Citation

McDonald MM, Navarrete CD, Van Vugt M. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 2012; 367(1589): 670-679.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, and the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program, Michigan State University, , East Lansing, MI 48840, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Royal Society of London)

DOI

10.1098/rstb.2011.0301

PMID

22271783

PMCID

PMC3260849

Abstract

The social science literature contains numerous examples of human tribalism and parochialism-the tendency to categorize individuals on the basis of their group membership, and treat ingroup members benevolently and outgroup members malevolently. We hypothesize that this tribal inclination is an adaptive response to the threat of coalitional aggression and intergroup conflict perpetrated by 'warrior males' in both ancestral and modern human environments. Here, we describe how male coalitional aggression could have affected the social psychologies of men and women differently and present preliminary evidence from experimental social psychological studies testing various predictions from the 'male warrior' hypothesis. Finally, we discuss the theoretical implications of our research for studying intergroup relations both in humans and non-humans and discuss some practical implications.

Language: en