Intimate partner violence: Early experiences with parental effort predict men's adoption of a sequence of cognitive and behavioral traits that lead to antagonistic thoughts and behaviors towards intimate female partners

A Cascade Model of Socio-Developmental Events Leading to Men’s Perpetration of Violence against Female Romantic Partners. Farnaz Kaighobadi, Aurelio José Figueredo, Todd K. Shackelford, and David F. Bjorklund. In press, Evolutionary Psychology, August 2021. https://toddkshackelford.com/downloads/2021/Kaighobadi-et-al-EP.pdf

Abstract: Conceptually driven by life history theory, the current study investigated a hypothesized hierarchy of behaviors leading to men’s perpetration of violence in intimate relationships. Using a series of hierarchical regressions, we tested a causal cascade model on data provided by 114 men in a committed romantic relationship. The results supported the hypothesized hierarchy of sociodevelopmental events: (1) Men’s childhood experiences with their parents’ parental effort predicted men’s life history strategies; (2) men’s life history strategies predicted men’s behavioral self-regulation; (3) men’s self-regulation predicted men’s perceptions of partner infidelity risk; (4) perceptions of infidelity risk predicted men’s frequency of engagement in nonviolent mate retention behaviors; (5) men’s mate retention behaviors predicted men’s frequency of partner-directed violence. The overall cascade model explained 36% of variance in men’s partner-directed violence.

Keywords: life history theory, self-regulation, partner infidelity risk, mate retention behaviors, intimate partner violence

Previous research investigating the predictors of intimate partner violence (IPV) has broadly proceeded from one of two theoretical perspectives. The standard social science perspective has focused on the roles of the proximate environment and socialization on the development of antagonistic behaviors in intimate relationships, as expressed in feminist theory, social learning theory, and ecological theories (see Ali & Naylor, 2013, for review). An evolutionary psychological perspective has focused on the ultimate or evolutionary predictors of such behaviors, providing evidence that men’s violence against their female partners may be a manifestation of sexual jealousy evolved in response to the adaptive problem of paternity uncertainty (Buss & Duntley, 2011; Kaighobadi, Shackelford, & Goetz, 2009; Shackelford, Goetz, Guta, & Schmitt, 2005; Wilson & Daly, 1993).

In response to these two independent and sometimes contrary perspectives, life history (LH) theory was introduced to provide a framework that synthesizes proximate with evolutionary predictors of IPV to build a comprehensive model of men’s violence against intimate partners (see Figueredo, Gladden, & Beck, 2010, for a review). Figueredo and colleagues (2017) situated intimate partner violence within the more general context of interpersonal aggression towards both male and female targets by both male and female perpetrators. A structural equation model with cross-sample equality constraints showed complete configural invariance and a marginally acceptable degree of parametric invariance across five cross-cultural samples. This model specified LH strategy as the sole exogenous factor that, through various indirect effects, predicted about 75% of the variance in interpersonal aggression. Based on these results, it is a straightforward prediction that men’s violence against their female partners should be influenced by their LH strategy. The aim of the current study is to advance evolutionary psychological theories of IPV by integrating LH theory into a developmental cascade model of events that lead to men’s violence against their female partners.

Evolutionary Psychological Theories of Intimate Partner Violence

Evolutionary psychology addresses the design and function of evolved psychological mechanisms or adaptations. Evolutionary psychologists may be especially interested in understanding the function of behaviors that are costly to both the actor and recipient, but prevalent nevertheless, such as violence, in general, and IPV, in particular.

Previous evolutionary psychological research has established strong associations between male sexual jealousy, non-violent male mate retention behaviors (Buss & Shackelford, 1997), and men’s violence against female partners (Buss, 2000; Daly & Wilson, 1988; Kaighobadi, Starratt, Shackelford, & Popp, 2008). These researchers hypothesized that male sexual jealousy evolved in response to the adaptive problems of female sexual infidelity and subsequent cuckoldry, or unwitting investment in genetically unrelated offspring (Kaighobadi, Shackelford, & Goetz, 2009; Thornhill & Thornhill, 1992; Wilson & Daly, 1992). The reproductive costs of cuckoldry, including loss of time, energy, resources, and alternative mating opportunities, are potentially so great that men are hypothesized to have evolved psychological mechanisms that function to motivate anti-cuckoldry tactics. Mate retention behaviors are one such class of anti-cuckoldry tactics. These behaviors vary in the costs inflicted upon partners, ranging from subtle manipulation to outright physical violence (Buss & Shackelford, 1997). Female^Bdirected violence is a more severe class of anti-cuckoldry tactics that functions to keep a partner invested in the current relationship and to prevent her from sexual infidelity (see Kaighobadi et al., 2009, for review). Thornhill and Thornhill (1992) hypothesized that forced sex in the context of an intimate relationship may be an anti-cuckoldry tactic designed over human evolutionary history in response to the specific problem of sperm competition. Sperm competition occurs when the sperm of two or more males simultaneously compete for fertilization of a female’s ovum or ova (Parker, 1970). According to this hypothesis, by forcing their partners to have sex, men who are suspicious of their partner’s infidelity introduce their own sperm into their partner’s reproductive tract and thereby decrease the risk of cuckoldry (Thornhill & Thornhill, 1992).

Whereas much evolutionary psychological research has addressed ultimate causes of IPV and sexual coercion, other research has been dedicated to understanding individual differences or proximate correlates of men’s perpetration of IPV. Previous research has identified links between men’s partner^Bdirected violence and men’s personality traits, including antisocial tendencies (Dutton, 1994; Dutton & Starzomski, 1993), self-centeredness (Dean & Malamuth, 1997), lack of emotional regulation (McNulty & Hellmuth, 2008), and impulsivity (Stuart & Holtzworth-Munroe, 2005). LH theories have integrated both ultimate and proximate predictors of IPV into a single, overarching framework (see Figueredo et al., 2017, for review).