Male intrasexual competition extrapolates to explain men’s role in intergroup conflict

Evidence

The research described above suggests that intrasexual competition is greater among men relative to women. This greater competition comes in the form of real-world aggressive and often lethal violence, and also in more controlled laboratory studies demonstrating a greater propensity for competitive and risky behavior among men relative to women. Finally, there is evidence that the risky and competitive behavior of men is in the service of promoting the acquisition of mating opportunities. Such evidence is in accord with the arguments we derived from parental investment theory and sexual selection, namely that men have far more to gain, relative to women, by engaging in competitive and risky status-striving strategies. It has been further argued that these same processes that drive greater intrasexual competition among men within a group can be extrapolated to account for the violent and aggressive intergroup conflict observed among men. That is, the potential benefits associated with intergroup competition are far greater for men than for women, thereby making it more likely that men will serve as the primary targets and agents of intergroup aggression. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1210

Arguing from the logic of parental investment theory and sexual selection, we have asserted that men have greater incentive to engage in high-risk behaviors in order to compete for access to women who represent a both highly valued and scarce resource. As such, we should find evidence that intrasexual competition is greater among men than women and that men engage in riskier, competitive tactics than women. We find evidence of this in the literature examining both human and primate intergroup aggression. For example, among chimpanzees, it is primarily the males, not females, that form alliances (generally along kinship lines) and then engage in intergroup hostility (Goodall, 1986). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1199

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The move from within-group male competition to intergroup war as the same evolved mechanism is the load-bearing theoretical bridge — mating benefits explain why men, not women, drive lethal intergroup aggression.
• XREF: Provides the evolutionary/adaptive logic that parallels coalitional male outgroup aggression accounts in other literature; a mechanism point linking reproductive competition to intergroup hostility. — connects to: Male aggression is primary and explains competition, not vice versa. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 95; Intergroup conflict and gender psychology are inseparable components of one process — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 3238
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1210; Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1199