Date of Award
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Abstract
Evolutionary psychology offers a framework for investigating the design of evolved information-processing mechanisms that motivate costly behaviors such as men's partner-directed violence. The current research investigated predictors of and individual differences in men's intimate- partner-directed violence from an evolutionary psychological perspective. The problem of paternity uncertainty is hypothesized to have selected for the emotion of male sexual jealousy, which in turn motivates men's nonviolent and violent mate-retention behaviors. Study 1 documented a hierarchy of behaviors initiated with men's suspicions of partner infidelity leading to men's engagement in frequent non-violent mate-retention behaviors, ending in men's partner-directed violence. Study 2 documented an interaction between men's personality traits and the context of perceived partner infidelity risk to predict men's perpetration of violence. Finally, Study 3 extended Studies 1 and 2 by building a causal cascade model that captures the hierarchy of adaptive behaviors in order of: (1) men's childhood experiences with their parents' parental effort, (2) men's adaptive life history strategies and behavioral self-regulation, (3) men's perceptions of partner infidelity risk, and (4) men's non-violent mate retention behaviors, conclusively predicting men's perpetration of violence in intimate relationships.
Extent
x, 108 p. : ill.
Recommended Citation
Kaighobadi, Farnaz., "Evolutionary psychological perspectives on men's partner-directed violence in context of perceived partner infidelity" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019. 277.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_6/277
Identifier
FADT3183125
Comments
by Farnaz Kaighobadi.|Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011.|Includes bibliography.|Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.|by Farnaz Kaighobadi.