Investigating the Conditional Adaptiveness of Adolescents’ Aggression from an Evolutionary Perspective

Abstract

Growing evidence supports the evolutionary perspective characterizing aggression as a strategy to achieve proximate adaptive benefits which can indirectly and probabilistically contribute to ultimate evolutionary goals (survival and reproduction). However, aggression may only be adaptive under certain conditions. Therefore, this dissertation investigated various conditions that may affect the adaptiveness of adolescent aggression, namely aggression characteristics (aggressive form, function, and anonymity), target characteristics (power of victim relative to the perpetrator), and perpetrator characteristics (experience of victimization and gender). Study 1 used a person-oriented approach to investigate how proactive and reactive cyber aggression and concurrent experiences of cyber victimization were associated with evolutionarily relevant social advantages and disadvantages in a community sample. Study 2 examined differential associations between aggression involvement and evolutionarily relevant aggressive functions, considering variations in aggressive form, the target’s power relative to perpetrator, and the perpetrator’s gender in a school-based sample. Finally, in a school-based sample, Study 3 investigated (1) how the associations between anonymous perpetration and evolutionary functions of aggression varied by aggressive form and the perpetrator’s gender, (2) how the target’s power and the perpetrator’s gender related to adolescents’ use of anonymous perpetration in each aggressive form, and (3) differential associations between anonymous victimization and victims’ perceptions of harm as a function of aggressive form and gender of the victim. Results suggest that adolescents’ aggression was linked to evolutionarily relevant aggressive functions motivated by competitive (e.g., aggression deterrence, intrasexual competition), impression management (seeking status and mates), sadistic (enjoyment), and reactive (impulsive response to real/perceived threats) functions, and to social advantages (social dominance, dating behaviour) for aggressors who used reactive aggression less frequently. However, aggression involvement was differentially associated with evolutionary motives based on the form, function, or anonymity of aggression, target characteristics, and perpetrator characteristics. Moreover, aggression was associated with costs, especially for cyber aggressor-victims who frequently aggressed reactively, and for victims of anonymous aggression. Thus, adolescents’ aggression may be conditionally adaptive for a narrow range of functions, depending on the characteristics of the aggression, target, and perpetrator. By highlighting the conditional adaptiveness of adolescent aggression, this research may inform efforts to improve interventions addressing aggression.