Male Adaptations to Assess Fighting Ability

Abstract

Nonhuman animals are known to have evolved strategies for the assessment of fighting ability. In short, they “size up” their opponents before and during aggressive contests so as to make more prudent decisions about the fight. Evolutionary psychologists have now gathered evidence that humans also have this competence as a result of several evolved adaptations that extract cues from the body, face, and voice primarily of adult men. This entry reviews the logic of animal assessment and the data showing that humans have evolved adaptations for estimating fighting ability. It also explores some of the new data identifying which cues are used to estimate fighting ability.