The impact of yesterday’s territorial shortages on today’s adapted mind

My dissertation adopts an evolutionary psychological perspective to argue that, given the relative dearth of territory that punctuated much of human evolutionary history, homo sapiens are endowed with an evolved psychological mechanism (EPM) to view threats concerning territory as especially salient and worthy of aggressive retorts. I go on to contend that variation in individuals’ ontogenetic contexts—such as sex differences between males and females—and immediate situational inputs—such as numerical superiority concerns or personal assessments of physical strength—can in some instances moderate and in other instances exacerbate the influence of this territorial EPM on conspecific aggressive behavior. My empirical tests show that while individuals do indeed demonstrate greater levels of both interpersonal and foreign policy aggression following territorial threats than non-territorial threats, the aforementioned role of one’s ontogenetic contexts and immediate situational inputs are also significant. For example, in regards to ontogenetic context, while males demonstrate greater aggression than females during offensive territorial encounters, this sex-based difference disappears during defensive territorial threats. Further, one’s immediate situational input also matters in the sense that aggression levels vary depending on whether the territorial resource under dispute was evolutionary essential for survive (e.g., water) or only gained importance relatively late in human evolution (e.g., gold). Overall, my results demonstrate that many outgrowths of territorial political violence in today’s world can often be understood via an evolutionary psychological rationale.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Political Science

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Powers, Matthew Aderhold

Contributors dc:contributor

• Vasquez, John
• Diehl, Paul
• Mondak, Jeffery
• Kuklinski, James

• Human Territoriality, Aggression, Evolutionary Psychology

Statement dc:rights

• © 2018 by Matthew A. Powers. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/102818

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/102818