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Family Influences on Sleep: Comparative and Historical-Evolutionary Perspectives

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Book cover Family Contexts of Sleep and Health Across the Life Course

Part of the book series: National Symposium on Family Issues ((NSFI,volume 8))

Abstract

Humans are distinctive for the central roles that culture and sociality play in sleep behaviors, experiences, and processes. Moreover, pair bonding and family-kinship configurations structure the social relations and conditions of everyday life in which sleep is embedded. This chapter takes an ecological approach to characterize the human sleep niche as the nexus for interactions between culture and sleep and their consequences for functioning and well-being. Recent advances in techniques for phylogenetic analysis permit detection of distinctive features of both human sleep and the evolution of family and social formations. These two trajectories are juxtaposed to characterize a spectrum of family influences on sleep, drawing also upon ethnographic and empirical examples from a range of societies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Carol M. Worthman

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  1. Carol M. Worthman
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Correspondence to Carol M. Worthman .

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  1. Social Science Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Susan M. McHale

  2. Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Valarie King

  3. Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Orfeu M. Buxton

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Worthman, C.M. (2017). Family Influences on Sleep: Comparative and Historical-Evolutionary Perspectives. In: McHale, S., King, V., Buxton, O. (eds) Family Contexts of Sleep and Health Across the Life Course. National Symposium on Family Issues, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64780-7_6

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