Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T15:18:01.179Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sexual selection does not provide an adequate theory of sex differences in aggression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2009

Alice H. Eagly  and
Wendy Wood
Alice H. Eagly
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-4609. eagly@northwestern.eduhttp://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/faculty_individual_pages/eagly.htm
Wendy Wood
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. wwood@duke.eduhttp://www.duke.edu/~wwood
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our social role/biosocial theory provides a more adequate account of aggression sex differences than does Archer's sexual selection theory. In our theory, these sex differences arise flexibly from sociocultural and ecological forces in interaction with humans' biology, as defined by female and male physical attributes and reproductive activities. Our comments elaborate our theory's explanations for the varied phenomena that Archer presents.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 3-4 , August 2009 , pp. 276 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alpern, S. B. (1998) Amazons of Black Sparta: The women warriors of Dahomey. New York University Press.Google Scholar
Archer, J. (2000a) Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin 126:651–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Archer, J. (2006b) Testosterone and human aggression: An evaluation of the challenge hypothesis. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 30:319–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bernal, V. (2000) Equality to die for?: Women guerrilla fighters and Eritrea's cultural revolution. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 23:61–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biernat, M. (2003) Toward a broader view of social stereotyping. American Psychologist 58:1019–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, D. T. (1998) Ordinary personology. In: The handbook of social psychology, vol. 2, 4th edition, ed. Gilbert, T., Fiske, S. T. & Lindzey, G., pp. 89–150. McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Guimond, S., Chatard, A., Branscombe, N. R., Brunot, S., Buunk, A. P., Conway, M. A., Crisp, R. J., Dambrun, M., Désert, M., Garcia, D. M., Haque, S., Leyens, J.-P., Lorenzi-Cioldi, F., Martinot, D., Redersdorff, S. & Yzerbyt, V. (2007) Culture, gender, and the self: Variations and impact of social comparison processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92:1118–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lightdale, J. R. & Prentice, D. A. (1994) Rethinking sex differences in aggression: Aggressive behavior in the absence of social roles. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 20:34–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plavcan, J. M. (2000) Inferring social behavior from sexual dimorphism in the fossil record. Journal of Human Evolution 39:327–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plavcan, J. M. & van Schaik, C. P. (1997a) Interpreting hominid behavior on the basis of sexual dimorphism. Journal of Human Evolution 32:345–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plavcan, J. M. & van Schaik, C. P. (2005) Canine dimorphism. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 2:208–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richerson, P. J. & Boyd, R. (2005) Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schmitt, D. P., Realo, A., Voracek, M. & Allik, J. (2008) Why can't a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94:168–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, W. & Eagly, A. H. (2002) A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin 128:699–727.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wood, W. & Eagly, A. H. (in press) Gender. In: Handbook of social psychology, 5th edition, ed. Fiske, S. T., Gilbert, D. T. & Lindzey, G.. Wiley.Google Scholar
Wrangham, R. W., Jones, J. H., Laden, G., Pilbeam, D. & Conklin-Brittain, N. (1999) The raw and the stolen: Cooking and the ecology of human origins. Current Anthropology 40:567–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed