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Subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence
Inter-personal violence (whether intra- or inter-group) is a pervasive yet highly variable human behavior. Evolutionary anthropologists suggest that the abundance and distribution of resources play an important role in influencing differences in rates of violence, with implications for how resource...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9126380/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35604917 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268257 |
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author | McCool, Weston C. Vernon, Kenneth B. Yaworsky, Peter M. Codding, Brian F. |
author_facet | McCool, Weston C. Vernon, Kenneth B. Yaworsky, Peter M. Codding, Brian F. |
author_sort | McCool, Weston C. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Inter-personal violence (whether intra- or inter-group) is a pervasive yet highly variable human behavior. Evolutionary anthropologists suggest that the abundance and distribution of resources play an important role in influencing differences in rates of violence, with implications for how resource conditions structure adaptive payoffs. Here, we assess whether differences in large-scale ecological conditions explain variability in levels of inter-personal human violence. Model results reveal a significant relationship between resource conditions and violence that is mediated by subsistence economy. Specifically, we find that interpersonal violence is highest: (1) among foragers and mixed forager/farmers (horticulturalists) in productive, homogeneous environments, and (2) among agriculturalists in unproductive, heterogeneous environments. We argue that the trend reversal between foragers and agriculturalists represents differing competitive pathways to enhanced reproductive success. These alternative pathways may be driven by features of subsistence (i.e., surplus, storage, mobility, privatization), in which foragers use violence to directly acquire fitness-linked social payoffs (i.e., status, mating opportunities, alliances), and agriculturalists use violence to acquire material resources that can be transformed into social payoffs. We suggest that as societies transition from immediate return economies (e.g., foragers) to delayed return economies (e.g., agriculturalists) material resources become an increasingly important adaptive payoff for inter-personal, especially inter-group, violence. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9126380 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-91263802022-05-24 Subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence McCool, Weston C. Vernon, Kenneth B. Yaworsky, Peter M. Codding, Brian F. PLoS One Research Article Inter-personal violence (whether intra- or inter-group) is a pervasive yet highly variable human behavior. Evolutionary anthropologists suggest that the abundance and distribution of resources play an important role in influencing differences in rates of violence, with implications for how resource conditions structure adaptive payoffs. Here, we assess whether differences in large-scale ecological conditions explain variability in levels of inter-personal human violence. Model results reveal a significant relationship between resource conditions and violence that is mediated by subsistence economy. Specifically, we find that interpersonal violence is highest: (1) among foragers and mixed forager/farmers (horticulturalists) in productive, homogeneous environments, and (2) among agriculturalists in unproductive, heterogeneous environments. We argue that the trend reversal between foragers and agriculturalists represents differing competitive pathways to enhanced reproductive success. These alternative pathways may be driven by features of subsistence (i.e., surplus, storage, mobility, privatization), in which foragers use violence to directly acquire fitness-linked social payoffs (i.e., status, mating opportunities, alliances), and agriculturalists use violence to acquire material resources that can be transformed into social payoffs. We suggest that as societies transition from immediate return economies (e.g., foragers) to delayed return economies (e.g., agriculturalists) material resources become an increasingly important adaptive payoff for inter-personal, especially inter-group, violence. Public Library of Science 2022-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC9126380/ /pubmed/35604917 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268257 Text en © 2022 McCool et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article McCool, Weston C. Vernon, Kenneth B. Yaworsky, Peter M. Codding, Brian F. Subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence |
title | Subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence |
title_full | Subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence |
title_fullStr | Subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence |
title_full_unstemmed | Subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence |
title_short | Subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence |
title_sort | subsistence strategy mediates ecological drivers of human violence |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9126380/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35604917 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268257 |
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