NCJ Number
236250
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 16 Issue: 5 Dated: September/October 2011 Pages: 399-410
Date Published
October 2011
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study examined the Homicide Adaptation Theory as a explanation of why people kill.
Abstract
The authors of this study propose Homicide Adaptation Theory as a new explanation for why people kill. Multiple homicide mechanisms have evolved as effective context-sensitive solutions to distinct adaptive problems. Killing historically conferred large fitness benefits: preventing premature death, removing cost-inflicting rivals, gaining resources, aborting rivals' prenatal offspring, eliminating stepchildren, and winnowing future competitors of one's children. Homicidal ideation is part of evolved psychological design for killing, functioning to mobilize attention, rehearse scenarios, calculate consequences, and motivate behavior. Because being killed inflicts temporally cascading costs on victims, selection has forged death-prevention strategies, producing co-evolutionary arms races between homicidal strategies and anti-homicide defenses. (Published Abstract)