jelousy and infedility

jelousy and infedility

1. Jelousy

   • Jealousy is defined as an emotional state that is aroused by a perceived threat to a relationship or position. From an evolutionary perspective Jealousy can motivate aggressive behaviour. Buss suggests that males have developed a number of strategies evolved specifically for the purpose of maintaining a mate. This can include restricting their autonomy and ‘negative inducements’. From an evolutionary perspective the behaviour of men makes sense because being aggressive is more likely to act as a deterrent to their wives being unfaithful. Because sexual jealousy is a primary cause of aggression, the more likely men perceive their partners at risk of being unfaithful, the more likely men are to exert their violence on their partner.
   • There are a lot of consistent research studies that suggest that jealousy does have a significant role to play in aggression. DOBASH AND DOBASH

2. Infedility

   • Infedility of females is a causal factor in aggression. It can present itself in different forms
     • emotional
     • sexual
   • TAKAHSHI ET AL
     • using brain imaging techniques they showed that men showed much greater activation in their amygdala and hypothalumus (brain areas associated with aggression)

3. WHY ARE MALES MORE AGGRESSIVE THAN FEMALES?

   • SEXUAL SELECTION
   • TOO HIGH RISK FOR FEMALES
   • A strength of the evolutionary explanation is that it has face validity, it makes sense that females are less likely to be aggressive because they are the main caregiver to their children and mortality rates of children whose mothers die are significantly high compared to their fathers which shows that the mother is more essential to the child’s development. Because the explanation has face validity this increases the overall validity of it. Further support for the differences in aggression between genders comes from Young’s study. Young asked students to describe their likely reactions to a jealousy inducing situation shown in a film. Men predicted they would respond angrily and become drunk and threaten their rival. Women on the other hand anticipated their reaction to be crying, or pretending not to care or increase their own attractiveness. This supports the evolutionary explanations because it highlights how females are less aggressive than males but also the fact that women need

4. alpha gender bias

   • The evolutionary theory can be criticized for being alpha gender bias this is because most studies of infidelity and jealousy have been solely focused on male retention strategies and men’s violence against women. However the explanation does not acknowledge that women can also have male retention tactics and can behave violently towards their partners. For example a report in the UK 2010 revealed that more than 40% of domestic violence victims are males. Another study, Felson examined 2060 murders in the US and found that women were twice as likely to murder out of jealousy that men were. These studies are clearly not in line with the evolutionary explanation and so this suggests that it may be outdated due to cultural changes in gender roles that have taken place or that it is an invalid explanation to aggression and this weakens the validity of the explanation.

5. REDUCTIONIST

   • The evolutionary theory of aggression can be argued to be a reductionist explanation because it simplifies a complex behaviour into simple explanations e.g. jealousy and infidelity when in fact aggression is influenced by more just infidelity and jealousy For example an alternative theory is SLT which can explain why humans are aggressive, for example a young boy who grows up watching his father behaving aggressive towards his mother will imitate that behaviour later on in life with his own partner. The reductionism of the explanation is further emphasised by individual differences which the evolutionary theory cannot account for example not all males behave aggressively towards their partner’s if they have been unfaithful which is contradictory to the evolutionary explanation. Furthermore, many men adopt children even though it has no adaptive advantage for them because their genes are not being passed on and this goes directly against the explanation because the men are openly commit

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