A Behavioral Genetic Test of the Evolutionary Taxonomy

Abstract

Life-course-persistent (LCP) offending has been intensely studied over the last several decades resulting in an impressive amount of evidence linking chronic offending with a host of negative outcomes including violence, impulsiveness, and sexual promiscuity. Although much evidence also exists regarding the origins of LCP offending, emergent work is attempting to unify this knowledge under the umbrella of evolutionary biology using life history theory. The current study draws on this work-specifically, the Evolutionary Taxonomy-in order to further probe the etiology of chronic antisocial behavior. Using quantitative genetic methods and data from a national sample of twins, the current study examines whether LCP offending and the life history trait of sexual promiscuity might be linked at an underlying genetic level.Analyses of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) data suggest that a shared genetic scaffold might be responsible for some of the covariation of LCP offending with the life history trait of sexual promiscuity. Specifically, the current analyses revealed evidence that overlapping genetic factors influenced both sexual involvement and LCP offender classification. Our results offer insight regarding the evolution of the traits that distinguish LCP offenders from the rest of the population. LCP offending may represent a set of life history traits that, over the course of human evolution, clustered together in small segments of the population. The findings lend support for the Evolutionary Taxonomy proposed to explain the ultimate origins of criminal offending.

From Environment to Mating Competition and Super-K in a Predominantly Urban Sample of Young Adults

“…Mating competition. We located latent mating competition using measures of life history domains including sensation seeking and reward responsiveness (Copping, Campbell, & Muncer, 2013, 2014b, attitudes toward risk (Ellis et al, 2012;Figueredo et al, 2005;, delinquency (Boutwell et al, 2015;, liability to substance use Richardson & Hardesty, 2012;, harm avoidance (Del Giudice, 2014b; , and agreeableness (Dunkel & Decker, 2010;Figueredo et al, 2004Figueredo et al, , 2007Olderbak et al, 2014;. We also included an item that assessed total number of same and opposite sex partners in the past year (Brumbach et al, 2009;Ellis et al, 2009; see Table 3 for more information).…”

Predicting Moffitt's Developmental Taxonomy of Antisocial Behavior Using Life History Theory: A Partial Test of the Evolutionary Taxonomy

“…In a series of papers, Boutwell and colleagues (Boutwell et al, 2013(Boutwell et al, , 2015a(Boutwell et al, , 2015b advanced the evolutionary taxonomy as a unified crime theory. Extending the work of Rushton (1985) and Ellis (1988), the evolutionary taxonomy was proposed to provide an overarching theoretical scaffolding for Moffitt's developmental taxonomy.…”

“…Thus, far tests of the evolutionary taxonomy have primarily focused on illustrating the ways in which it expands understanding of LCP offending patterns (e.g., Boutwell et al, 2015aBoutwell et al, , 2015b. Absent in the literature are tests of how components of the evolutionary taxonomy are associated with classification into all the groups proposed in Moffitt's theory.…”

Selfish risk-seeking can provide an evolutionary advantage in a conditional public goods game

“…Previous studies report contradictory results on whether psychopathic traits are evolutionarily adaptive, or whether they are harmful variations of human personality [22,23]. Several scholars have argued the case for an evolutionary advantage of psychopathy [23][24][25][26][27][28][29]: De Silva et al discussed the adaptive role of some of the main features of psychopathy (such as thrill-seeking behaviours, low fear and unresponsive stress response) in hostile psychosocial environments [23]; and recent findings also support the conceptualisation of psychopathy as an adaptive strategy to cope with harsh experiences [30]. Based on key traits of the construct (e.g., manipulativeness, exploitativeness, deceptiveness, lack of fear and empathy, and superficial charm), Krupp et al also argued that psychopathy is not a disorder but an 'evolved life-history strategy' [31].…”