Definition
A key motivation for men who join gangs is the prospect of increased mating opportunities; men who are members of gangs experience greater mating success, particularly gang leaders.
Introduction
As the lower-investing sex, men are capable of having many more offspring over the course of their lifetime than are women. Indeed, access to mating opportunities is a key limiting factor in men’s reproductive fitness. As a result, men are willing to engage in intrasexual competition, sometimes extremely risky and violet competition, in order to increase their mating prospects. One such means of fostering access to women is joining a gang. Qualitative data suggests that this is a key motivation for men who join gangs (Wong 1982), and survey data shows that gang members, especially their leaders, do indeed experience greater mating success than non-gang members (Palmer and Tilley 1995). A more detailed...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Buss, D. (2011). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Campbell, A. (1993). Men, women, and aggression. New York: Basic Books.
Connolly, J., Pepler, D., Craig, W., & Taradash, A. (2000). Dating experiences of bullies in early adolescence. Child Maltreatment, 5, 299–310.
Covey, C., Menard, S., & Franzese, R. (1992). Juvenile gangs. Springfield: C. S. Thomas.
Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. Hawthorne: Aldine de Gruyter.
Gangestad, S. W., Simpson, J. A., Cousins, A. J., Garver-Apgar, C. E., & Christensen, P. N. (2004). Women’s preferences for male behavioral displays change across the menstrual cycle. Psychological Science, 15, 203–207.
Padilla, F. (1992). The gang as an American enterprise. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Palmer, C. T., & Tilley, C. F. (1995). Sexual access to females as a motivation for joining gangs: An evolutionary approach. Journal of Sex Research, 32, 213–217.
Snyder, J. K., Fessler, D. M. T., Tiokhin, L., Frederick, D. A., Lee, S. W., & Navarrete, C. D. (2011). Trade-offs in a dangerous world: Women’s fear of crime predicts preferences for aggressive and formidable mates. Evolution and Human Behavior, 32(2), 127–137.
Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man 1871–1971 (pp. 136–179). Chicago: Aldine.
Volk, A., Dane, A., Marini, Z., & Vaillancourt, T. (2015). Adolescent bullying, dating, and mating: Testing an evolutionary hypothesis. Evolutionary Psychology, 13, 1–11.
Wong, B. P. (1982). Chinatown. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Brindley, S., McDonald, M. (2017). Sexual Access. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_967-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_967-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences