Female competition and aggression: interdisciplinary perspectives

Abstract

This paper introduces a Theme Issue combining interdisciplinary perspectives in the study of female competition and aggression. Despite a history of being largely overlooked, evidence is now accumulating for the widespread evolutionary significance of female competition. Here, we provide a synthesis of contributions to this Theme Issue on humans and other vertebrates, and highlight directions for future research. Females compete for resources needed to survive and reproduce, and for preferred mates. Although female aggression takes diverse forms, under most circumstances relatively low-risk competitive strategies are favoured, most probably due to constraints of offspring production and care. In social species, dominance relationships and threats of punishment can resolve social conflict without resort to direct aggression, and coalitions or alliances may reduce risk of retaliation. Consistent with these trends, indirect aggression is a low cost but effective form of competition among young women. Costs are also minimized by flexibility in expression of competitive traits, with aggressive behaviour and competitive signalling tailored to social and ecological conditions. Future research on female competition and the proximate mediators of female aggression will be greatly enhanced by opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange, as evidenced by contributions to this Theme Issue.

A longitudinal analysis of women’s salivary testosterone and intrasexual competitiveness

“…Most work on intrasexual competition in humans has focused on direct (i.e., physically aggressive) competition among men (Stockley & Campbell, 2013). Although direct competition among women clearly does occur (Stockley & Campbell, 2013), intrasexual competition among women more commonly takes other forms, such as self-promotion and the derogation of competitors (Vaillancourt, 2013).…”

Competing for the benefit of offspring eliminates the gender gap in competitiveness

“…highly ranked by men as desirable female characteristics, which could contribute to making men more competitive than women over these cash resources. On the contrary, given the different and more important role that mothers play in infant survival (23), and the high costs associated with violence (8), females reserve their most intense competitive behavior to ensure their reproductive success [i.e., the survival and thriving of their offspring (3,5,8)]. Therefore, we expect that women will be relatively more competitive for resources that directly benefit one's offspring than for a cash prize.…”

“…If competitive traits derive from selection pressures, then men and women should each have evolved competitive traits. Recently, important studies have laid the foundation for understanding the difference in competitive strategies pursued by the sexes and, in particular, found that females reserve their most intense competitive behaviors for the benefit of offspring (3,5,8). The goal of this paper is to contribute new behavioral evidence to the study of the different modalities of women's competition.…”

“…female competition | sexual selection | economic experiment | gender gap | affirmative action F ollowing pioneering works by Hrdy and Clutton-Brock, significant advances in evolutionary biology, psychology, and anthropology have produced an important body of knowledge on the occurrence and evolutionary significance of female competition (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). Despite Darwin's recognition of the importance of intrasexual competition, male-male and female-female competition for resources and sexual reproduction (6), most subsequent work has focused on the mechanisms and consequences of male competition.…”

The sociality–health–fitness nexus: synthesis, conclusions and future directions

“…According to classical sex roles, competition among males is evaluated through intrasexual selection, whereas intersexual selection leads to non-random mating because females exercise mate choice to maximize direct or indirect benefits of choosing particular males [53,54]. However, it is now recognized that males are also choosy [55] and that females compete among each other as well [56,57]. Both inter-and intrasexual selection have several direct and indirect consequences for animal health.…”