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Contexts for Women’s Aggression Against Women

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Female intrasexual aggression; Female intrasexual competition; Female–female aggression; Female–female competition

Definition

The use of social and indirect aggression by women as a means to compete with other women, mainly in the context of mate search and mate retention.

Introduction

Both men and women face the challenge of deciding how much time, energy, and resources to invest in parenting versus mating efforts, but due to women’s higher obligatory (or minimum) parental investments in offspring, men and women also face qualitatively different challenges to their reproductive success (Trivers 1972). These asymmetries in reproductive investments start at conception: for men, one ejaculate during a sexual interaction suffices for males to pass on their genes to the next generation. Should conception be successful, a female in contrast needs to invest in gestation and birth of her offspring and after birth, lactation and childcare. Moreover, it follows that the sex that makes...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Work & Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Karlijn Massar

Authors
  1. Karlijn Massar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karlijn Massar .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  2. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Melissa McDonald

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Massar, K. (2018). Contexts for Women’s Aggression Against Women. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_877-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_877-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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