- Oxford Library of Psychology
- [UNTITLED]
- Short Contents
- Oxford Library of Psychology
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War
- Violence Across Animals and Within Early Hominins
- Comparative Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence
- Intimate Partner Violence: War at Our Doorsteps
- Chastity, Fidelity, and Conquest: Biblical Rules for Women and War
- Filicide and Child Maltreatment: Prospects for Ultimate Explanation
- Siblicide in Humans and Other Species
- Familial Homicide-Suicide
- Suicide
- Evolutionary Perspectives on Male-Male Competition, Violence, and Homicide
- Evolutionary Psychological Perspectives on Sexual Offending: From Etiology to Intervention
- Women and Aggression
- Culture of Honor, Violence, and Homicide
- Sacrifice and Sacred Values: Evolutionary Perspectives on Religious Terrorism
- Animal Abuse and Cruelty
- If, When, and Why Adolescent Bullying Is Adaptive
- The Male Warrior Hypothesis: The Evolutionary Psychology of Intergroup Conflict, Tribal Aggression, and Warfare
- A Feminist Evolutionary Analysis of the Relationship Between Violence Against and Inequitable Treatment of Women, and Conflict Within and Between Human Collectives, Including Nation-States
- War Histories in Evolutionary Perspective: Insights From Prehistoric North America
- War, Evolution, and the Nature of Human Nature
- Parasite Stress, Collectivism, and Human Warfare
- Band of Brothers or Band of Siblings?: An Evolutionary Perspective on Sexual Integration of Combat Forces
- An Evolutionary Perspective on Child Development in the Context of War and Political Violence
- The Extremes of Conflict in Literature: Violence, Homicide, and War
- Why Religion Is Unable to Minimize Lethal and Nonlethal Societal Dysfunction Within and Between Nations
- Peace and the Human Animal: Toward Integration of Comparative Evolutionary Psychology and Peace Studies
- Resource Acquisition, Violence, and Evolutionary Consciousness
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
The focus of this chapter is suicide, with emphasis on two evolutionary explanations. One views suicide as a by-product of states, traits, or predispositions that may have been adaptive in ancestral environments. The other views suicide as an evolved response that is conditioned on rare but well-specified environmental circumstances. The chapter considers this second approach—an inclusive fitness model of self-destructive motivation—in some detail. This model identifies circumstances under which self-preservation might be expected to break down—namely, the coupling of low individual reproductive potential with a sense of being a burden to close kin (burdensomeness). Although the model was designed to show how self-destructive phenomena might have evolved in ancestral environments, there is growing evidence to suggest that it is also capable of predicting instances of suicidal thinking and behavior in the present. We review that evidence and include a description of our own program of research that has tested and extended the model.
Keywords: suicide, suicidal thinking, suicidal behavior, evolutionary, inclusive fitness, burdensomeness, reproductive potential, self-destructive
R. Michael Brown, Department of Psychology, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA
Stephanie L. Brown, Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
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- Oxford Library of Psychology
- [UNTITLED]
- Short Contents
- Oxford Library of Psychology
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War
- Violence Across Animals and Within Early Hominins
- Comparative Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence
- Intimate Partner Violence: War at Our Doorsteps
- Chastity, Fidelity, and Conquest: Biblical Rules for Women and War
- Filicide and Child Maltreatment: Prospects for Ultimate Explanation
- Siblicide in Humans and Other Species
- Familial Homicide-Suicide
- Suicide
- Evolutionary Perspectives on Male-Male Competition, Violence, and Homicide
- Evolutionary Psychological Perspectives on Sexual Offending: From Etiology to Intervention
- Women and Aggression
- Culture of Honor, Violence, and Homicide
- Sacrifice and Sacred Values: Evolutionary Perspectives on Religious Terrorism
- Animal Abuse and Cruelty
- If, When, and Why Adolescent Bullying Is Adaptive
- The Male Warrior Hypothesis: The Evolutionary Psychology of Intergroup Conflict, Tribal Aggression, and Warfare
- A Feminist Evolutionary Analysis of the Relationship Between Violence Against and Inequitable Treatment of Women, and Conflict Within and Between Human Collectives, Including Nation-States
- War Histories in Evolutionary Perspective: Insights From Prehistoric North America
- War, Evolution, and the Nature of Human Nature
- Parasite Stress, Collectivism, and Human Warfare
- Band of Brothers or Band of Siblings?: An Evolutionary Perspective on Sexual Integration of Combat Forces
- An Evolutionary Perspective on Child Development in the Context of War and Political Violence
- The Extremes of Conflict in Literature: Violence, Homicide, and War
- Why Religion Is Unable to Minimize Lethal and Nonlethal Societal Dysfunction Within and Between Nations
- Peace and the Human Animal: Toward Integration of Comparative Evolutionary Psychology and Peace Studies
- Resource Acquisition, Violence, and Evolutionary Consciousness
- Index
