Evolutionary explanations

• Evolutionary explanation - focuses on the adaptive nature of behaviour

  -E.G. modern behaviour are believed to have evolved because they solved challenges faced by our distant ancestors and so they become more widespread in the gene pool
• Functions of aggression?


  -Survival - protect themselves + families as well as teaching their offspring to protect themselves from predators

  -Promote reproductive success - ensures that the 'strongest' and the 'fittest' survive so they can pass down their genes to their offspring so that they with be even stronger + the cycle continues

  -Distribution of species - gives all species an equal chance of survival and adaption
• Sexual jealousy?

  -Cuckoldry - idea that a man is unaware that he is not the father of a child due to infidelity (causing aggression in males towards their partners and other men that could be 'threat')

  -The adaptive functions of sexual jealousy, therefore, would've been to deter a mate from sexual infidelity, thereby minimising the risk of cuckoldry
• Supportive research


  -Buss (1988) suggests that males have a number of strategies that have evolved specifically for the purpose of keeping a mate (E.G. violence, threats towards partner or love rival)

  -Dell (1984) concluded that sexual jealousy accounted for 17% of all cases of murder in the UK (male predominantly being the perpetrators and victims)