Definition
Ancestral men may have benefitted by inflicting physical and sexual violence against women to manipulate women’s sexual behavior or to circumvent female sexual choice. Because gestation occurs within females, women are especially sensitive to the risk of violence and associated injury. The reproductive costs of physical harm are greater for women, and, therefore, some men use violence or threats of violence to control women’s behavior.
Introduction
Mate guarding behaviors are intended to discourage an intimate partner from committing infidelity, defecting from the relationship, or being poached by a rival (Buss 1988). Men use mate retention behaviors to combat the risk of the cuckoldry (unwitting investment in a rival’s genetic offspring) and to minimize resource loss, whereas women use mate retention behaviors to retain a partner’s long-term investment. Violence is...
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James, R.M., Shackelford, T.K. (2019). Violence as Coercive Control. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_610-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_610-1
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