Status, sex prime for aggression is a Minnesota Daily article which uses evolution to explain, not just human behavior, but more specific events which illustrate the behavior. It starts out:

Several months ago, what police believe began as an altercation at a nightclub led an individual to shoot a Jacksonville Jaguar offensive lineman 14 times, leaving him paralyzed.

It’s hard to deny the senselessness of such violence, but recent University of Minnesota research indicates that such behavior could indeed make evolutionary sense.

University assistant marketing professor Vladas Griskevicius described results of a study to be published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that found when men have status and sex on their minds, they’re more likely to respond aggressively — with face-to-face confrontation — to a trivial slight.

It would be fun to look at the details of the study but for now we have to take the author's word that when men are thinking status and sex they are more likely to respond aggressively. Think about that. If you have sex in mind are you more likely or less likely to be confrontational? How does evolution play into this? One could of course argue that evolved species can attribute any trait to an evolutionary past but that does not even rise to level of triviality. Yet the journal hosting the publication suggests this is not about specifiable genes and evolutionary biochemical pathways either. The article concludes with this paragraph:

Even though women may not want to go to a boxing match or football game to see the violent behavior, “they will often know who the winners are,” he said.

How profound. (People get paid for this stuff.) Let me suggest some alternative evo-psych theories. There's the passing on of one's genes theory. They go because their boyfriend is into the sport and boyfriends are a source of… Give the man a grant. Then there's the have fun with your friends motivation. My friends are going so why not go along and have fun. There is an evolutionary advantage to being sociable. Another grant would be appreciated. Finally there is the bakery theory. Women attend sporting events to see tight buns. It doesn't take much to spin an evolutionary explanation to this. I'll bet the resourceful minds of TT IDists and critics alike could put together some imaginative hypotheses that would attact funding for more evo-psych research.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 10:46 pm and is filed under Evolutionary Psychology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.