Nepotistic patterns of violent psychopathy: evidence for adaptation?
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Date
2012
Authors
Krupp, Daniel Brian
Sewall, Lindsay A.
Lalumière, Martin L.
Sheriff, Craig
Harris, Grant T.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Frontiers Research Foundation
Abstract
Psychopaths routinely disregard social norms by engaging in selfish, antisocial, often violent
behavior. Commonly characterized as mentally disordered, recent evidence suggests
that psychopaths are executing a well-functioning, if unscrupulous strategy that historically
increased reproductive success at the expense of others. Natural selection ought to have
favored strategies that spared close kin from harm, however, because actions affecting
the fitness of genetic relatives contribute to an individual’s inclusive fitness. Conversely,
there is evidence that mental disorders can disrupt psychological mechanisms designed to
protect relatives. Thus, mental disorder and adaptation accounts of psychopathy generate
opposing hypotheses: psychopathy should be associated with an increase in the victimization
of kin in the former account but not in the latter. Contrary to the mental disorder
hypothesis,we showhere in a sample of 289 violent offenders that variation in psychopathy
predicts a decrease in the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders; that is, psychopathy
predicts an increased likelihood of harming non-relatives. Because nepotistic inhibition in
violence may be caused by dispersal or kin discrimination, we examined the effects of
psychopathy on (1) the dispersal of offenders and their kin and (2) sexual assault frequency
(as a window on kin discrimination). Although psychopathy was negatively associated with
coresidence with kin and positively associated with the commission of sexual assault, it
remained negatively associated with the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders after
removing cases of offenders who had coresided with kin and cases of sexual assault from
the analyses.These results stand in contrast to models positing psychopathy as a pathology,
and provide support for the hypothesis that psychopathy reflects an evolutionary strategy
largely favoring the exploitation of non-relatives.
Description
Sherpa Romeo green journal: open access
Keywords
Psychopathy , Nepotism , Kin discrimination , Dispersal , Mental disorder , Sexual assault , Psychopaths , Kin recognition , Mental illness , Psychology, Pathological
Citation
Krupp, D. B., Sewall, L. A., Lalumière, M. L., Sheriff, C., & Harris, G. T. (2012). Nepotistic patterns of violent psychopathy: evidence for adaptation? Frontiers in Psychology, 3(305). doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00305