, and sexual division of labor among the Hiwi of Venezuela. Journal of Anthropological Research 46:293–346CrossRef Google Scholar

Jenike, M (1996). Activity reduction as an adaptive response to seasonal hunger. Am J Hum Biol 4:517–5343.0.CO;2-P>CrossRef Google Scholar

Katz R (1982). Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari! Kung. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Kelly DD (1991). Sleep and dreaming. In E. R. Kandel, J. H. Schwartz, & T. M. Jessell, eds., Principles of Neural Science, pp. 792–804. New York: Elsevier

Kelly R (1976). Witchcraft and sexual relations. In P. Brown & G. Buchbinder, eds., Man and Woman in the New Guinea Highlands, pp. 36–53. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association

Kelly R(1993). Constructing Inequality. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press

Knauft BM (1985a). Good Company and Violence: Sorcery and Social Action in a Lowland New Guinea Society. Berkeley: University of California Press

Knauft, BM (1985b). Ritual form and permutation in New Guinea: Implications of symbolic process for socio-political evolution. American Ethnologist 12: 321–340CrossRef Google Scholar

Krueger, J, Majde, J (1995). Cytokines and sleep. International Archives of Allergy and Immunology 106:97–100CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Leakey L (1977). The Southern Kikuyu before 1903. London: Academic Press

Leder D (1990). The Absent Body. Chicago: Chicago University Press

LeDoux J (1996). The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Simon and Schuster

Lee R B (1984). The Dobe! Kung. Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston

Lee RB, DeVore I, eds. (1976). Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers: Studies of the! Kung San and Their Neighbors. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Levy R (1973). Tahitians: Mind and Experience in the Society Islands. Chicago: Chicago University Press

Lex B (1979). The neurobiology of ritual trance. In E. d'Aquili, C. Laughlin, & J. McManus, eds., The Spectrum of Ritual, pp. 117–151. New York: Columbia University Press

Lozoff, B, Wolf, AW, Davis, MS (1984). Cosleeping in urban families with young children in the United States. Pediatrics 74:171–182Google Scholar PubMed

Lubin, A, Hord, D, Tracy, M, Johnson, L (1976). Effects of exercise, bedrest and napping on performance decrement during 40 hours. Psychophysiology 13:334–339CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Mamelak, A, Hobson, J (1989). Nightcap: A home-based sleep monitoring system. Sleep 12:157–166CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Maquet, P (1995). Sleep function(s) and cerebral metabolism. Behav Brain Res 69:75–83CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Marks, G, Shaffery, J, Oksenberg, A, Speciale, S, Roffwarg, H (1995). A functional role for REM sleep in brain maturation. Behav Brain Res 69:1–11CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Marshall L (1976). The! Kung of Nyae Nyae. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

McKenna JJ (1991). Researching the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): The Role of Ideology in Biomedical Science. Stony Brook, NY: Research Foundation, SUNY

McKenna, JJ, Mosko, S, Richard, C, Drummond, S, Hunt, L, Cetel, MB, Arpaia, J (1994). Experimental studies of infant-parent co-sleeping: Mutual psychological and behavioral influences and their relevance to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). Early Human Development 38:187–201CrossRef Google Scholar

McKenna JJ, Mosko S, Richard C, Drummond S, Hunt L, Cetel MB, Arpaia J (1992). Co-sleeping. In M. Carskadon, ed., Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming, pp. 143–148. New York: Macmillan

McKenna, JJ, Mosko, S, Richard, C, Drummond, S, Hunt, L, Cetel, MB, Arpaia, J (1996). Sudden infant death syndrome in cross-cultural perspective: Is infant-parent cosleeping protective?Annual Review of Anthropology 25:201–216CrossRef Google Scholar

Mead M, Macgregor FC (1951). Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons

Meddis R (1983). The evolution of sleep. In A. Mayes, ed., Sleep Mechanisms and Functions, pp. 57–106. London: Van Nostrand Reinhold

Mitler, MM, Carskadon, MA, Czeisler, CA, Dement, WC, Dinges, DF, Graeber, RC (1988). Catastrophes, sleep and public policy: Consensus report. Sleep 11:100–109CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Morelli, G, Oppenheim, D, Rogoff, B, Goldsmith, D (1992). Cultural variations in infant's sleeping arrangements: Questions of independence. Developmental Psychology 28: 604–613CrossRef Google Scholar

Mosko, S, McKenna, J, Dickel, M, Hunt, L (1993). Parent-infant cosleeping: The appropriate context for the study of infant sleep and implications for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) research. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 16:589–610CrossRef Google Scholar

Mosko, S, Richard, C, McKenna, J (1997). Infant arousals during mother-infant bed sharing: Implications for infant sleep and sudden infant death syndrome research. Pediatrics 100:841–849CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Mosko, SRichard, C, McKenna, J, Drummond, S (1996). Infant sleep architecture during bedsharing and possible implications for SIDS. Sleep 19:677–684CrossRef Google Scholar

Nakazawa, M, Obtsuka, R, Kawabe, T, Hongo, T, Suzuki, T, Inaoka, T, Akimichi, T, Kano, S, Suzuki, M (1994). Differential malaria prevalence among villages of the Gidra in lowland Papua New Guinea. Tropical and Geographical Medicine 46:350–354Google Scholar PubMed

Paige KE, Paige JM (1981). The Politics of Reproductive Ritual. Berkeley: University of California Press

Pankhurst, F, Horne, J (1994). The influence of bed partners on movement during sleep. Sleep 17:308–315CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Potts R (1996a). Humanity's Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability. New York: Morrow

Potts, R (1996b). Evolution and climate variability. Science 273:922–923CrossRef Google Scholar

Prussin L (1995). African Nomadic Architecture: Space, Place and Gender. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press

Reyner, L, Horne, J, Reyer, L (1995). Gender- and age-related differences in sleep determined by home-recorded sleep logs and actimetry from 400 adults. Sleep 18:127–134Google Scholar PubMed

Sadeh, A, Hauri, P, Kripke, D, Lavie, P (1995). The role of actigraphy in the evaluation of sleep disorders. Sleep 18:288–302CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Salzarulo, P, Fagioli, I (1995). Sleep for development or development for waking? Some speculations from a human perspective. Behav Brain Res 69:23–27CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Sawczenko, A, Fleming, PJ (1996). Thermal stress, sleeping position, and the sudden infant death syndrome. Sleep 19:S267–270Google Scholar PubMed

Schachter, FF, Fuches, ML, Bijur, P, Stone, RK (1989). Cosleeping and sleep problems in Hispanic-American urban young children. Pediatrics 84:522–530Google Scholar PubMed

Schieffelin E (1976). The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers. New York: St. Martin's Press

Schlegel A, Barry H (1991). Adolescence: An Anthropological Inquiry. New York: Free Press

Schweder RA, Jensen LA, Goldstein WM (1995). Who sleeps by whom revisited. In J. J. Goodnow, P. J. Miller, & F. Kessel, eds., Cultural Practices as Contexts for Development, vol. 67, New Directions for Child Development, pp. 21–39. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Shostak M (1981). Nisa: The Life and Works of a! Kung Woman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Siegel, J (1995). Phylogeny and the function of REM sleep. Behav Brain Res 69:29–34CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Simons RC, Hughes CC, eds. (1985). The Culture-Bound Syndromes. Dordrecht: D. Reidl PublishingCrossRef

Stickgold, R, Page-Schott, E, Hobson, J (1994). A new paradigm for dream research: Mentation reports following spontaneous arousal from REM and NREM sleep recorded in a home setting. Consciousness Cognition 3:16–29CrossRef Google Scholar

Super, C, Harkness, S (1994). The cultural regulation of temperament-environment interactions. Researching Early Childhood 2:59–84Google Scholar

Super C, Harkness S, van Tijen N, van der Vlugt E, Fintelman M, Kijkstra J (1996). The three R's of Dutch childrearing and the socialization of infant arousal. In S. Harkness & C. Super, eds., Parents’ Cultural Belief Systems, pp. 447–465. New York: Guilford Press

Tanchaiswad, W (1995). Is sudden unexplained nocturnal death a breathing disorder?Psychiatry Clinical Neuroscience 49(2):111–114CrossRef Google Scholar

Tobler, I (1995). Is sleep fundamentally different between mammalian species?Behav Brain Res 69:35–41CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Trevathan, WR, McKenna, JJ (1994). Evolutionary environments of human birth and infancy: Insights to apply to contemporary life. Children's Environments 11:88–104Google Scholar

Turner, KJ, Stewart, GA, Woolcock, AJ, Green, W, Alpers, MP (1988). Relationship between mite densities and the prevalence of asthma: Comparative studies in two populations in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Clinical Allergy 18:331–340CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Walsh, J, Shweitzer, P, Anch, A, Muehlbach, M, Jenkins, N, Dickins, Q (1994). Sleepiness/alertness on a simulated night shift following sleep at home with triazolam. Sleep 14:140–146Google Scholar

Whiting JWM (1981). Environmental constraints on infant care practices. In R. H. Munroe, R. L. Munroe, & B. B. Whiting, eds., Handbook of Cross-Cultural Human Development, pp. 155–179. New York: Garland

Whiting JWM, Burbank V, Ratner M (1986). The duration of maidenhood across cultures. In J. Lancaster & B. Hamburg, eds., School-Age Pregnancy and Parenthood, pp. 273–302. New York: Aldine de Gruyter

Whiting, JWM, Landauer, T, Jones, T (1968). Infantile immunization and adult stature. Child Development 39:58–67CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Whiting, JWM, Whiting, BB (1975). Aloofness and intimacy of husbands and wives. Ethos 3:183–207CrossRef Google Scholar

Wikan U (1990). Managing Turbulent Hearts: A Balinese Formula for Living. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Wolf A, Lozoff B, Latz S, Paludetto R (1996). Parental theories in the management of young children's sleep in Japan, Italy, and the United States. In S. Harkness & C. Super, eds., Parents’ Cultural Belief Systems, pp. 364–384. New York: Guilford Press

Worthman CM (1999). Emotion: you can feel the difference. In A. Hinton, ed., Beyond “Nature or Nurture”: Biocultural Approaches to the Emotions, pp. 41–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press