evolutionary explanations for aggression

Question 1

what is an evolutionary explanation?

Answer 1

it accounts for changes in species over time, characteristics that enhance survival and reproduction are naturally selected

Question 2

what are the 2 evolutionary explanations for aggression?

Answer 2

• sexual jealousy
• infedelity

Question 3

what is sexual jealousy?

Answer 3

a direct response to parental uncertainty, which leads to a risk of cuckoldry

Question 4

what is cuckoldry?

Answer 4

a male raising a child which is not his

Question 5

is cuckoldry an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage?

Answer 5

an evolutionary disadvantage

Question 6

how is cuckoldry an evolutionary disadvantage?

Answer 6

it wastes the male’s resources, which he could’ve used on his own children
- wasting reproductive chances

Question 7

how is sexual jealousy adaptive?

Answer 7

it is adaptive to men as it reduces cuckoldry risk

Question 8

who researched mate retention strategies?

Answer 8

Wilson and Daly

Question 9

what are mate retention strategies for?

Answer 9

males have evolved mate retention strategies in response to sexual jealousy

Question 10

what are the 2 examples of mate retention strategies?

Answer 10

• direct guarding (restricting autonomy of partner)
• negative inducements (violence or threats of violence)

Question 11

how did Wilson and Daly demonstrate mate retention strategies in research?

Answer 11

• demonstrated this assumption with the claim that a majority of domestic violence or uxoricide (wife killing) cases, were a result of extreme sexual jealousy of the partner

Question 12

what did Shakleford research into?

Answer 12

link between male retention strategies and aggression

Question 13

outline Shakleford’s research

Answer 13

• found that when 107 couples, who’d been married for less than a year, individually completed the Male Retention Inventory (husbands) and the Spouse Influence Report (wives),
  there was a positive correlation between increasing scores on these two measures
• which translated to being an important predictor of the use of aggression in such married relationships

Question 14

what does Shakleford’s research show?

Answer 14

• shows a clear relationship between sexual jealousy, mate retention strategies and violence towards women
• suggests that aggression is a response to an adaptive problem, where mate retention strategies are activated when the problem of a mate’s infedelity is faced

Question 15

what is infedelity?

Answer 15

a voluntary sexual relationship between a married individual and a non-spouse

Question 16

how does infedelity link to aggression?

Answer 16

• aggression can be due to the suspicion or perception of infedelity in partner
• may lead to aggression due to a risk of cuckoldry
• may also lead to sexual coercion (partner rape) or even more extreme violence like uxoricide (wife killing)

Question 17

what is Takahashi’s research support for?

Answer 17

jealousy and subsequent aggression as an evolved response to infedelity

Question 18

outline Takahashi’s research

Answer 18

• ppt’s imagined scenes depicting their partner cheating and scenes that would arouse emotional jealousy (partner falling in love with someone else)
• he found that men showed much greater activation in the amygdala and hypothalamus (associated with aggression) than women

Question 19

what is Camilleri’s research support for?

Answer 19

support for role of infedelity in aggressive behaviour

Question 20

outline Camilleri’s findings

Answer 20

• found that sexual assault of female, by her partner, was directly associated with a perceived risk of infedelity
• suggests that the infedelity of a partner leads to male aggression, where aggression may have the purpose of aborting the potential foetus to reduce cuckoldry

Question 21

+ evaluation: gender differences + ELAB: female aggression

Answer 21

ID: evolutionary theories are useful because they can provide an explanation for gender differences
in aggression
Q: it can be argued that males do engage more in physical aggression compared to women
EV: for example, Campbell. suggested that females are more likely to engage in acts of verbal, as opposed to physical, aggression as this ensures that their own survival, as
well as the survival of their offspring, is not endangered. lower levels of aggression in females reflect an adaptive behaviour motivated by chances of survival through the use of non-aggressive methods of resolving conflicts
AN: this research increases the validity of the evolutionary explanation of aggression

ELAB: however, the theory above could be accused of overlooking the fact that women might also be violent towards their partners
EV: Archer. found that women initiate violence as much as men, with 1/6 males in the UK suffering domestic violence at some point in their lives
AN: therefore, despite this figure being much smaller than the figures for women as victims, it still needs to be considered to reduce gender bias

Question 22

evaluation: ethical issues

Answer 22

ID: however, evolutionary explanations of aggression can be seen as unethical
Q: critics feel this theory could be harmful due to a potential justification of violence against women
EV: for example, evolutionary explanations may seem to suggest that aggression is natural but Figuerdo. suggests that jealousy and domestic violence are context-specific, not inherent. women are less likely to be victims of domestic violence if they have several brothers in town.
AN: therefore, this is a limitation of the explanation as it suggests that male aggression can be controlled and it isn’t entirely evolutionary. suggesting evolutionary explanations of aggression are deterministic.

Question 23

evaluation: research support Shakleford

Answer 23

ID: there is research to support the link between sexual jealousy and aggression
Q: this comes from Shakleford’s research
EV: he found that when 107 married couples individually completed the Male Retention Inventory (husbands) and the Spouse Influence Report (wives), there was a positive correlation between increasing scores on these two measures. this translated to being an important predictor of the use of aggression in such married relationships
AN: therefore, this suggests that aggression is a response to an adaptive problem, where mate retention strategies are activated when the problem of a mate’s infedelity is faced. this increases the reliability of evolutionary theories as a method of explaining aggression, due to this supporting evidence