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Adaptive and nonadaptive explanations of sociopathy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Chris Moore
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4J1, Canada moorec@ac.dal.ca
Michael R. Rose
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92717. mrrose@uci.edu

Abstract

We doubt that primary sociopathy is adaptive, for three reasons: First, its prevalence is too low to require an adaptive explanation. Second, a common sequela of damage to the orbito-frontal lobes is “pseudopsychopathy.” Any pattern of behavior that can be produced by brain damage is unlikely to be adaptive. Third, we argue that most human social behavior is not under tight genetic control, but is produced by open-ended calculation of fitness-contingencies.

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Article Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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