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Male Adaptations to Assess Fighting Ability

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Formidability assessment

Definition

Adaptations for assessing fighting ability are perceptual mechanisms designed by natural selection to predict the victor of future bouts of aggression.

Introduction

Nonhuman animals are known to have evolved strategies for the assessment of fighting ability. In short, they “size up” their opponents before and during aggressive contests so as to make more prudent decisions about the fight. Evolutionary psychologists have now gathered evidence that humans also have this competence as a result of several evolved adaptations that extract cues from the body, face, and voice primarily of adult men. This entry reviews the logic of animal assessment and the data showing that humans have evolved adaptations for estimating fighting ability. It also explores some of the new data identifying which cues are used to estimate fighting ability.

The Evolutionary Function of Fighting Ability Assessment

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia

    Aaron Sell

Authors
  1. Aaron Sell
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Correspondence to Aaron Sell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

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

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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Sell, A. (2016). Male Adaptations to Assess Fighting Ability. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_937-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_937-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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