ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2013
The evolutionary psychology of women's aggression.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 229 citations in OpenAlex.
- The relationship between risk perceptions and negative emotions in the COVID-19: a meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of music on hemodynamic fluctuations in women during induction of general anesthesia: A prospective randomized controlled multicenter trial.Clinics (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2024Trial
- Oxytocin tempers calculated greed but not impulsive defense in predator-prey contests.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2015Trial
- A Cross-Cultural Examination of Intrasexual Competition: The Links Between Mating Competition, Aggression, Appearance Enhancement, and Sexuality.Archives of sexual behavior · 2026Article
- The aporetic dialogues of Modena on gender differences: Is it all about testosterone? EPISODE I: CRIME.Andrology · 2025Review
- Exploring eco-anxiety among women amid climate-induced heat: a comprehensive review.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- What Dyadic Internet Street Fight Videos Can and Cannot Tell Us About the Ethological, Game Theoretic, and Sex-Differentiated Phenomenology of Human Physical Aggression.Aggressive behavior · 2025Article
- Hierarchies inferred from different agonistic behaviours are not always comparable.The Journal of animal ecology · 2024Article
- An appetite for aggressive behavior? Female rats, too, derive reward from winning aggressive interactions.Translational psychiatry · 2023Article
- Associations of the perceived benefits and harms of COVID-19 with confidence in coping with the pandemic and mental health symptoms: a population-based survey in Hong Kong.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Too Many Males or Too Many Females? Classroom Sex Ratio, Life History Strategies and Risk-Taking Behaviors.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2022Article
- Competitiveness among Nandi female husbands.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Mismatches in resident and stranger serotonin transporter genotypes lead to escalated aggression, and the target for aggression is mediated by sex differences in male and female rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).Hormones and behavior · 2022Article
- Dominance in humans.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- The motive of competition but not courtship positively correlates with self-reported use of aggressive humor: A critical test of the contests- vs. mate-choice hypotheses.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Vocal modulation in human mating and competition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Spatial and Social Behavior of Single and Coupled Individuals of Both Sexes during COVID-19 Lockdown Regime in Russia.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Fear of COVID-19 and its associations with perceived personal and family benefits and harms in Hong Kong.Translational behavioral medicine · 2021Article
- Associations of Delay in Doctor Consultation With COVID-19 Related Fear, Attention to Information, and Fact-Checking.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- Behavioral immune system linked to responses to the threat of COVID-19.Personality and individual differences · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
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Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Evolutionary researchers have identified age, operational sex ratio and high variance in male resources as factors that intensify female competition. These are discussed in relation to escalated intrasexual competition for men and their resources between young women in deprived neighbourhoods. For these women, fighting is not seen as antithetical to cultural conceptions of femininity, and female weakness is disparaged. Nonetheless, even where competitive pressures are high, young women's aggression is less injurious and frequent than young men's. From an evolutionary perspective, I argue that the intensity of female aggression is constrained by the greater centrality of mothers, rather than fathers, to offspring survival. This selection pressure is realized psychologically through a lower threshold for fear among women. Neuropsychological evidence is not yet conclusive but suggests that women show heightened amygdala reactivity to threatening stimuli, may be better able to exert prefrontal cortical control over emotional behaviour and may consciously register fear more strongly via anterior cingulate activity. The impact of testosterone and oxytocin on the neural circuitry of emotion is also considered.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.