Unsoziales und psychopathisches als Selektionsvorteil

Hier einige Studien, die noch einmal deutlich machen, dass Evolution nicht eine Entwicklung zum besseren, höherwertigen hin ist, sondern eine Aussortierung des nicht so effektiven und eine Anreicherung bestimmter erfolgreicher Gene im Genpool:

Hier geht es um Tennisspieler und Informatiker, die jeweils in ihrem Bereich erfolgreicher bzw. zufriedener waren, wenn sie eher eine Tendenz zum unsozialen hatten:

Attachment-related avoidance and anxiety have repeatedly been associated with poorer adjustment in various social, emotional, and behavioral domains. We examined two domains in which avoidant individuals might be better equipped than their less avoidant peers to succeed and be satisfied – professional singles tennis and computer science. These fields may reward self-reliance, independence, and the ability to work without proximal social support from loved ones. In Study 1, we followed 58 professional singles tennis players for 16 months and found that scores on attachment-related avoidance predicted a higher ranking, above and beyond the contributions of training and coping resources. In Study 2, we sampled 100 students and found that those who scored higher on avoidance were happier with their choice of computer science as a career than those who scored lower on avoidance. Results are discussed in relation to the possible adaptive functions of certain personality characteristics often viewed as undesirable.

Quelle: Standoffish Perhaps, but Successful As Well: Evidence That Avoidant Attachment Can Be Beneficial in Professional Tennis and Computer Science

Ich könnte mir vorstellen, dass es sich um eine Unterscheidung zwischen dem auf Sachen ausgerichteten Gehirn und dem auf Empathie ausgerichteten Gehirn handelt. Empathie erlaubt einem sozialer zu sein, besser mit Leuten zurecht zu kommen, das auf Sachen ausgerichtete Gehirn hingegen ist gut im räumlichen Denken, was hilfreich ist, wenn man einen Ball treffen und dann platziert in einem bestimmten Teil des anderen Feldes schlagen will und durch die Ausrichtung auf Sachen gefällt einem das Arbeiten mit diesen auch mehr.

Purpose

Research has consistently revealed that measures of psychopathy and psychopathic personality traits represent some of the most consistent predictors of violent criminal involvement. As a result, there has been a considerable amount of interest in trying to identify the various etiological factors related to psychopathy. The current study builds on this existing body of literature by examining the genetic foundations to psychopathic personality traits.

Methods

An adoption-based research design is used to estimate genetic effects on psychopathic personality traits. Adoptees are drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

Results

Analyses revealed that having a biological criminal father was related to psychopathic personality traits for male adoptees, but not for female adoptees. For males, having a criminal biological father increased the odds of scoring in the extreme of the psychopathic personality trait scale by a factor ranging between 4.3 and 8.5. However, there was no association between having a biological criminal mother and psychopathic personality traits for adoptees.

Conclusions

Psychopathic personality traits are transmitted from father-to-offspring due to genetic reasons.

Quelle: The genetic origins of psychopathic personality traits in adult males and females: Results from an adoption-based study

Psychopathische Personlichkeiten werden also von dem Vater an den Sohn weitergegeben. Worin besteht der Vorteil?

Eine Theorie ist, dass viele Psychopathen ein Sonderprogramm haben, bei denen sie solange alles normal läuft normal funktionieren. Wachsen sie aber unter chaotischen Umständen auf, in denen sie um ihr Überleben oder Wohlsein kämpfen müssen, dann wird statt dem normalen Programm das Psychopathenprogramm aktiviert, um unter diesen Umständen besser überleben (und sich fortpflanzen) zu können. Zudem könnte das psychotische Verhalten auch eine Nische besetzen. Wenn alle Mitleid empfinden, weil es gesunde Bindungen zeigt, dann kann es dennoch für gewisse Personen vorteilhaft sein, dieses Gefühl nicht zu haben und unbeeinträchtigt davon agieren zu können.

Eine Studie zu weiteren Vorteilen:

What is most outstanding about psychopaths is that they appear extremely at ease with themselves. They can be articulate, are often highly intelligent, and are regularly described as ‘charming’, and ‘convincing’. Psychopathy is not associated with low birth weight, obstetric complications, poor parenting, poverty, early psychological trauma or adverse experiences, and indeed Robert Hare remarks ‘I can find no convincing evidence that psychopathy is the direct result of early social or environmental factors’ (Hare, 1993, p. 170). No sound evidence of neuroanatomical correlates for psychopathic behavior has been found, though an interesting (and highly significant) negative correlation has been found in 18 psychopaths between the degree of psychopathy as assessed by the Checklist and the size of the posterior half of the hippocampi bilaterally (Laakso, et al., 2001). Lesions of the dorsal hippocampus have been found to impair acquisition of conditioned fear, a notable feature of psychopathy, but it is not clear whether this neuroanatomical feature is the cause of, or is caused by, psychopathy. A study of 69 male psychopaths identified by the revised edition of Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist found no support for the hypothesis that psychopaths are characterized by verbal or left hemisphere dysfunction (Smith, Arnett & Newman, 1992).

One particularly striking feature of psychopathy is that extremely violent and antisocial behaviour appears at a very early age, often including casual and thoughtless lying, petty theft, a pattern of killing animals, early experimentation with sex, and stealing (Hare, 1993, p. 158). In a study of 653 serious offenders by Harris, Rice, and Quinsey childhood problem behaviors provided convergent evidence for the existence of psychopathy as a discrete class, but ‘adult criminal history variables were continuously distributed and were insufficient in themselves to detect the taxon’ (1994, p. 387). In a recent study psychopathic male offenders were found to score lower than nonpsychopathic offenders on obstetrical problems and fluctuating asymmetry, and in fact the offenders meeting the most stringent criteria for psychopathy had the lowest asymmetry scores amongst offenders (Lalumière, Harris & Rice, 2001). As the authors note this study provides no support for the idea that psychopathy results from developmental instability of some kind, but does give partial support for life-history strategy models.

An evolutionary game-theoretic explanation for the low but stable prevalence of psychopathy has been modelled successfully (Colman & Wilson, 1997), and though this provides some tentative support for Mealey’s suggestion that psychopathy is a frequency-dependent strategy

Quelle:  The Origins of Violence: Is Psychopathy an Adaptation?

Da Psychopathen häufig charmant erscheinen, keine moralischen Skrupel haben und weniger Angst haben und sich überschätzen, dürften sie auch auf Frauen eine gewisse Faszination haben, weil sie gewisse Alphamannqualitäten haben können. Vielleicht liegt es daran, dass dies gerade über die männliche Linie weitergegeben wird.