Sexual Conflict and Evolutionary Psychology: Towards a Unified Framework

Abstract

There is a large literature on behavioral conflict within human and primate relationships and it would be useful to integrate this body of work further into the framework of sexual conflict described here. This might enable the identification of parallels between humans and nonhumans, and also might facilitate investigations into whether there is anything evolutionarily distinct about sexual conflict in humans. There seem to be some candidate features arising from the importance of language and culture in human relationships. For example, traits such as personality, disposition, and humor that contribute to mate choice in humans may represent distinct facets of sexual interactions that can intensify competitions or give them greater phenotypic 'space' in which to occur Furthermore, that the intensity of male-male competition can exacerbate the sexual conflict with females is now established from studies on invertebrates. Therefore, the psychological adaptations to sperm competition in humans would also be interesting to investigate in this context. Further work is warranted on whether these features represent qualitative or quantitative differences in sexual conflict. Finally, it is important during any study of sexual conflict to realize that most studies consider only a snapshot in time, unless working with a system in which it is possible to follow the development of sexual conflict from initiation, through establishment to eventual outcome. Measurements of the current context do not necessarily indicate past selection pressures, and inferences about the ancestral importance and function of traits subject to sexual conflict should be considered with caution. It is therefore important to understand what might be the diagnostic footprint of sexual conflict within the set of observable, currently expressed adaptations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)