KILLING THE COMPETITION:

Female/Female and Male/Male Homicide

Martin Daly Margo Wilson

McMaster University McMaster University

Sex- and age-specific rates of killing unrelated persons of one's own

sex were computed for Canada (1974--1983), England/Wales (1977-1986),
Chicago (1965--1981), and Detroit (1972) from census information and
data archives of all homicides known to police. Patterns in relation to sex
and age were virtually identical among the four samples, although the
rates varied enormously (from 3.7 per million citizens per annum in
England/Wales to 216.3 in Detroit). Men's marital status was related to
the probability of committing a same-sex, nonrelative homicide, but age
effects remained conspicuous when married and unmarried men were
distinguished.
These findings and the treatment of age and sex effects by criminolo-
gists are discussed in the light of contemporary evolutionary psycholog-
ical models of sex differences and life-span development. Same-sex ho-
micides in which killer and victim are unrelated can be interpreted as an
assay of competitive conflict. In every human society for which relevant
information exists, men kill one another vastly more often than do
women. Lethal interpersonal competition is especially prevalent among
young men, which accords with many other aspects of life-span devel-
opment in suggesting that sexual selection has maximized male compet-
itive prowess and inclination in young adulthood.
KEYWORDS: Adolescence; Age-crime relationship; Evolutionary
psychology; Homicide; Intrasexual competition; Life-span
developmental psychology; Risk-taking; Sex differences;
Sexual selection

Received May 26, 1989; accepted June 2, 1989.

Address all correspondenceto Martin Daly or Margo Wilson, Department of Psychology, McMaster
University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1.

Copyright 9 1990 by Walter de Gruyter, Inc. New York

Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 81-107. 1045-6767/90/$1.00+.10

81
82 Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

Homicidal violence manifests a large, cross-culturally universal sex dif-

ference. This fact is seldom mentioned by authors reviewing sex differ-
ences in h u m a n psychology and behavior, despite their considerable
interest in "aggression" (e.g., Deaux 1985; Maccoby and Jacklin 1974).
Criminologists and epidemiologists, by contrast, have often commented
on the sex difference in killing (e.g., Curtis 1974; Holinger 1987; Wilson
and Herrnstein 1985; Wolfgang 1978), but evolution-minded readers will
be disappointed by their treatment, since it makes no reference to fun-
damental differences in the agendas of w o m e n and men.
Analysis and understanding of the role of gender in violence have
been impeded by the fact that almost all discussants have embraced the
false dichotomy of "social" vs. "biological" explanations. Reviewers of
biological factors typically discuss hormonal effects, Y-chromosomes,
sexually differentiated body builds, and the supposed generality of
greater male aggressivity among n o n h u m a n animals (e.g., Burrowes et
al. 1988; Mednick et al. 1982; Wilson and Herrnstein 1985). Others d e n y
that the relevance of these factors has been demonstrated and propose,
as an alternative "social" explanation, that sex differences are caused by
people's differential treatment of girls vs. boys and w o m e n vs. men.
Occasionally explicit (e.g., Adler 1975; Eagly and Steffen 1986; Hagan
1986; Tieger 1980), but more often implied, is the proposition that
w o m e n and men would behave identically if treated identically. The
common practice of invoking "sex roles in our society" w h e n discussing
sex differences carries the additional implication, whether intended or
unwitting, that the differences under consideration are absent or re-
versed in other societies. In the case of violence, neither of these prop-
ositions has any evidentiary basis or coherent theoretical rationale (Daly
and Wilson 1988a; Klama 1988).
Given this dichotomous way of thinking, most social scientists seem
to feel that some sort of middle ground is the only tenable position. "We
believe that both biological and sociocultural factors contribute," wrote
Maccoby and Jacklin (1980:977) in a typical statement of this compromise
stance. These writers correctly reject naive assumptions about the arbi-
trariness and reversibility of sex differences, which are embraced by the
advocates of purely "social" explanations, but share with them a narrow
view of biology's potential contribution as residing solely in its mecha-
nistic subdisciplines (genetics, endocrinology, neurology). Untouched
by the revolution in evolutionary functional analysis of social phenom-
ena inspired by Hamilton (1964) and Williams (1966), m a n y social sci-
entists persist in equating "biological" with "invariant" and assume that
biology is mute about aspects of sex differences manifesting develop-
mentally, experientially, and circumstantially contingent variations.
The irony is that developmentally, experientially, and circumstantially
Killing the Competition 83

contingent variation is precisely what evolutionary biological theories of

social phenomena are about. What sort of contingent social responsive-
ness would be favored by selection? What social, demographic, and
ecological variables influence social development, how, and why?
Mechanistic details about the roles of androgens and amygdalas in ag-
gressive action constitute partial accounts of h o w such action changes
with puberty or rank or particular social situations, but such "proximate
explanations" do not address the question of w h y the creature in ques-
tion has evolved to aggress in this but not that life stage or situation.
Exemplary theoretical work specifically concerning the strategic logic of
aggression and potentially lethal violence includes that of Hamilton
(1979), Maynard Smith (1974), Mock (1987), O'Connor (1978), Parker
(1974), Popp and DeVore (1979), and Rohwer (1982).

SAME-SEX NONRELATIVE HOMICIDES AS A N

ASSAY OF COMPETITIVE CONFLICT

Whereas research on any sublethal form of violent conflict is likely to

suffer from reporting biases, killings are typically discovered and inves-
tigated. Homicide archives thus provide exceptional materials for the
analysis of human conflicts. We have used such archives to assess var-
ious evolutionary psychological hypotheses about h o w the intensity of
interpersonal conflict varies in relation to kinship, demography, and
other factors (Daly and Wilson 1982, 1988a, 1988b; Wilson and Daly
1985). In this paper, our focus will be on those homicides in which
victim and killer were of the same sex and unrelated.
Our principal rationale for an analysis that excludes cases in which
victim and killer are of the opposite sex is that we wish to compare
men's vs. women's use of dangerous violence. Since homicides are often
"victim-precipitated," one cannot assume that the killer was the initial
aggressor or the party responsible for the escalation to lethal danger.
This makes opposite-sex cases ambiguous with regard to men's vs. wo-
men's use of violence. Many, perhaps most, cases in which w o m e n kill
their husbands, for example, have strong elements of self-defense
(Browne 1987; Daly and Wilson 1988a; Jones 1980; Totman 1978). In a
same-sex case, by contrast, though the principal or initial aggressor's
identity may be ambiguous, his or her sex is not.
"Competition" refers to any conflict of interests in which one party's
possession or use of a mutually desired resource precludes the other
party's possession or use of the same. Robbery homicides are unequiv-
ocal instances, as are many "sexual triangle" cases. More subtle exam-
ples are the "face" and "status" disputes among acquaintances that
84 Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

constitute a very large proportion of U.S. homicides; the "social re-

sources" that are contested in these conflicts are limited means to the
end of more tangible resources (Wilson and Daly 1985). However, al-
though many conflicts can be interpreted as competitive, not all can: If
a woman spurns one suitor for another, for example, then she and the
rejected man have a conflict of interests, but they are not competitors,
whereas the rival suitors are. In general, competitive confict is predom-
inantly a same-sex affair because same-sex individuals are usually more
similar in the resources they desire than are opposite-sex individuals. In
particular, opposite-sex individuals are often the "resource" being com-
peted for.
The present analyses are furthermore limited to cases in which victim
and killer were unrelated, because conflicts precipitating family homi-
cides are often rather different from the competitive conflicts that are our
focus. A large proportion of the cases perpetrated by women, for exam-
ple, are infanticides, the variable risk of which can be interpreted as
reflecting evolved motivational mechanisms for maternal manipulation
of lifetime reproductive effort (Daly and Wilson 1988a); if such a case can
be considered "competitive," then the victim's competitor is not its killer/
mother but its (existing or future) siblings. Marital relatives present a
different complication: male--male homicides might outnumber female-
female cases simply by virtue of a difference in the numbers of such
relationships (e.g., if stepfathers outnumber stepmothers) or in spatial
proximity (e.g., if married couples have more frequent contact with the
wife's relatives than the husband's). More generally, genetic and marital
relationships entail an element of overlapping interests in the welfare of
joint kin as vehicles of fitness, so the exclusion of relatives permits a
sharper focus on more straightforwardly competitive conflicts. Compet-
itive violence among women vs. men thus seems best compared in
terms of nonrelative cases.

SAME-SEX NONRELATIVE HOMICIDES A M O N G

MEN VS. WOMEN

Table 1 presents our tabulations of the gross numbers of same-sex non-

relative homicides from four case-by-case data sets, as well as results
from all published studies of which we are aware in which the requisite
information was reported. The largest data sets in Table 1 are all from
Western industrial nations, but other sorts of societies are also repre-
sented, including tribal horticulturalists (Bhil, Maria, Mayans, Munda,
Oraon, Tiv) and foragers (!Kung San).
The four data files from which we have tabulated the cases (Chicago,
Killing the Competition 85

Table 1. N u m b e r s of Same-Sex Nonrelative H o m i c i d e s in Various Studies ~

Homicides
Location/society Male Female Reference
Chicago, 1965-1981 7439 195 This study
Detroit, 1972 316 11 This study
Miami, 1980 358 0 Wilbanks (1984)
Canada, 1974-1983 2387 59 This study
England/Wales, 1977-1986 2195 95 This study
Scotland, 1953-1974 143 5 Gillies (1976)
Iceland, 1946-1970 7 0 Hansen and Bjarnason
(1974)
A Mayan village, 1938-1965 15 0 Nash (1967)
Bison-Horn Maria (India), 36 1~ Elwin (1950)
1920-1941
Munda (India) 34 0 Saran (1974)
Oraon (India) 26 0 Saran (1974)
Bhil (India), 1971-1975 50 Ia Varma (1978)
Tiv (Nigeria), 1931-1949 74 1 Bohannan (1960b)
BaSoga (Uganda), 1952-1954 38 0 Fallers and Fallers (1960)
Gisu (Uganda), 1948-1954 44 2 LaFontaine (1960)
BaLuyia (Kenya), 1949-1954 65 3a Bohannan (1960a)
Banyoro (Uganda), 1936-1955 9 1~ Beattie (1960)
JoLuo (Kenya), ca. 1949 22 2a Wilson (1960)
Alur (Uganda), 1945-1954 33 1~ SouthaU (1960)
!Kung San (Botswana), 1920-1955 12 0 Lee (1979)

a Victim and killer were unrelated co-wives of a polygynous man in the lone
female-female cases in the Maria, Bhil, Banyoro, and Alur samples, as well as in
one of three Baluyia cases and one of two JoLuo cases. We exempted co-wife
cases from the rule excluding marital as well as genetic relatives because unre-
lated co-wives represent a female analogue of male-male rivalries.

1965-1981; Detroit, 1972; C a n a d a , 1974-1983; E n g l a n d / W a l e s , 1977-

1986) consist of all h o m i c i d e s k n o w n to police, a n d a case is eligible
for inclusion if police h a v e identified the killer to their o w n satisfac-
tion, r e g a r d l e s s of p r o s e c u t i o n or conviction. Reliance o n judicial criteria
in o r d e r to consider a killer's i d e n t i t y c o n f i r m e d w o u l d lead to the ex-
clusion of large n u m b e r s of solved cases d e e m e d self-defensive or oth-
erwise justifiable or excusable, as well as a n y cases in w h i c h the killer
h a s d i e d before adjudication; t h o s e c o n v i c t e d or i n c a r c e r a t e d there-
fore constitute seriously biased s a m p l e s of identified killers (Daly a n d
Wilson 1988a).
Most r e p o r t e d studies of h o m i c i d e s d o n o t classify cases in a m a n n e r
p e r m i t t i n g inclusion in the table. O f t e n , the set of cases h a s b e e n se-
lected o n s o m e potentially biasing criterion, s u c h as arrest or c o n v i c t i o n
86 Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

after trial, a n d e v e n w h e r e the data a p p r o p r i a t e l y include all k n o w n

cases in s o m e specified time a n d place, the requisite cross-tabulation of
killer's sex b y victim's sex b y relationship is s e l d o m r e p o r t e d .
A possible objection to this w a y of c o m p a r i n g the sexes is that the
exclusion of relatives from Table 1 c o u l d exaggerate the sex difference
because m e n ' s " r o u t i n e activities" entail m o r e interaction w i t h nonrel-
atives in the "public d o m a i n " t h a n d o t h o s e of w o m e n . At the extreme,
if w o m e n a n d m e n killed same-sex p e r s o n s equally often a n d i n d e p e n -
dently of relationship, our selection criterion m i g h t still p r o d u c e a pre-
p o n d e r a n c e of male cases because m e n ' s interactions are m o r e often
with nonrelatives. But in fact, a d d i n g relatives o t h e r t h a n o w n children
into the analysis hardly changes the results. Chicago's 7439 male homi-
cides vs. 195 female cases (Table 1) b e c o m e 7796 vs. 214 w h e n such
relatives are included, the male cases constituting 97.4% of all same-sex
cases in either comparison; C a n a d a ' s 2387 vs. 59 (97.6% male) c h a n g e to
2839 vs. 87 (97.0% male); Detroit's 316 vs. 11 (96.6% male) b e c o m e 358
vs. 15 (96.0% male); a n d in England/Wales, 2195 vs. 95 (95.9% male)
b e c o m e 2637 vs. 132 (95.2% male). O u r point is not to d e n y that sex
differences in killing may partly reflect sex differences in e n c o u n t e r
frequencies with unrelated p e r s o n s of the same sex a n d h e n c e in op-
portunities for interactions involving conflict. But if the sexes i n d e e d
differ in the distributions of p e r s o n s with w h o m they interact, t h e n that
fact, rather than constituting an explanation of sex-typical social strate-
gies, is part of w h a t n e e d s explaining. It seems likely that o n e ' s com-
petitive inclinations w o u l d affect b o t h the time one s p e n d s in certain
social situations and one's belligerence w h e n in them.
M a n y writers have invoked the c o n c e p t of culture in o r d e r to explain
the huge, universal sex difference in violence. Curtis (1974:160), for
example, writes

The great majority of killers are males in countries throughout the world . . . .
Although local insitutions and customs vary, the preponderance of men in these
crimes is related to socially and culturally defined roles such as aggressor, provider
and leader; to the greater social pressures exerted by these positions; and to the
greater frequency of external contacts.

But "culturally d e f i n e d roles" like " g e n o t y p e s " - - - h a v e e x p l a n a t o r y po-

tential only w h e n the p h e n o m e n a u n d e r consideration v a r y b e t w e e n
g r o u p s (and e v e n t h e n a case can be m a d e that i n v o k i n g culture is
seldom m o r e t h a n a p s e u d o - e x p l a n a t o r y relabeling of the p h e n o m e n a to
be explained; see Tooby and C o s m i d e s 1989). Overall h o m i c i d e rates
vary t r e m e n d o u s l y and can be conceived of as cultural (Daly a n d Wilson
1989), but the fact of a sex difference t r a n s c e n d s cultural variation.
Killing the Competition 87

W h e t h e r sex differences can be traced to " n o r m s " a n d " s e x role social-

ization" is not the issue; invoking such c o n c e p t s begs the q u e s t i o n of
w h y the sex differences instilled b y t h e m s h o u l d exhibit such consis-
tency.
Despite the universality of a large sex difference in rates of homicide,
the differences b e t w e e n h u m a n g r o u p s are so great that w o m e n in the
most violent p o p u l a t i o n s exhibit h i g h e r per capita rates of killing t h a n
do m e n in the least violent. N o t i n g this fact with respect to " c r i m e " in
general, Steffensmeier and Allan (1988:76) argue,

sex differences in crime are not simply a reflection of biology or genetic makeup.
This conclusion is clear from the strong covariance of male and of female rates
within the comparison groups, coupled with extreme cross-group variability in
male and female arrest rates, such that the female rate of one group may exceed the
male rate of the comparison groups. (Urban females, for example, have higher rates
for some crimes than rural males.)

The fallacy in this reasoning can be seen b y substituting h e i g h t for

" c r i m e . " S u p p o s e m e n e v e r y w h e r e g r e w taller t h a n w o m e n of equiva-
lent nutritional status, but that w e l l - n o u r i s h e d w o m e n w e r e taller t h a n
u n d e r n o u r i s h e d men. W o u l d this lead us to c o n c l u d e that sex differ-
ences in height are " n o t simply a reflection of b i o l o g y , " and, if so, w h a t
w o u l d we m e a n b y such a claim?

T H E L O G I C OF SEX DIFFERENCES I N
INTRASEXUAL C O M P E T I T I O N

M e n b e c o m e embroiled in d a n g e r o u s c o m p e t i t i v e interactions far m o r e

often t h a n d o w o m e n . The data in Table I indicate that a l t h o u g h this sex
difference is variable in m a g n i t u d e , it is universally large. T h e r e is n o
evidence e v e n suggesting that it is c o n t r a v e n e d a n y w h e r e , n o t w i t h -
standing the perennial appeal of such fantasies as the ancient G r e e k
legend of the A m a z o n s and Margaret M e a d ' s (1935) just-so stories of
sex-role reversal in N e w G u i n e a (see Daly a n d Wilson 1988a).
This species-typical sex difference is o n e that w e share with o t h e r
effectively p o l y g y n o u s m a m m a l s , a n d its link w i t h effective p o l y g y n y is
well u n d e r s t o o d (Trivers 1972; Williams 1966). By "effective p o l y g y n y , "
w e refer to a b r e e d i n g s y s t e m in w h i c h the variance in fitness a m o n g
males exceeds that a m o n g females (Clutton-Brock 1988; Daly a n d Wilson
1983). Diverse threads of morphological, physiological, d e v e l o p m e n t a l ,
and psychological evidence are consistent in indicating that h o m i n i d
evolution has b e e n characterized by effective p o l y g y n y (Alexander 1979;
88 Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

Alexander et al. 1979; Daly and Wilson 1983, 1988a; Symons 1979). Ef-
fective polygyny is a circumstance conducive to the evolution of a male
psychology more combative and risk-prone that that of females.
The reason w h y departures from m o n o g a m y are associated with the
evolution of sex differences in risky competitiveness is that high vari-
ance means relatively great rewards for success and penalties for failure:
males in effectively polygynous species have a higher maximal repro-
ductive success than females, but they also have a higher probability of
dying without issue. Greater variance in rewards favors greater accep-
tance of risk in their pursuit. Women compete, too, and may even kill
one another in the process, but their lesser fitness variance has generally
meant that they have little to gain, and at least something to lose, by
dangerous tactics. (Note, too, that differential taste for risky confronta-
tional competition need not imply a domain-general sex difference in
tolerating danger; females might well be found to tolerate greater risk
than males in defense of children, for example.)
What makes the comparative evidence relevant to the h u m a n case is
the body of theory and data linking cross-species diversity in sexual
differentiation of behavior and morphology to ecology, demography,
and mating system. The point is not some typological claim about the
significance of maleness (or androgens or Y-chromosomes) across the
animal kingdom; in fact, the familiar sex difference in belligerence is
reversed in precisely those species in which the fitness variance differ-
ential is reversed, namely in effectively polyandrous species, such as
spotted sandpipers (Maxson and Oring 1980), Wilson's phalaropes (Col-
well and Oring 1988), and ja~anas (Stephens 1982). In comparative per-
spective, Homo sapiens is an effectively polygynous primate, and more
specifically, one whose degree of effective p o l y g y n y - - m o r e than the
gibbon's, for example, but much less than the gorilla's---is intelligibly
related to the magnitude of sex differences in maturation, senescence,
and body size.
This is not to say that the precise magnitudes of sex differences in
violent competitive behavior are predictable from available theories of
sexual selection and comparative considerations, however. Although
the direction of the differences in Table 1 is readily predictable, their
magnitude might still be deemed surprisingly large. We are, after all, a
biparental species, and only slightly polygynous and dirnorphic as com-
pared to many other mammals. What are now required are theories of
the contingent control of competitive inclinations sufficiently precise to
predict the variable magnitude of sex differences in behavior.
There is a substantial literature on adaptive decision-making under
variable conditions of risk, where "risk" is defined as variance in the
magnitude of payoffs for a given course of action (Real and Caraco 1986).
Killing the Competition 89

Rather than simply maximizing the expected (mean) return in some

desired commodity, such as food, animals should be---and demonstra-
bly are---sensitive to variance as well. This follows from the fact that the
fitness values of desired commodities, and hence their evolved psycho-
logical utilities, do not generally increase linearly with increases in the
amounts acquired. An overwintering songbird, for example, might
achieve a slight gain in expected fitness by the addition of n calories to
its energy budget, whereas a loss of n calories would be fatal; such an
animal will be "risk-averse," avoiding high-variance feeding situations
even at some cost in expected intake.
"Risk" in the sense of an acceptance of some probability of death or
injury is a distinct but related concept that could be incorporated into
such analyses. Dangerous acts are adaptive choices if positive fitness
consequences are large enough and probable enough to offset the pos-
sible negative consequences (Maynard Smith and Price 1973; Popp and
DeVore 1979). Daly and Wilson (1988a), for example, show that selection
can favor competitive tactics that entail increasing danger to oneself as
the fitness payoffs for success vs. failure in the competition become
more disparate. Disdain of danger to oneself is especially to be expected
where available risk-averse alternatives are likely to produce a fitness of
zero: if opting out of dangerous competition maximizes longevity but
never permits the accrual of sufficient resources to reproduce, then se-
lection will favor opting in (Rubin and Paul 1979). Further theoretical
modeling and research are needed to determine whether even small sex
differences in fitness variance, such as those likely to have been char-
acteristic of our foraging ancestors, could be sufficient to account for
large sex differences in risk-proneness and mortality.
Alternatively, an adequate explanation of the large h u m a n sex differ-
ence in violent competition may have to focus on peculiarities of this
species. Perhaps the h u m a n propensity to coalitional aggression and
deterrent vengeance has raised the premium on masculine competitive
preoccupations and skills beyond what is d e m a n d e d of less socially
complex animal species (Alexander 1971; Chagnon 1988). Perhaps a hunt-
ing specialization has incidentally elevated men's violent capabilities so
that the cost-benefit structure of male-male vs. female-female conflicts
is more different than it would be if the sexes foraged similarly. Perhaps
contemporary weapon technology s o m e h o w amplifies sex differences in
lethal outcomes, which were less extreme in the environments in which
the h u m a n social psyche evolved (though the cross-cultural evidence
provides no particular reason to believe this). Transforming such spec-
ulations into testable theories is a challenge that will require (at the least)
strategic modeling (Tooby and DeVore 1987) and explicit postulation of
empirically demonstrable psychological mechanisms. We also n e e d to
90 Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

develop theories of facultative variation in conflictual inclinations in

response to demographic and ecological factors. The intensities of male-
male and female-female competition vary inversely with one another in
relation to operational sex-ratio variation and attendant competition for
mates (Emlen and Oring 1977), for example; competition also varies in
relation to cohort size (Cohen and Land 1987; Easterlin 1980) and, be-
tween societies, in relation to modes of subsistence and the monopoli-
zability of resources (Flinn and Low 1986). Elucidation of the relation-
ships between these factors and the strategic organization of competitive
psychology will require further theory development and research.

THE KILLER'S AGE

In 1983, two prominent American criminologists, Travis Hirschi and

Michael Gottfredson, provoked a storm of controversy by arguing
(among other things) that

(1) "the age distribution of crime is invariant across social and cultural
conditions," [and]
(2) "the age distribution of crime cannot be accounted for by any vari-
able or combination of variables currently available to criminology"
(1983:554).

This age distribution entails onset in adolescence followed by a quick

rise to maximal rates or probabilities of offending, which then decline
steadily throughout adulthood. Much of the ensuing controversy is of
tangential relevance to our present topic, concerning, for example, the
merits of longitudinal vs. cross-sectional research designs and the va-
lidity of the concept of "career criminals." But other aspects of the de-
bate have been enlightening.
Several critics have disputed Hirschi and Gottfredson's claims, attack-
ing proposition (1) by documenting some variability in age distributions
and proposition (2) by asserting the explanatory adequacy of existing
criminological theories. Ironically, these attacks have underscored the
considerable element of truth in Hirschi and Gottfredson's polemic. Tit-
tle (1988), for example, maintains that traditional criminological theories
of "labeling" and "social control" can account for the age effect perfectly
well; to a skeptical reader, Tittle's argument shows only that "labeling"
and "social control" are not predictive theories at all and could be talked
about whatever the age pattern. [See Gove (1985) who derives from
labeling theory the contrary prediction that criminal activity should in-
crease with age.] Other critics have focused on the overstatement in
Killing the Competition 91

Hirschi and Gottfredson's claim of "invariance." Steffensmeier et al.

(1989), for example, show that robbery and arson peak a little later than
auto theft and burglary, and that white collar crimes peak much later still;
in so doing, they grant the remarkable consistency of offense-specific age
patterns and the universality of a unimodal inverted-U age distribution.
The general impression left by these exchanges is that Hirschi and Gott-
fredson's age distribution is extremely robust, especially with regard to
crimes involving an element of confrontation and risk of injury.
Figure 1 presents age- and sex-specific rates of committing the crime
with which this paper is concerned, namely killing unrelated persons of
one's o w n sex. Though the rates of such homicides differ greatly among
the four samples, sex differences and the shapes of age distributions are
remarkably similar. The median ages of males w h o killed unrelated males
in Canada, Chicago, Detroit, and England/Wales were 26, 24, 27, and 25,
respectively; the corresponding median ages for females were 26, 24, 24,
and 35.
The data archives from which Figure 1 is derived are victim-based. If
a man killed three unrelated men in a single incident, for example, he
contributed three homicides to the numbers perpetrated by his age cat-
egory. One might argue that an analysis such as this should count killers
rather than victims; we would reply that the number of persons killed
constitutes the more straightforward measure of the lethality perpe-
trated by a particular demographic class. A single killer is counted for
each body, although multiple-offender cases occur in all four archives.
Use of an offender-based file would have little effect on the patterns in
Figure 1 in any case; it would shift them slightly toward youth because
a larger proportion of the cases perpetrated by y o u n g m e n involve mul-
tiple offenders than of those perpetrated by older men.
The individual "credited" with the killing was the first offender listed
by the police. The first offender is usually the party most clearly culpable
and charged with the most serious offence if such variability among
offenders exists. However, Block (1987) notes that there is also a poten-
tial age bias in the Chicago file: "older offenders tend to be listed first"
(1987:20). The impact of any such bias on the age patterns in Figure 1
cannot be large since the tendency Block notes is slight, multiple-
offender cases constitute a minority of the cases portrayed, and the of-
fenders in such cases are almost always very close in age to one another.

THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY OF LIFE-STAGE-SPECIFIC

COMPETITIVE RISK-PRONENESS

Not only are young men the principal perpetrators of potentially lethal
violence; they are its principal victims, too (e.g., Block 1987; Holinger
92 H u m a n Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

80- A

~ 50-
~.4o.
~.~. Mole

A~ C~ore)

30-

~.20. .e- Male

e-

.o -~ Female

0
"T 5,

0 ..f-._.._~, ~ ~ ~ ; ~ : ~ _ .

Age 6,ears)
Figure 1. Age- and sex-specific rates of killing nonrelatives of one's own sex:
(A) Canada, 1974-1983; (B) England/Wales, 1977-1986; (C) Chicago, 1965-1981;
(D) Detroit, 1972.
 Killing the Competition 93

9oo. C

~
L

~.
7oo-

i~
~o~'~176
~ 2oo.

100.

O~

1400- D

1200-

1000-

9e- Mole
800-
-.- F e m a l e

600-

.g
"I- 200-

O:

A ~ (yo~,,,)
94 Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

1987; Daly and Wilson 1988a). This is especially so where rates of lethal
violence are high, because cases in which victim and killer are unrelated
young men constitute the most volatile component of variable homicide
rates (Block 1975; Daly and Wilson 1989). Many homicides arise out of
social conflicts among acquaintances in which either party might have
killed the other, with the result that victim and killer populations are
similar demographically (Wilson and Daly 1985). Accident victimization
risk tends to parallel homicide victimization and perpetration (Hewlett
1988; Holinger 1987; Wilson and Daly 1985). Maleness, youth, and poor
economic circumstances and prospects are all predictive of relatively
dangerous or reckless behavioral inclinations.
We have already discussed the utilitarian logic by which poverty and
poor prospects favor risk-proneness: as Dylan (1965) put it, " w h e n you
got nothing, you got nothing to lose." But the relationship between
youth and risk-proneness requires further explanation. Why should it
be young m e n - - a t the peak of their physical capabilities and in the very
stage of life at which mortality from disease and defect is l o w e s t - - w h o
are maximally risk- prone and vulnerable to violent death? All else being
equal, might we not expect increasing age to be associated with increas-
ing disdain for one's own safety? And as for gender, w h y should not
young w o m e n respond as desperately as young men to their no less
desperate circumstances? It is a fact so familiar as to seem ordinary that
the very demographic class that is most formidable in violence (young
adult males) is also most vulnerable thereto, but it is a remarkable fact
nonetheless and one in need of explanation.
We hypothesize that the requisite explanation lies in the social de-
mands and agendas that confronted ancestral men and w o m e n in par-
ticular life stages (see also Rubin and Paul 1979). Young men are both
especially formidable and especially risk-prone because they constitute
the demographic class on which there was the most intense selection for
confrontational competitive capabilities among our ancestors.
In the foraging societies in which the h u m a n psyche evolved, the
young man who would acquire a wife had to display prowess in hunting
and warfare and a capacity to defend his interests, to w o m e n and to any
men who might hinder or facilitate his ambitions. Moreover, although
young adulthood is an especially competitive stage for any male mam-
mal, human social complexity can make the consequences of differential
performance in that stage enduring and hence even more crucial. In
most effectively polygynous animals, a male's continuing success is de-
pendent on his continuing competitive prowess; a senior stag is as ag-
gressive and dangerous as the y o u n g bucks or he is finished (Clutton-
Brock et al. 1982). But in people, ubiquitous practices of long-term
paternal and nepotistic investment, solidary kin groups, between-group
Killing the Competition 95

hostilities, and coalitional reciprocity create an arena within which in-

dividual reputations have lasting effects.
The hypothesis that competitive success or failure in early adulthood
has been an especially strong determinant of total lifetime fitness in men
as compared to other male mammals warrants empirical investigation;
early competitive performance may have major long-term consequences
in other creatures, too. Our general argument about sex- and life-stage-
specific competitive inclinations having been shaped by sexual selection
does not require that people be special in these matters. People are
clearly special, however, in that individuals acquire reputations which
affect their social fortunes. Demonstrations of competence in the face of
danger reap reputational (and perhaps direct material) rewards whose
utility persists over the rest of the lifespan. Successful risk-taking is
admired (e.g., Fishbain et al. 1987; Moore 1972; Wilson and Daly 1985),
and much dangerous and violent behavior by young men functions
as social display facilitated by the presence of an audience to impress
(Daly and Wilson 1988a; Jackson and Gray 1976; Rothe 1987; Wilson and
Daly 1985).
Several other lines of evidence about life-span development support
the idea that young men constitute a demographic class specialized by a
history of selection for maximal competitive effort. Changes in muscle
strength which are apparently unrelated to exercise, for example, show
characteristic sex-specific patterns: male strength increases abruptly at
puberty and only slightly in the following decade (McComas et al. 1973);
strength subsequently declines gradually in adults of both sexes, but
especially in men (Murray et al. 1985). Aerobic capacity is likewise max-
imal and maximally sexually differentiated in the teens and twenties
(e.g., Shephard 1986). Sex differences in various sorts of motor perfor-
mance favoring males tend generally to increase around puberty, but
this is much more striking with respect to measures of strength and
quick energetic bursts than in measures of balance and precision (Thom-
as and French 1985).
Not only are young men the most physically formidable of human
demographic classes, they also appear to be psychologically specialized
to embrace danger and confrontational competition. In various activities,
young men have been found to be especially motivated by competition
and especially undeterred by danger to self (reviews by Gore 1985;
Holinger 1987; Jonah 1986; Kandel 1980; Tonkin 1987; Wilson and Daly
1985). "Age is by far the most powerful predictor of the cessation of those
forms of deviant behavior that involve substantial risk and/or physically
demanding behavior" begins Walter Gove (1985:115), in a provocative
chapter in which he asserts that his own discipline of sociology has no
handle on age or sex differences in "deviance" and argues the need for
96 Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

"a biopsychosocial perspective." Gove reviews m u c h intriguing but

sketchy evidence of life-span developmental changes in motives, tastes,
and attitudes in spheres such as competitiveness, self-absorption, mor-
alizing, need for approval, emotionality, and stimulation-seeking, all of
which seem to reflect a declining appetite and/or aptitude for risk and
competition over the course of adulthood. Unfortunately, although Gove
offers a rich characterization of these life-span changes, he offers no
functional (strategic) interpretation of them, and he gratuitously implies
that life-span development progresses toward superior attributes rather
than constituting a series of life-stage-appropriate phenotypes. [See Al-
exander (1987) for a critique and reevaluation of similarly gerontocentric
accounts of "moral development."]
It is interesting to inquire how age- and gender-related variations in
effective risk-proneness are instantiated psychologically. Wilson and
Herrnstein (1985) argue from diverse evidence that men who engage in
predatory violence and other risky criminal activity have different "time-
horizons" than law-abiding men, weighing the near future relatively
heavily in their decision making and discounting the long term. What
these authors fail to note is that facultative adjustment of one's personal
time-horizons could be an adaptive response to predictive information
about one's prospects for longevity and eventual success. Many other
psychological processes of potential relevance can be envisioned. One
could become more risk-prone as a result of intensified desire for the
fruits of success or intensified fear of the stigma of nonparticipation, by
finding the adrenalin rush of danger pleasurable in itself, by underes-
timating objective dangers, by overestimating one's competence, or by
ceasing to care whether one lives or dies, among other possibilities.
Several of these processes appear to be relevant to the risk-proneness of
young men. As drivers, for example, they both underestimate objective
risks and overestimate their own skills, as compared to older drivers
(Brown and Groeger 1988; Finn and Bragg 1986; Matthews and Moran
1986). Apparent disdain for their own lives might be inferred from the
fact that men's suicide rates maximally surpass women's in young adult-
hood (e.g., Holinger 1987). And G o r e (1985) provides some evidence
that the pleasure derived from skilled encounters with danger dimin-
ishes with age.

IS AGE SIMPLY A CORRELATE OF CIRCUMSTANCE?

An alternative to the hypothesis that m e n have evolved an adaptive

life-span schedule of risk-proneness is that age patterns such as those
evident in Figure 1 are entirely the result of changes in relevant circum-
Killing the Competition 97

stances which happen to be correlated with age. Mated status, for ex-
ample, would be expected to inspire a reduction in dangerous behavior,
because access to mates is a principal issue inspiring competition and
married men have more to lose than their single counterparts. One
might therefore hypothesize that the decline in violence with age is
entirely accounted for by increases in the proportion married. This
proves not to be the case. Figure 2 presents such a breakdown for the
two of our four homicide data sets for which the requisite information
on marital status was available. Marital status is indeed related to the
probability of committing a same-sex, nonrelative homicide, but age
effects remain conspicuous w h e n married and unmarried m e n are dis-
tinguished.
We must caution that the evidence in Figure 2 of an association be-
tween marital status and same-sex, nonrelative homicides warrants no
condusion about the direction of causality. It seems plausible that the
state of marriage makes men more pacific and risk-averse; however, the
data are equally consistent with the interpretation that marriage is not
itself effectual but is just more likely to be entered into by men who are
less homicidally inclined. Evidence against this latter possibility and in
favor of the pacifying effect of marriage per se comes from a further
breakdown of the "unmarried" category in the Canadian data: although
numbers are small and rate estimates noisy, both divorced and w i d o w e d
men exhibit homicide rates similar to those of single men and m u c h
higher than those of married men at all ages, suggesting that the risk-
proneness of single men is reinstated if marriage ends. An alternative
interpretation is that those who divorce might constitute a violence-
prone sample of ever-married men, but it seems less likely that the same
would apply to those widowed.
Other life events may account for additional age-associated variability.
Restricted access to material resources, like restricted access to the op-
posite sex, can inspire a utilitarian escalation of dangerous competitive
tactics and can be especially a problem in y o u t h (Cohen and Machalek
1988). Unemployed men behave more dangerously than those with
jobs, and unemployment rates are maximal in y o u n g adulthood (Wilson
and Daly 1985). It also seems likely that becoming a father would be
associated with reduced risk-proneness, but the requisite data to assess
any such influence of fatherhood on the patterns in Figures 1 and 2 are
not available.
Hirschi and Gottfredson argue that "Change in crime with age appar-
ently cannot be e x p l a i n e d . . , by change in the social situation of people
over the course of life" (1986:67). The evidence they introduce in sup-
port of this claim is selected with respect to life stage, and it is of dubious
probative value. They deny the relevance of increasing e m p l o y m e n t as
98 H u m a n Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

90. A

80.

70.
~ Unmarried I
b 60. [] Married
Q.

g
9- 50.

E
b 40.
Q..

~ 3o.

"~ 20-

10-

15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 >64

Age (,years)

1400-

1200 -
s
~ 1000- 1"1Unmorried I
lJ [] Married
a.

~ 800-
E
b
O.
600.
m
ID

.o 400-

200.

15-24. 25-34 35-4.4- 4.5-54. 55-64 >64.

Age (years)
Figure 2. Age-specific rates of killing unrelated m a l e s by married vs. unmar-
ried men: (A) Canada, 1974--1983; (B) Detroit, 1972.
Killing the Competition 99

a partial determinant of age-related declines in crime, for example, by

citing some evidence that working teenagers are not less likely to be
arrested than nonworking teenagers. But this comparison is probably
more a matter of out-of-school vs. in-school than of employed vs. un-
employed; in Detroit, homicide perpetration is unrelated to employment
status among teenagers, but it is much more prevalent among the un-
employed than the employed at all subsequent ages (Wilson and Daly
1985). Similarly, Hirschi and Gottfredson (1986) deny the relevance of
acquiring a girlfriend, on the basis of evidence that delinquent boys are
likelier to have girlfriends than their nondelinquent counterparts.
Again, their point works only because they restrict the comparison to
teenagers, among w h o m early maturers are likely to be both earlier
delinquent and earlier sexually active than later maturers. Figure 2
shows that although homicide rates by married and single men are
similar for the youngest group, they are very different beyond 25 years
of age. Finally, Hirschi and Gottfredson (1986) deny the relevance of
becoming a father, but on this issue they present no evidence at all. We
agree that age effects would be unlikely to disappear altogether in an
analysis that controlled for correlated circumstances, but no such anal-
ysis has yet been conducted, and what we do k n o w provides no reason
to doubt that changing circumstances account for much age-associated
variation.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

This question of whether age (or sex) effects would evaporate if associ-
ated circumstances were factored out appears to be the substantive point
of contention behind much of the confusing debate about social vs.
biological explanations. If 15-year-olds and 50-year-olds were found to
differ solely as a result of differences in the frequencies at which they
encounter specific situations, and not in their responses thereto, then
the idea of an evolved schedule of life-stage-appropriate psychology
would be superfluous. But then so would any notion of postpubertal
development. Presumably no one defends such an extreme version of
situational determinism: even the most enthusiastic sociological critic of
psychological reductionism recognizes that cumulative experience
changes people. What is less often recognized is that some sort of com-
plex functional theory of life-span development is necessary to account
for the particular ways in which experiences matter.
The prevalent view of life-span development in the social sciences is
the obsolete model of "general process learning theory." After review-
ing some interesting evidence that the affect associated with "adrenaline
100 Human Nature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990

highs" shifts from positive to negative over the life span, for example,
Gove adds the gratuitous claim that this change is understandable as
resulting from conditioning, since "adrenaline highs are paired with
substantial risk and thus anxiety" (1985:134). Not only does this argu-
ment provide no more reason to suppose that "adrenaline highs" will
become negative than that "anxiety" will become positive, but the life-
span changes that Gove reviews clearly do not proceed as a function of
the number of "pairings," as general process learning theory requires.
Similarly, Baldwin argues that the rapid postadolescent decline in crime
can be understood as reflecting a predictable decline in "the sensory
rewards of thrill and adventure seeking" (1984:1326) " d u e to habitua-
tion" (1984:1327). As Symons has responded to an analogous proposal
about waning sexual interest in familiar partners, "an actual neural pro-
cess, habituation, becomes a metaphor for boredom. The problem with
this metaphor is that it also explains w h y koalas become bored eating
eucalyptus leaves" (1987:137). Appeals to domain-general concepts such
as "learning," "habituation," and "reinforcement" are commonly mis-
taken for explanations of developmental patterns, but they are at best
redescriptions of the phenomena begging explanation (Cosmides and
Tooby 1987; Symons 1987; Tooby and Cosmides 1989). Because of its
domain-general pretensions, learning theory offers no insight into the
reasons w h y familiarity breeds attachment in one domain and loss of
interest in another. The domain-specific ways in which classes of expe-
rience affect development are themselves targets of selection over evo-
lutionary time, leading to strategically organized ontogenies, buffered
against manipulation by individuals with antagonistic interests.
Note that an evolutionary psychological view of people does not
imply that they are irrational automata, but rather that their behavior is
the result of decision processes with a cost-benefit structure that
instantiates age-, sex-, and circumstance-specific valuations of various
classes of material and social goods. Evolutionary models of the
life-span agendas of men and w o m e n indicate how behavioral control
mechanisms must be strategically organized to have achieved adaptive
ends in ancestral environments, and this way of thinking can direct the
attention of psychologists to relevant variables and processes. Knowing
what the mind has been "designed" by selection to achieve affords
numerous hints about its probable organization (Cosmides 1989; Cos-
mides and Tooby 1989).
Despite considerable research on risk perception, subjective probabil-
ity, and the heuristics of decision-making (e.g., Kahneman et al. 1982;
Lopes 1987; Nisbett and Ross 1980; Slovic 1987), differences in response
as a function of age or sex have hitherto been treated largely as "noise"
rather than as meaningful phenomena. Moreover, the distinction be-
Killing the Competition 101

tween outcomes impacting directly on the decision-maker and those

more hypothetical or impacting on someone else has been trivialized.
Researchers in this area often maintain that h u m a n decision processes,
by relying on irrational "rules of t h u m b " such as over-valuing recent
information and ignoring negative instances, constitute flawed but ad-
equate approximations to formal logical inference. We cannot judge h o w
well or poorly our heuristics serve our purposes, however, until we
specify those purposes (Cosmides 1989). Decision theorists have yet to
address the functional significance of domain-specific decision processes
in any depth, presumably because they lack a fundamental theory of
self-interest from which to derive predictions about the utilities and
subjective costs of alternative consequences of one's decisions. One m a y
readily presume, for example, that death will be a major cost, and an
appreciable risk thereof a major deterrent, without apprehending that
an evolved psyche might effectively treat the "genetic death" of nonre-
production as an equally negative outcome: a sexually selected appetite
for confrontational competition can be adaptive even where it entails a
high risk of mortality.

We wish to thank the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada for financial support. We thank Caro-
lyn Rebecca Block and Richard Block (Chicago); James Bannon, Robert Hislop,
and Marie Wilt Swanson (Detroit);)oanne Lacroix, Craig McKie, and Bryan
Reingold (Canada); and Rosemary Gartner, Mary Tuck, L. Davidoff, Kathleen
Shaw, and Michael O'Brien (England/Wales) for their help in creating and mak-
ing available the homicide data files; and Jim Karr for his role in the number
crunching.
Martin Daly and Margo Wilsoncollaboratein research on the evolutionarypsychologyof
human conflict, and in field research in mammalian behavioral ecology. They are the
authors of Sex, Evolution and Behavior (Wadsworth: second edition, 1983) and Homicide
(Aldine de Gruyter: 1988).

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