Evaluate the role of evolution and natural selection to explain aggression (8 marks) Flashcards
WEAKNESSES
→ Aggression in males → males are motivated to acquire status since high males have access to mates and resources for survival. → high status males are more likely to be selected by females since they will have better guarantee for the survival of her and her offspring. → not engaging in conflict with other males can therefore be costly. → low status males have to engage in high risk strategies to enhance their chance of reproduction
→ Daly and Wilson (1985) found victims and offenders were most likely to be men of low status and without a mate → most victims new each other so understood the status of their rival.
Reductionist theory → it suggests we have evolved to harness adaptive behaviours such as social learning theory of observations → Siegal gives an example of a young boy who imitated his fathers aggressive behaviour at home as a role model, when he grew up he carried on this same behaviour, disobeying his partner → ignored environment al factors
WEAKNESSES
→ Aggression in females → females are generally viewed as less aggressive since the costs of such behaviours outweighs the benefits. → It is more important for the mother to survive because her presence is more critical to the survival of offspring that father. → a woman has nothing to gain by exhibiting aggression since her aim is not to gain high status but to secure a valuable male. → to end this females have elvoved low risk and indirect strategies in disputes and conflicts e.g they are more likely to gossip, aimed at reducing attractiveness of completing females
→ Hill and Hurtado (1996) - found children are 5 times more likely to die if the mother dies, and 100% likely if this happens before the child is aged one
→ Griskevious et al 2009 - shown that sex differences for both direct physical aggression and for indirect verbal psychological aggression - which females make more use of
→ Individual differences emphasises things that the evolutionary theory such as why males react differently with the same ad
adaptive problem → cannot account for cultural differences in the importance of violence. → Yanomamo of South America → is required to attain status → aggression leads to reputational damage. I two different cultures → aggression has difference significance upon it but evolutionary view does not allow for this cultural difference so cannot provide a complete view on human aggression
