PSYC 3420 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Parental Investment, Limiting Factor, Soltyrei
Document Summary
Aggression as a solution to adaptive problems: adaptive problems for which aggression might be an evolved solution. The context-specificity of aggression: aggression is not a unitary, monolithic, or context-blind strategy. Rather, aggression is highly context specific, triggered only in situations that resemble those in which our ancestors confronted certain adaptive problems for which aggression was an effective solution. Why are men more violantly aggressive than women: an evolutionary model of intrasexual competition provides the foundation for such an explanation. It starts with the theory of parental investment and sexual selection. In short, there are two sides to the use of aggression in competitive contexts marked by some degree of polygyny: 1. Aggression by a male to win big : 2. Aggression to avoid total reproductive failure: selection favours risk taking as a strategy for breeding because the male needs to venture out and gather food even though they can be killed by predators.