Dr. Todd Shackelford is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of Psychology at Oakland University, as well as the Co-Director of the Evolutionary Psychology Lab there. He is the editor in chief of the academic journals Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Psychological Science. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.

In this episode, we explore the evolution of human violence. At the beginning, we define violence, and talk about ways of creating a classification system for it. We then get into three main types of violence and many of their ramifications – dyadic violence, collective/social violence, and self-inflicted violence. In dyadic violence, we discuss mostly violence within and between the sexes and violence within families. After that, we talk about collective violence, the relationship between morality and violence, war, collective punishment of individuals, and social ostracization. Finally, we get into self-inflicted violence, and focus almost exclusively on suicide and its many dimensions, also discussing depression and the problems with psychopathological approaches to human behavior. We refer specifically to the by-product theory of suicide as put forth by Cas Soper in his book, The Evolution of Suicide.

Follow Dr. Shackelford’s work:

Website: https://www.toddkshackelford.com/

Edited books: https://amzn.to/2W0g0r2

Relevant books:

The Evolution of Violence: https://amzn.to/2VcnEdh

The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War: https://amzn.to/2DXfIqq

The Evolution of Suicide: https://amzn.to/2LyGI62

A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RUI BELEZA, MIGUEL ESTRADA, ANTÓNIO CUNHA, CHANTEL GELINAS, JIM FRANK, JERRY MULLER, FRANCIS FORD, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BRIAN RIVERA, ADRIANO ANDRADE, YEVHEN BODRENKO, SERGIU CODREANU, ADAM BJERRE, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, AIRES ALMEIDA, BERNARDO SEIXAS, AND HERBERT GINTIS!

A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE and ROSEY!

Home Top podcasts Popular guests Top books