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Revenge: An adaptive system for maximizing fitness, or a proximate calculation arising from personality and social-psychological processes?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

Michael Potegal
Michael Potegal*
Affiliation:
Division of Pediatric Clinical Neuroscience, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN 55455. poteg001@umn.edu
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Abstract

Revenge appears among a “suite” of social interactions that includes competition, alliance building (a prerequisite for tribal revenge raids), and so forth. Rather than a modular “system” directly reflecting evolutionary fitness constraints, revenge may be (another) social cost-benefit calculation involving potential or actual aggression and proximately controlled by individual personality characteristics and beliefs that can work against fitness.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 33 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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