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Evolutionary explanations for human aggression 16 marker
A*/A grade 16 mark model answer on evolutionary explanations for human aggression (AQA A-level Psychology)
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Evolutionary explanations for human aggression 16 markerAccording to the evolutionary theory, aggression is important for acquiring resources and
increasing status in the community. It can help them appear more attractive to mates as it
shows that they can protect the child and the mother but and to fight for resources in short
supply such as food or shelter.
Jealousy is an adaptive response which occurs when a person fears that they may lose their
mate to another so this new individual is a threat to their relationship, aggression is
displayed to prevent this from occurring. Infidelity is similar as a male can’t be sure of
paternity if the woman has cheated and have higher sexual jealousy, so to prevent this from
happening the man can use mate retention strategies to prevent her from leaving. Mate
retention strategies include aggression, direct guarding and negative inducement. However,
a female on the other hand can always be sure of maternity so her adaptive problem is
finding a mate which is willing to invest resources in her and her child in the long term.
Research in support for the evolutionary theory for explaining aggression show that mate
retention strategies are normally used alongside aggression. This was found in particular by
Margo Wilson in 1995 who found that women who reported that their partners used mate
retention strategies were twice as likely to have suffered physical violence. This supports the
idea that aggression is seen as attractive to females so will supposedly deter infidelity to
allow the male to be sure of paternity and increase reproduction. However, this research
was conducted by self-report so it’s possible that its subject to social desirability bias so the
validity can’t be ensured and therefore its weak support for the theory.
Many studies in support of the evolutionary theory to explain aggression are correlational.
One example is Shackleton 2005 who demonstrated a positive link between mate retention
strategies and violence. However, as its correlational this may be a coincidence and not a
link. This weakens the support for a lot of studies investigating the evolutionary theory as
most of them use correlations like Shackleton.
An issue with the evolutionary theory to explain aggression as it can be argued that it has a
culture bias. This is because in some cultures and populations (for example the Kung San)
there’s a negative attitude towards violence and if it is displayed a person’s place in the
social hierarchy will be diminished. This suggests that this theory lacks population validity
and can’t be applied to all groups of people to explain aggression. In these cultures
aggression doesn’t define social status, reproduction rate or survival as these still exist
without violence, which completely undermines the evolutionary theory to explain
aggression.
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