Topics in the Development of Aggression, Peer Relations, and Sex Differences

Abstract

This chapter continues the themes developed in the previous chapters by applying these ideas to some of the central issues in the area of social development. In particular, I will attempt to place these data in a cross-cultural and historical context, a context shaped by the sociobiologically predicted central tendencies described previously. Moreover, as in previous chapters, I will emphasize the environment-expectant affective systems and their roles in the socialization of behavior, as well as temperament as a ubiquitously important set of epigenetic rules that bias social behavior in a variety of domains. I will not attempt to review all of the research in the areas of aggression, peer relations, and sex differences, but instead select some of the central issues where an evolutionary analysis seems most appropriate and where there is already sufficient research to enable an assessment of this theoretical perspective.