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Aggression: Infidelity and Jealousy - don't understand?

"Evolutionary psychologists argue that the act of infidelity triggers an emotional state within the individual as it is a perceived threat to the relationship and the current status quo. They argue that this would naturally lead to the showing of behaviours that would reduce and eliminate the threat. Often such action is violent or aggressive."
Who is the individual that experiences this emotional state? Surely it would be the one who cheated on their partner (as how would their partner know about it?) but then why would they want to eliminate the threat if they were the one to cheat in the first place?
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Orange92
The evolutionary theory suggests that our main purpose is continue our genes. For women, this wouldn't be a problem, as they know that their baby is defiantly theirs - as they gave birth to it.

But for men, they have no such guarantee - as a women could have cheated on them (committed infidelity) No man wants to be 'cuckolded' with raising another man's child, as they would want to put all of their time and resources into a child that is of their genes.

Evolutionary psychologists therefore believe that as a response to this, aggression has evolved with us in order to prevent infidelity or sexual jealousy.

When confronting the situation of sexual jealousy or infidelity with a women, two types of aggression is displayed. One is 'Mate guarding' were you would threaten another man to stay away from your women, or the other is to kill the women - ensuring that she will no longer raise up another man's genes.

This theory is all about the man in a relationship, as they want to (according to evolutionists) only want to raise up children of their genes.


Hope that helps :wink:

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