Purpose
The purpose of this paper is return to some findings and approaches typical of behavioral sciences and evolutionary anthropology that will allow us to link the process of self-domestication that can be seen in our evolutionary past, the primate tendency to enter into conflicts through patterns of signal exchange rather than direct aggressions, and the development of the persuasive dimension of language, with the possible evolutionary origin of both cultural violence and structural violence.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach has been, at all times, multidisciplinary insofar as it has sought to elucidate how the inquiries made from the behavioral sciences can help to understand human violence.
Findings
What was found is the possibility of understanding conflicts as a mechanism of evolutionary pressure that has been involved not only in social restructuring but also in the evolutionary origin of the human being.
Research limitations/implications
More empirical evidence should be found in this regard.
Originality/value
This study is a multidisciplinary approach that seeks to understand both the phenomenon of violence and peace from an evolutionary perspective.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.