Students’ perceptions of school safety and experiences with bullying were examined in a large Canadian cohort of 5,493 girls and 5,659 boys in Grades 4 to 12. Results indicate notable differences in when and where students felt safe based on their own perceptions of safety and their own experiences with bullying, particularly across elementary and secondary schools. For elementary students, especially those involved in bullying, the playground/school yard and outside recess/break time were particularly hazardous, whereas for secondary students involved in bullying, the hallways, school lunchroom/cafeteria, and outside recess/break were considered especially dangerous. The commonality across student-identified unsafe areas is that they tend to not be well supervised by school personnel. Accordingly, the present results underscore the need to increase adult supervision in areas in which an overwhelming majority of students report feeling unsafe.

Indirect aggression is considered an evolutionarily adaptive mechanism that can improve female mating success. It has been hypothesized that indirect aggression toward romantic partners and peers is used more frequently by females who make appearance-based comparisons and that these relationships are mediated by jealousy. Females (N = 528) currently in romantic relationships were surveyed. Results confirmed females who made more frequent appearance comparisons aggressed more often toward partners and peers. Low-comparing females reported being more frequent targets of peer indirect aggression. Jealousy partially mediated the relationships between making frequent attractiveness comparisons and indirect aggression. Results are discussed as effort allocated toward deterring partner defection and fending off rivals, and the role of emotion as a motivational influence for aggression.

Anxiety is believed to have evolved, in part, as a signal of threats to survival or reproductive fitness. In a sample of 66 heterosexual undergraduate men who were currently in exclusive romantic relationships, we explored whether symptoms of anxiety mediated links between anticipated partner infidelity and men's intimate partner violence. Results indicated that symptoms of anxiety mediated relationships between anticipated partner infidelity and physical aggression, partner injury, psychological aggression, and sexual aggression toward a partner. Results are discussed in terms of the evolution of anxiety as an emotion that mediates reaction to adaptive threats.

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