Abstract

The purpose of the present article is to advance the theory that an ongoing cultural shift from a multifamily to a nuclear family norm is well underway in India. However, from a biopsychosocial or developmental perspective, very little is understood concerning the implications about such a cultural shift on either individual development or cultural evolution. For too long, Western biopsychosocial theory has focused only on a nuclear family developmental trajectory rooted in the infant-mother attachment dyad as a valid model of human development. Alternative models of biopsychosocial development can no longer be ignored by Western developmental theories. In India, biopsychosocial development is traditionally based on a multifamily developmental trajectory rooted in infant-multiple-mother attachment relationships as the model for development. While it is the cultural predominance of a primary-other attachment relationship that is associated with cultural self-determinism, it is the cultural predominance of multiple-other attachment relationships that can be associated with cultural social-determinism. However, because of the ongoing cultural shift from a predominant multifamily structure to a nuclear family structure due to economic development, India may be moving increasingly toward cultural self-determinism. Further, if such a shift is occurring, it may be observable in neurobiological development in the oxytocin and vasopressin systems associated with the development of attachment relationships. Because of the implications for predicting long-term geopolitical change due to the economic development in other traditional cultures currently dominated by a multifamily developmental trajectory and a multiple-mother-model of human relationships, India’s cultural shift in family structure warrants study through a broad range of disciplines.