Violence in men

Over human evolutionary history, men faced the adaptive problem of cuckoldry, or
the unwitting investment in genetically unrelated offspring. As cuckoldry is
potentially so reproductively costly, men may have evolved anti-cuckoldry
psychological adaptations. Sexual coercion has been hypothesized as one class of
anti-cuckoldry behaviors. By sexually coercing an intimate partner, a man may
reduce the risk of cuckoldry by placing his sperm in competition with a rival male's
spenn, should his partner have been sexually unfaithful. I will present three studies
that investigate the role of female infidelity, an assessment of risk of spenn
competition and subsequent cuckoldry, in predicting male sexual coercion in the
context of an intimate relationship.

In addition to the reproductive benefits associated with outcompeting sexual rivals and being seen as an attractive mating prospect by women, research suggests that competition adaptively regulates men's sexual interest and behavior in preparation for mating opportunities following competitive outcomes, with victory leading to an increase in sexual interest and loss leading to a decrease in sexual interest. One hundred fifteen undergraduate men engaged in a contrived competitive task in which a third were led to believe that they won, a third were led to believe that they lost, and a third were led to believe that they neither won nor lost. Participants completed the Rape Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (RABS), which was used to test whether the effects of competition extend to men's proneness to sexual aggression. In addition, the current study attempted to replicate Gorelik and Bjorklund's (2015) finding that only single men's sexual interest is affected by competition. Results did not reveal an effect of competition on men's rape proclivity, although there were effects in the predicted direction on two of the RABS items. Gorelik and Bjorklund's (2015) effect of competition on men's sexual interest was not replicated. Limitations, implications for the understanding of the biology of sexual aggression, and directions for future research are discussed.

Given the negative psychological and health-related consequences of sexual coercion, recent research has focused on predicting sexual coercion. In two studies, I investigated the relationships between men's partner-directed sexually coercive behaviors and their use of partner-directed insults in the context of intimate relationships. Study 1 secured self-reports from 247 men on the Partner-Directed Insults Scale and the Sexual Coercion in Intimate Relationships Scale. Study 2 secured partner-reports from 378 women on the same measures. Across both studies, the results indicate that men's use of sexually coercive behaviors can be predicted by the frequency or content of the insults that men direct at their intimate partner. Insults involving accusations of a partner's infidelity were most useful in predicting sexual coercion, for example. Discussion addresses limitations of the current research and highlights important directions for future research in the area.

Evolutionary psychology offers a framework for investigating the design of evolved information-processing mechanisms that motivate costly behaviors such as men's partner-directed violence. The current research investigated predictors of and individual differences in men's intimate- partner-directed violence from an evolutionary psychological perspective. The problem of paternity uncertainty is hypothesized to have selected for the emotion of male sexual jealousy, which in turn motivates men's nonviolent and violent mate-retention behaviors. Study 1 documented a hierarchy of behaviors initiated with men's suspicions of partner infidelity leading to men's engagement in frequent non-violent mate-retention behaviors, ending in men's partner-directed violence. Study 2 documented an interaction between men's personality traits and the context of perceived partner infidelity risk to predict men's perpetration of violence. Finally, Study 3 extended Studies 1 and 2 by building a causal cascade model that captures the hierarchy of adaptive behaviors in order of: (1) men's childhood experiences with their parents' parental effort, (2) men's adaptive life history strategies and behavioral self-regulation, (3) men's perceptions of partner infidelity risk, and (4) men's non-violent mate retention behaviors, conclusively predicting men's perpetration of violence in intimate relationships.