NCJ Number
224920
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 13 Issue: 5 Dated: October 2008 Pages: 373-382
Date Published
October 2008
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This paper examines Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, offering a framework revolutionizing forensic psychology, the true nature of individuals, societies, morality, crime, and what laws are capable of doing.
Abstract
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection provides a powerful meta-theoretical framework that has the potential to unify and energize research in the social sciences just as it has the biological sciences and the field of psychology. In the field of evolutionary psychology, a rapidly growing body of research documents the importance of evolutionary forces in shaping patterns of human cognition and behavior. It is proposed that the process of natural selection has shaped many behaviors that represent crimes in modern societies, such as murder, rape, and theft, addressing ancestrally recurrent conflicts between individuals. Evolutionary forensic psychology recognizes that crimes such the above mentioned are manifestations of evolutionarily recurrent conflicts between individuals. The cost-inflicting strategies that are recognized as crimes may have been favored by natural selection when they gave individuals an advantage in competition for resources. It is predicted that that evolutionary theory will revolutionize forensic psychology. Figures and references