Adolescent Aggression: It's the Girls' Fault

• Self-Selected Data, Evolutionary Psych, and Born To Rebel by James Brody, 4/5/97
  • Male adolescents and aggression: evolutionary issues. by Mark Waugh, 4/5/97
    
    

I doubt that aggression and conduct disorder are expressions of "male energy" even though both are shown by a higher percentage of males. Individual use of aggression varies sharply, perhaps as a function of environmental resources in combination with familial genetic traits and social traditions for the past several generations.

Your mentioning alpha males in the chimpanzee is a helpful step. Your word "Constructive" also applies. Alphas can affirm the status quo by taking their turn at the top (especially if they read Sulloway!). They can overthrow status quo (the 2nd born, highly driven types who also read Sulloway) or they can modify it through erosion, accretion, or symbiosis. Thus, aggression has outcomes for individuals and the group. It often makes a positive contribution to individual survival, thus enhances individual and inclusive fitness.

Competition, conflict, and aggression seem points on a common yardstick. Competition is an evolutionary consequence of finite resources and is seen in many arenas.(1) Intra-family and sibling conflict for resources abound. Such conflict drives species and organizational refinement for a particular setting. Thus, aggression is not just an inner city event. Even psychologists often "are a student of, studied with, published more, got more titles, were publicly wrong less." Tennyson was not the only one to see nature "red in tooth & claw" in our daily affairs; however, I'm not sure that he applied the model to the fullest extent.

"Constructive" is a relative judgment. There are immediate or delayed goals, enduring or temporary (a cigarette is an immediate & temporary solution for many but with long-term costs). Whose perspective? Some thinkers might find ultimate social utility in gang behaviors and see them as one more, necessary, evolutionary step to a better society. Territories are being defined and values changed. Foundations are established for future cultures. However, reality is that a zero sum game exists with respect to limited key resources and leads to social polarization. Events are framed as contests; one alpha can only win at expense to another, one group gains only at the expense of another.(2)

Basic causes? Margulis made a hypnotic statement when she wrote that death is a necessary, evolved response, a consequence of sexual differentiation at the microbiological level.(3) Our recasting the genetic dice every generation has required a system for replacing us fading, older conspecifics. Competition became our vehicle; sexual selection became the standard for winning. About 95% of the males in some species do not mate while nearly all the females do. There is apparently a subtle codevelopment through generations of male traits and female preferences, with the female in the driver's seat. We males are thought to compete, to be aggressive because such behavior gains us access to a wider array of eggs. Thus, alphas are likely another expression of "diversity driven by competition" for limited resources, whether food, novelty, power, or mates.

Interactions with other things. Conduct Disorder, (defined primarily as lying and stealing with embellishments for property destruction, rape, burning things, fighting, truancy, and eloping) has been generally related to an natural father who's spent time in jail, a depressed mom, family distress, parental inconsistency, and lack of parental monitoring. I doubt the family pattern is due to random selection in combination with limited resources. Instead, the Psychological Adaptations that include lying, stealing, and property destruction have had survival value, probably still do, and may also have variable expression in individuals and in families.

There are other factors, tied to selection pressures, working to aggravate the problems of competition and aggression. One notion is that we may "imprint" on our parents and preferentially mate with people highly similar to them.(4) Thus, aggressive parents may produce aggressive children who will mate with other aggressive children. Linkage Disequilibrium (5) could also make a contribution. LinkageD also describes how genotypically similar members of a species will preferentially mate with one another. These ethological concepts are given substance by correlational human data that mating is not random for many psychological maladies, including the manic extreme of bipolar disorder.

Outcomes to consider:

(a) Balkanization as a function of resource limits and increased population that splits peoples into regionally distinct groups. One social historian has described the current international development of local despots and regional factions. It may happen to us as well.

(b) Greater emphasis on cooperation, negotiation, and barter should gain in survival value. Implicitly there will be more restrictive limits on personal conduct as function of population density or depletion of key resources. We may find more social repression developing for aggression as in Oriental societies. We may also find more social approval directed to the conformists. (Some of my disruptive adult, male clients remark that their misbehavior started after leaving Catholic school or their tyrannical father's house. I, too, recall things being more repressive in our society; then the '60s happened. Ben Spock may have been a cause or a symptom of the social changes; nonetheless, I remember times when adults did not fear adolescents.)

(c) If male traits are egg-driven, then females have a substantial influence on whether on not we guys fight. The ladies must mate selectively with the pacifists instead of doing the previously adaptive thing of mating with alphas.(6) Female chimpanzees have been noted to inhibit fights between males under conditions of high population density (7) Females seem to be more cooperative and rule-bound as an average. Females also have a stake in protecting us males so we can extend our paternal investment. Organizing the inner city females, for example, could have a substantial influence on gang violence.(8)

(d) We are less apt to be fighting if we are gain dominance through constructive activity. Thus, we need a complex, highly articulated matrix of opportunities to practice diverse forms of excellence.(9) Brian Goodwin's quote about "finding a place to be yourself" clearly applies here.

NOTES:

(1) There are some "win-win" variations. Our clade siblings don't always depose an alpha; they can go to the brush with their frienrough generations of male traits and female preferences, with the female in the driver's seat. We males are thought to compete, to be aggressive because such behavior gains us access to a wider array of eggs. Thus, alphas are likely another expression of "diversity driven by competition" for limited resources, whether food, novelty, power, or mates.

Interactions with other things. Conduct Disorder, (defined primarily as lying and stealing with embellishments for property destruction, rape, burning things, fighting, truancy, and eloping) has been generally related to an natural father who's spent time in jail, a depressed mom, family distress, parental inconsistency, and lack of parental monitesults of competition and diversity. H. sapiens' traditions of conquest and sadism are vividly described; however, Bloom must rely, like the rest of us, on self-selected, correlational data. I hope he's wrong.

(3) Margulis L & Sagan D (1994) What is Life. NY: Simon & Schuster.

(4) Todd P. (1996) Sexual selection and the evolution of learning. In Belew R & Mitchell M (Eds) Adaptive Individuals in Evolving Populations: Models and Algorithms. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, pp 365-394. Todd discusses geese and imprinting as a foundation for speciation; the possibility exists that similar mechanisms also operate in humans and may generate substantial clinical discomfort.

(5) Dawkins R. (1986) The Blind Watchmaker. NY: Norton.

(6) The Jeannie Lee Effect. Jeannie was a very bright blond in 11th grade with me in a small, American school in northern Italy. She exceeded Buss Standards by a full sigma. We were soulmates in many ways, I still love and miss her some 40 years later. However, she preferred the latent criminal types and often begged her way out of English class to intercede with the principal on George's behalf. She used her psychological adaptations including reason, appeal to fairness, guilt, and tears. Her physical appearance, A average, and 200,000 years of gestural refinement usually led the principal to give George another chance. George met Buss Standards for symmetry, clear complexion, large eyes, and good musculature. He could also pout very well. Matt Ridley (1993, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, NY: Penguin) discusses human female preferences for more stable males for marriage while intermittently conceiving bastards with a passing alpha.

(7) Sagan C & Druyan A. (1992) Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. New York: Ballentine, cite Frans de Wall, (1989) Peacemaking among Primates, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

(8) There was a good example in "Eddie," a recent Whoopie Goldberg film in which she played the role of coach for the NY Knicks. One player refused to talk to or cooperate; Whoopie won by forming an alliance with his mother. "I can't believe you called my mother!"

(9) Garrett Hardin ( 1993, Living within Limits. New York: Oxford), makes excellent arguments for such a culture for other, vital reasons tied to population and energy management.

No Replies