Relatedly, does "stress" have the same meaning in what you say and others are saying? It seems reasonable (though I have no evidence or related expertise) that the optimal level of stress is non-zero (for some definition of stress, to the extent that it can be quantified). Why wouldn't the optimal level of stress promote more pro-social, creative, cooprerative, etc. behaviour than sub-optimal stress levels?
And not just humans. Pretty easy to tell if an animal has been mistreated. Kittens raised on the street, where they compete with each other for food, are nothing like those born and raised indoors.
Do you really need "hard science" for this kind of stuff?
You are also right that not everyone (human or different animal) reacts the same. Some turn the other cheek, some will break your nose. The scars will always be there, though.
Update:
Harvard Medical School article: Understanding the stress response https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding...
Research on effect on neural circuits: https://jneurodevdisorders.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...
Harvard article on impact of early childhood adversity, including on brain: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-the-im...
Telomere Effect also goes into epigenetic changes but isn’t solely focused on stress
Before the age of 5 I was hospitalized for falling out of a moving truck and had an ace score of 9, after adoption at 5 I had an ace score of 6-7. I was regularly beaten over the head, yelled at, had food withheld--the whole 9 yards. Almost always related to academic performance because I already had ADHD and PTSD from before adoption.
I now am starting to realize that beyond being easily triggered due to PTSD, I can ONLY function cognitively if I am under stress. It's taken me a long time to figure out if what I'm dealing with is ADHD, PTSD, dissociation, or what--it's hard to pin down. I finally realized that I perform, socialize, play, create and cooperate better if I am angry, scared, worried I'll get fired, or various other social pressures that make people panic. I am useless otherwise. I have come to the conclusion that I am adrenaline deficient because my brain developed in a wash of adrenaline and learned to stay there.
In social situations I come across as aloof or disinterested, absent, withdrawn, and when I'm excited about something or seeking socialization I come across as confrontational, argumentative, or upset when I'm happy and joking. I mostly don't see a point in socializing when I am not perceived according to my internal experience.
The only time I've ever been normal and functional is the 6 months after my mom died, a time when most people are incapacitated due to the stress of grief.
I gotta say as an N=1, having early childhood stressors and head trauma have not exactly made me more pro-social, creative, cooperative, etc. To get that Optimal level of stress requires that I destroy my body with cortisol.
The person you are responding to likely has notable epigenetic modifications that have lasted way past the initial negative environmental stimuli (in proportion to the trauma). It’s not a hopeless situation, there is literature on how to reverse and mitigate that, but it’s important to be aware of.
It's all presumed to be one's 'personal responsibility' that they were victims of their own kind.
The onus belongs on society to provide healthy and stable environments for people.
Society never cares about the damage it inflicts until it's time to start talking about outcomes and results, usually after a mass killing or some other major meltdown that ends in murder.
99% of those would be avoided if mankind practiced what it preached.
While society can shift things around a bit, none of these underlying issues are actually ‘solvable’ without far more serious consequences.
Our current thinking and attempt at solving some of the current ‘justice’ issues for instances seems to be precipitating an even larger and more destructive evil.
The reason why you can’t force an organism to care about another of its kind, for instance, has a plausible evolutionary reason that it would be foolhardy to ignore. That others of another organisms kind have an incentive to take advantage of any sort of mechanism to capture the other organism and make it work against its interests.
Selfishness is the only viable defense against out of control selfishness.
Prior solutions create new problems and new pain, precipitating new attempts at solutions which create new problems and new pain, ad infinitum.
The wheel will continue to turn.
Certainly seems that way. The world is led by sociopaths who would rather see dead homeless people than miss a profit goal.
As the wheel turns, people will remember who was, and wasn't, there when things were poor, and abandon them in their greatest hour of need.
You’re getting your lesson reversed.
If no one is strong, there is no one to help the weak.
If one gives all their strength, then they are too weak to help anyone including themselves.
If Ukraine gave in to Russia, for example, then there would be no Ukraine, and a stronger and hungrier Russia.
Weakness breeds predators.
Strength gives options and an ability to actually help others from a place that isn’t predatory. A place that can be win-win.
Never actually helping anyone of course makes new enemies, and isn’t helping anyone either.
It’s a balance.