Evolutionary explanations of human aggression

What is the evolutionary explanation of sexual jealousy?

Sexual jealousy is a major motivator of aggressive behaviour in males which can be given an evolutionary explanation

How does sexual jealousy occur?

1. Jealousy occurs because men, unlike women, can never be totally sure about whether or not they’re a child’s parent

2. This paternity uncertainty is a result of the very real threat for the male of cuckoldry (having to raise offspring that isn’t his own)

3. Any investment in offspring who do not share the male’s genes is a waste of his resources

4. It contributes to survival of a rival’s genes/leaves ‘father’ with fewer resources to invest in his own future offspring

Why have psychological mechanisms evolved to increase anti-cuckoldry behaviours in males?

1. Men in our evolutionary past who could avoid cuckoldry were more reproductively successful

2. E.g. sexual jealousy is more strongly experienced in males than in females

3. This drives the often agg strategies men employ to retain their partners/prevent them from ‘straying’

4. These strategies were adaptive in our evolutionary history

What are male retention strategies?

1. Wilson/Daly (1996) identified several male retention strategies which involve agg/even physical violence:

2. Direct guarding - male vigilance over a partner’s behaviour, e.g., checking who they’ve been seeing, coming home early, keeping tabs on their whereabouts, installing tracking apps on their mobiles etc.

3. Negative inducements - issuing threats of dire consequences for infidelity (“I’ll kill myself if you leave me”)

How did Wilson et al. (1995) investigate physical violence against partner?

1. Asked women to report male retention strategies in their partners

2. Measured in terms of the extent to which agreed with statements like, ‘He insists on knowing who you are with and where you are at all times’

3. Women who agreed with such statements 2x likely to have experienced physical violence at hands of their partners

4. Of these women, 73% required medical attention, 53% said they feared for their lives

5. This supports view that male retention strategies linked to physical violence

What is the evolutionary explanation of bullying?

1. Bullying occurs because of power imbalance - more powerful individual uses agg deliberately/repeatedly against weaker person

2. Researchers traditionally viewed bullying as maladaptive behaviour, e.g., result of poor social skills/childhood abuse

3. However, our evolutionary ancestors may have used bullying as adaptive strategy to increase chances of survival by promoting own health/creating reproduction opportunities

How does Volk et al. (2012) investigate male bullying?

1. Argued that characteristics associated with bullying behaviour attractive to females - dominance, acquisition of resources, strength

2. Bullying also has benefit of warding off potential rivals; therefore such bullying behaviour naturally selected because these males; greater reproductive success

3. Bullying may even benefit bully’s success; adolescent boys who gain reputation for being tough less likely to experience agg themselves as other boys avoid contact with them

4. Benefits their health as those at top of dominance hierarchy experience less stress (Sapolsky 2004)

What about female bullying?

1. In females, bullying more often takes place within relationship/method of controlling partner

2. Women use bullying behaviour to secure partner’s fidelity, means they continue to provide resources for future offspring

3. Again such behaviour would be naturally selected because of enhanced reproductive success (Campbell 1999)

AO3: Gender differences

1. Strength; theory can explain why males/females differ in their uses of agg

2. Research shows that gender differences in agg; could be due to socialisation or adaptive strategies

3. E.g. Campbell (1999) argues that not adaptive for female with offspring to be physically agg as such behaviour would put own survival at risk/that of her child

4. More adaptive strategy for females to use is verbal agg to retain partner who provides resources

5. Would explain why women tend to display verbal rather than physical agg

6. TMT such arguments provide support for evolutionary approach to explaining agg

AO3: Cultural differences

1. Limitation; substantial cultural differences in agg behaviour

2. Far from being universal, some cultures where agg appears to be almost non-existent

3. E.g. Thomas (1958) studied Kung San people of western Botswana in Africa, called themselves ‘harmless people’; found they had negative attitudes towards use of agg

4. Agg behaviour discouraged from childhood in boys/girls = rare; those who use it have status/rep within community diminished

5. Cultural/social norms constrain agg behaviour in this society

6. TMT since some cultures do not show agg, such behaviour may not necessarily be adaptive

AO3: Determinism vs. free will

1. Evolutionary argument = biologically determinist

2. We are agg because of adaptations that increased the survival chances of our ancestors/beyond our control

3. However, humanistic psychs argue agg subject to us exercising our free will

4. Also, cog factors allow us to think about consequences of our behaviour

5. Supported by research into cultural differences - so agg not inevitable/always our own responsibility