Transcript Chapter 10 Aggression and Warfare

Chapter 10
Aggression and Warfare
Lecia E. Wright
Creighton University
November 07 and 09, 2006
Overview
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Today: Aggression
Thursday: Warfare
We will have an open discussion for the
majority of class on Thursday, so please
come prepared to talk and share your
thoughts on warfare as they relate to EP
I will be pointing out things to keep in mind
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Aggression
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Why are people aggressive? Who is
aggressive? Explanations?
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Humans and chimpanzees are unique in
that they are the only two species that
show male-initiated, territorial aggression
Aggression as a Solution to
Adaptive Problems
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Coopt the Resources of Other:
humans have a lot of things that other humans
might desire and aggressive behavior is one
way of gaining access to those things
Can happen at the group or the individual level
Can be seen in at an early age through
adulthood
Even the threat of aggression can be enough to
get a resource desired
Aggression
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Warfare has frequently been used in order
to coopt resources from others (something
we shall discuss later)
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Question for Thursday? Is this idea
applicable to today's warfare?
Aggression
Defend against attack:
 Presence or threat of aggression is
problematic for potential victims
 In response, people become aggressive
themselves to ward off attack
 Are there any problems with this?
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Aggression
Inflict Costs on Intrasexual Rivals:
 Same sex individuals are in competition
for the same resources (women
especially)
 Cost to the rival is a benefit to the perp
 Aggression to disable the rival can take
various forms
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Aggression
Negotiate Status and Power Hierarchies:
 Similar to ability to defend against attack
 Aggression functions to increase one’s
status or power within his or her social
hierarchy
 Men seen as the gallant warrior: do you
think it is sexy? Jordon, why do you think
women think its sexy?
 Context specific (Sex and the City clip)
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Aggression
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Deter Rivals from Future Aggression:
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As other evolutionary hypothesis have
already suggested, if you are tough, you
will probably get left alone
Aggression
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Deter Long-Term Mates from Sexual
Infidelity:
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Male sexual jealousy
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Can women be effective at this? (Lorriane
Bobbit)
Aggression
The Context-Specificity of Aggression:
 For the most part, people don’t get violent
and aggressive at any old place
 Males’ sexual jealousy and danger of
violence is higher when the man feels
threat that woman could cheat
 Costs: Beth and Tina from MTV.
 Threat of retaliation
 Reputation consequences
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Aggression
Food for thought:
 The book says that if the relevant contexts
that induce aggression are not
encountered, then someone might not
ever be aggressive (it would remain
dormant).
 Stan Tribble
 What do you think?
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Why are Men More Violently
Aggressive than Women?
Theory of parental investment and sexual
selection
 Males can only have access to females
when females allow access
 Dimorphism leads to more reproductive
variance between the sexes
 Some males get more than their “fair
share” and some get left out completely
 This leads to competition and aggression
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Why are Men More Violently
Aggressive than Women?
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Although unconscious, men want to increase
their reproductive success
“Males are more often the perpetrators of
violence because they are the products of a long
history of mild but sustained effective polygyny
characterized by risky strategies of intrasexual
competition for access to the high investing sex”
(Buss, 2004, p.287)
Men victims more
Empirical Evidence for Distinct
Adaptive Patterns of Aggression
Janet Hyde’s (1986) meta-analysis
 Daly and Wilson (1988) Same sex
homicides. Are women getting more
violent? (Thelma and Louise)
 Same-Sex Bullying in Schools (Ahmad &
Smith, 1994 as cited in Buss, 2004).
Differences in bullying (Mean Girls 3)
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Why are Men More Violently
Aggressive than Women?
The Young Male Syndrome:
 Engage in risky behavior at peak of
physical prowess, disease lowest, etc
 Dangerous but also builds reputation
 Other possible explanations for young
males being “best predictors of violent
aggression”?
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Contexts Triggering Men’s
Aggression against Men
Marital and Employment Status
(Sociological vs Evolutionary?)
 Status and Reputation: why can’t we back
down?
 Mate guarding
 Warfare-coalitions of males aggressing
other males. Never women (Uncle Erick)
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Contexts Triggering Women’s
Aggression Against Women
Less frequent, less violent, and less showy
 Definitions: strictest sense, they are
aggressive.
 Content is quite different, however
 Mean Girls 4
 Can they be aggressive for any other
reason?
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Contexts Triggering Men’s
Aggression against Women
Much of non-sexual aggression is directed
at spouses, mates, or girlfriends, and
sexual jealousy seems to be cause (how
non-sexual is this?)
 Young women killed more (reproductive
value)
 What about defenseless/powerless men?
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Contexts Triggering Women’s
Aggression against Men
Domestic violence men and women have
similar rates
 Woman defending herself (Enough)
 Book does not offer anything more… can
women be aggressive towards men for
other reasons?
 What about nice guys?
 What about rage-aholics? (Angry Man)
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Concluding Remarks
Aggression is evident in both males and
females, in various forms and emerges in
various contexts
 For Thursday, we will apply these thoughts
to our discussion of warfare
 Please come prepared to talk away!
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Warfare
Today we will start by going over some
introductory information on warfare
 Quick recap of Tuesday
 Lets begin 
 (Video Clip of Iraq War)
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Warfare
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The idea mentioned Tuesday- war to coopt
resources. What do you think?
Warfare
It’s a man thing (Facebook profile)
 EP benefit? More copulations
 Yanmamo Warfare (Box 10.1) made me
think about men and meat
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The Evolutionary Psychology of
War
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Tooby and Cosmides (1988) addressed the
frequently overlooked aspect of cooperation
War is costly, so what gets men to do it (and now
women)
1. Avg long term resources must be large
enough to outweigh the reproductive costs of
engaging in warfare over evolutionary time
(copulations)
So if we didn’t have sex, or babies, would we still
have war?
The Evolutionary Psychology of
War
2. Members of coalitions must believe that
their group will emerge victorious
 So why do those who know they are going
to lose still participate? (The Last Samurai)
 3. The risks each member takes must
translate into benefits
 Fanfare and return of soldiers
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The Evolutionary Psychology of
War
4. Men who go into battle must be ignorant
of who will live or die
 Stress, anxiety, PTSD (CNN Sniper Video)
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Warfare
Men engage in war
 Men assess their fighting ability
 Men have adaptations designed for war
(upper body strength, navigational
abilities, coalitions with men to diminish
the risk of women “interfering”?
 Sexual access
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Warfare
Women in war
 Is it all sex?
 Mind boggling
 Optional discussion: evolved psych
mechanism to kill?
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Conclusion
Aggression and warfare go hand in hand
 The books suggests its all about sex and
mating, which naturally coincides with EP
 Any other remarks/comments?
 Thank you!
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References
All videos can be found through Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOWRyi-bRIc (Iraq war)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miuy9YXNqPM (The Last Samurai)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zzfbPdPnEg (CNN Sniper Video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAuMVmnU9cI (Saving Private Ryan)
You can find the other videos (Thelma and Louise, Mean Girls, Beth and Tina
from the Real World/Road Rules, and Enough) by going to Youtube and
searching for them
The site below is for Randy Schutt and gives some Non-Violent Alternatives to
War:
http://www.vernalproject.org/Papers2/NonviolentAlternatives.html
The site below is from the National Center for PTSD:
http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/
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Please let me know if you would like any other info!!