Chapter 10 Aggression and Warfare

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Chapter 10Aggression and Warfare

• Lecia E. Wright
• Creighton University
• November 07 and 09, 2006

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Overview

• 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

• Why are people aggressive? Who is aggressive?
  Explanations?
• Humans and chimpanzees are unique in that they
  are the only two species that show
  male-initiated, territorial aggression

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Aggression as a Solution to Adaptive Problems

• 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

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Aggression

• Warfare has frequently been used in order to
  coopt resources from others (something we shall
  discuss later)
• Question for Thursday? Is this idea applicable to
  today's warfare?

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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 ones 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

• Deter Rivals from Future Aggression
• As other evolutionary hypothesis have already
  suggested, if you are tough, you will probably
  get left alone

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Aggression

• Deter Long-Term Mates from Sexual Infidelity
• Male sexual jealousy
• Can women be effective at this? (Lorriane Bobbit)

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Aggression

• The Context-Specificity of Aggression
• For the most part, people dont 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?

• 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

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Empirical Evidence for Distinct Adaptive Patterns
of Aggression

• Janet Hydes (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 Mens Aggression against Men

• Marital and Employment Status (Sociological vs
  Evolutionary?)
• Status and Reputation why cant we back down?
• Mate guarding
• Warfare-coalitions of males aggressing other
  males. Never women (Uncle Erick)

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Contexts Triggering Womens 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 Mens 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 Womens 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

• The idea mentioned Tuesday- war to coopt
  resources. What do you think?

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Warfare

• Its 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

• 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 didnt have sex, or babies, would we
  still have war?

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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?vBOWRyi-bRIc (Iraq
  war)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vmiuy9YXNqPM (The
  Last Samurai)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v9zzfbPdPnEg (CNN
  Sniper Video)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vHAuMVmnU9cI
  (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/NonviolentAlt
  ernatives.html
• The site below is from the National Center for
  PTSD
• http//www.ncptsd.va.gov/
• Please let me know if you would like any other
  info!!