Homicide refers to the intentional act of killing another human. Buss and colleagues (Buss and Duntley 2001; Buss 2006; Duntley and Buss 2011) proposed that homicide is an evolutionary adaptation (i.e., Evolved Homicide Module Theory or Homicide Adaptation Theory). Psychological factors, such as cognitions or behaviors, are adaptive when they function to resolve challenges, leading to increased fitness. In human evolutionary history, there have been specific contexts where killing another human may have solved specific, recurring problems, and such actions had fitness benefits that outweighed the costs (Duntley and Buss 2006, 2008, 2011). Homicide was hypothesized to arise as an adaptation to prevent premature death, remove cost-inflicting rivals, gain resources, abort rival’s prenatal offspring, eliminate stepchildren, and reduce future competitors of one’s children (Duntley and Buss 2008, 2011).
One approach to studying homicide as an adaptation is through homicide fantasies. Our...
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Cianciolo, K., Camilleri, J.A. (2020). Homicide Fantasies and Evolved Homicide Module Theory. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3710-1
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