Angela
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The idea seems to be that where there is more competition for mates, the more aggressive males win the competition and therefore are more likely to pass on their genes, thus increasing the aggressiveness of males in the society in general.
See: Tara Lyn-Carter
https://peerj.com/preprints/3331.pdf
"Sexual selection favors traits that increase mating and, thus, reproductive success. Some scholars
11 have suggested that intrasexual selection driven by contest competition has shaped human male
12 aggression. If this is the case, one testable hypothesis is that beliefs and behavior related to male
13 aggression should be more prevalent in societies where the intensity and strength of sexual selection
14 is higher, as measured by factors such as: (a) the presence and scope of polygyny; (b) the number of
15 same-sex competitors relative to potential mates; and, (c) the amount of effort males have available
16 to allocate to mating. Using mixed-effect linear regression models with data from 78 societies from
17 the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, we found mixed support for the hypothesis using individual
18 variables related to male aggression, but strong support when using a composite measure of male
19 ‘aggressiveness’. We ruled out some potential alternative explanations by controlling for spatial
20 autocorrelation, and confounding variables such as political complexity and warfare."
So, polygamous societies would have more aggressive males?
I'm always leery of these kinds of studies, but posted it for discussion. When I get a chance to read the whole thing I want to see what they mean that there's a correlation only for a "composite" measure of male aggressiveness, not for individual variables.
See: Tara Lyn-Carter
https://peerj.com/preprints/3331.pdf
"Sexual selection favors traits that increase mating and, thus, reproductive success. Some scholars
11 have suggested that intrasexual selection driven by contest competition has shaped human male
12 aggression. If this is the case, one testable hypothesis is that beliefs and behavior related to male
13 aggression should be more prevalent in societies where the intensity and strength of sexual selection
14 is higher, as measured by factors such as: (a) the presence and scope of polygyny; (b) the number of
15 same-sex competitors relative to potential mates; and, (c) the amount of effort males have available
16 to allocate to mating. Using mixed-effect linear regression models with data from 78 societies from
17 the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, we found mixed support for the hypothesis using individual
18 variables related to male aggression, but strong support when using a composite measure of male
19 ‘aggressiveness’. We ruled out some potential alternative explanations by controlling for spatial
20 autocorrelation, and confounding variables such as political complexity and warfare."
So, polygamous societies would have more aggressive males?
I'm always leery of these kinds of studies, but posted it for discussion. When I get a chance to read the whole thing I want to see what they mean that there's a correlation only for a "composite" measure of male aggressiveness, not for individual variables.