Evolutionary Aggression Flashcards
Natural selection
Weeds out disadvantageous traits
Finding and maintaining a mate is the primary motive behind evolution so genes can be passed on
Had to fight comp to get the mate and then keep her - sexual jealously evolved
Jealousy is an adaptive response that has lead to mate retention strategies
Agg arose from sexual jealously that originated from the EEA
Daly and Wilson
Men have evolved strategies to prevent partners from leaving - direct guarding
This improved his reproductive fitness
As cuckolded men lose resources and reproductive opportunity
Buss
Measure the arousal levels of pps whilst watching scenes of betrayal
Men were more aroused by the sexual betrayal and had a more heightened state showing they would be more lowly be aggressive
Females were more aroused at the emotional betrayal
Support agg could be an innate biological and adaptive response
Takahashi
Brain scans whilst watching betrayal
Men showed greater activation in the hypothalamus (an area associated with agg) when watching sexual betrayal
Support agg could be an innate biological and adaptive response
Schackelford
Investigated mate retention strategies in 1000 pps
Found the more used the more likely the male was to be violent
Main strategies used were shouting at them for looking at another guy
Miller
Supports that sexual jealousy is a major cause of violence
Battered women
States sexual jealousy was the main reason 55% cited it as the reason for the husbands behaviour
Implications
Interventions can be made of mate retention strategies are shown before the situation escalates
Murder
Couldn’t of evolved unless it was associated with greater reproductive success
In the EEA the benefits outweighed costs
It solves problems - protect fam/manage rep/protect resources
Made them attractive
- hunters = resources
- fighters = protectors
The high status males got the girls
Low status were at risk of having no offspring
Low status engage in high Risk
The success = high status = girls
Daly and Wilson
Murders in Detroit
The primary motive was to gain status
Victims and offenders were unemployed and unmarried males - low status
40% were unemployed although unemployment rates were only 11%
70% unmarried
The lack of resources (gained from a job) and inability to have a long term relationship lead to increased social competition and murder
Daly and Wilson
Meta analysis of 8 same sex killing inclining love triangles
Found gender differences
92% were male male
8% female female
Aggression in females
Costs outweigh benefits
The mothers presence is more critical to the offsprings survival than the fathers
Engaging in risky behaviour would not be beneficial and so is not an adaptive response
High status aggressive females are not preferred = no point to n aggression
Low risk indirect aggression (gossiping) evolved to decrease attractiveness of competing females
Gender differences
The evolutionary argument for infidelity States it’s something a man must stop a woman from doing
Does not acknowledge men can be unfaithful too
Gender bias
True nature of males and female infidelity is not revealed
Ult vs Prox
Explaining current behaviour from EEA is problematic
The benefits did outweighs the cost but not they don’t
Consequences - prison - was not around in the EEA
So how useful is it to explain concepts now?
Test card
Natural selection Daly and Wilson Buss Takahashi Schackelford Miller Implications Murder Daly and Wilson Daly and Wilson Agg females Gender diff Ult vs Prox
