The bell rang and the high school kids rushed out with vigour as if released from a prison. As they were leaving their classrooms, boys and girls showed different kinds of behaviours. While the girls walked slowly and with grace, boys could be seen doing a number of things such as kicking one another, tripping and hitting one another, taking things from one another, pushing and shoving one another, and chasing after one another.In all cultures, men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of violence and aggression and their victims are mostly other men. Since a very young age, boys seem to show interest in all things associated with some form of violence such as guns, wrestling, martial arts, action heroes, violent video games, etc.Many people falsely think that what makes men violent is the over-exposure to violent stuff such as violent video games. The truth is that men, on average, are inherently violent. As you’ll see soon, they have an evolutionary imperative to be so. This is why they prefer violent stuff in the first place. Violent video game designers only satisfy an instinct that’s already there.The evolutionary roots of male violenceEver seen elephant seals mate? No? Well, why would you? I’m sure you’ve got better things to watch, given how ugly these animals are. Anyway, they can teach us a lot about the violent behaviour that’s seen in human males.Elephant seals gather on a beach or a seashore during their mating season and lie there in all their ugliness, waiting for sex. The males engage in very violent fights- screaming and biting one another, till one of them (usually the largest and the strongest) dominates nearly all other males and gets to mate with all the females.If a defeated male creeps back in to win a copulation or two, the females raise an alarm and alert the alpha male which then scares off the rejected male.Male elephant seals engaged in a bloody combat.In humans, intrasexual competition among the males throughout our evolutionary history has been quite similar to that seen in elephant seals.Since human females invest more heavily in the offspring, they’re a valuable limiting resource on reproduction for males. Males are constrained in their reproduction by their ability to gain sexual access to high-investing females.This sex difference in minimum obligatory parental investment means that males can produce more offspring than females can. This difference leads to a different reproductive variance of males and females. Reproductive variance simply means how varying your chances of reproduction are.While most human females reproduce sooner or later (since they invest a lot and so are in demand), men can be totally denied a chance to pass on their genes. This is what is meant by ‘high reproductive variance’ of human males.   Consequences of a high reproductive varianceHigh reproductive variance in men leads to riskier strategies for securing reproduction. The males that take more risks are more likely to be reproductively successful. Due to this, some males gain more than their ‘fair share’ of copulations, while other males are shut out entirely (like defeated male elephant seals).This leads to more ferocious competition within the high-variance sex. Polygyny, over evolutionary time, selects for risky strategies, including those that lead to violent combat with rivals and those that lead to increased risk taking to acquire the resources needed to attract members of the high-investing sex.This is why human males engage in a lot of violence with one another, even if it may have no direct bearing on their reproductive success in the given moment e.g. pre-pubescent boys wrestling with each other. This evolutionarily important behaviour has to be practised since childhood just as boxers practise a lot before the actual fight. Passing on one’s genes is an important matter biologically speaking, and therefore our psychology is evolved to ensure that we practise behaviors that contribute to our reproductive success in the future.Women, on the other hand, have nothing to gain by being violent but a lot to lose. Women need to place a higher value on their own lives than do men on theirs, given the fact that infants depend on maternal care more than on paternal care. Women’s evolved psychology, therefore, should reflect greater fearfulness of situations that pose a physical threat of bodily injury and avoidance of such situations as much as possible.Instead of violent physical aggression, women’s intrasexual competition manifests as gossiping, shunning the other person, spreading vicious rumours, breaking contact with the other person and befriending someone else.Also, as children and teens, women prefer more nurturing behaviours such as feeding and grooming their dolls or looking after other infants in the family than playing with guns and action hero figures.It’s all nothing but practice- practice of evolutionarily important things to come in the future.

The boy was just fourteen and he had blood smeared all over the front of his school uniform shirt. He had beaten up a classmate who had bled from his nose. An eerie silence filled the scene as the badly beaten boy was helped to the washroom by some other students who’d been witnessing the fight.Jim glanced at the blood on his shirt, half-proud and half-sad at what he had done.Advantages of aggressionMany people have this rosy idea that nature is a peaceful garden buzzing with flora and fauna living in harmony with each other and that man, if he’s uncorrupted by evil, will return to his true nature of divine love that imbues all life.Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, violence is everywhere in nature. Every nook and cranny of the earth are filled with critters tumbling and turning over each other, killing and devouring each other in their struggle for existence and reproduction.From the Venus flytrap flapping its leaves to trap an unsuspecting insect to a cheetah chasing down and hunting a deer, violence is the name of the game when it comes to nature.Humans are no different. A cursory reading of history will tell you that the amount of violence that humans have engaged in brings what you see on Discovery and National Geographic to shame.The reason why the psychological mechanisms of violence and aggression are prevalent in nature is because they have important evolutionary advantages… Getting resourcesAfter that fight, everyone in the school feared Jim. When he asked favours from his classmates, they rarely denied. He bullied his classmates into giving him their lunch, money, and belongings.Resources are keys to survival and reproduction. Humans acquire resources through work, stealing, trickery or aggression. This is why, when you open any history textbook, all you read about is conquests, invasions, and battles.Since gaining resources boost the chance of their reproductive success, males are especially driven to seek and acquire resources.DefenceJim’s aggressive nature deterred potential attackers who could have gone after what he had. Since no one could bully him, he was able to guard his own resources. He formed a gang with a bunch of other boys to ensure that nobody could overpower them.When you obtain resources, the next important step is to ensure that you don’t lose them to your competitors. Violence and aggression over resources have been the primary source of conflict between family members, spouses, and even nations. Individuals and groups of people that are able to guard their resources are more likely to survive and reproduce.         Intrasexual competitionJim, thanks to his evolutionarily advantageous traits, received attention from a lot of girls. He and his gang engaged in a lot of fights over girls. If any gang member liked a girl, then an outsider who hit on that girl was threatened and thrashed. To increase the chances of one’s own reproductive success, intra-sexual competition has to be reduced. By developing a reputation for aggressive behaviour, a male is less likely to face competition from other males for females.Status and power hierarchyEver since Jim had that fight, he was not only feared but also respected and admired. He had attained a high status among his peers. Many of his classmates looked up to him and wanted to be like him. They copied his hairstyle, manner of speaking and walking.Human males, like male chimpanzees, form coalitions to achieve dominance and power. The more aggressive the members of an alliance, the more dominant they’re likely to be.Watch how these male chimpanzees reject a young male who tries join them in order to raise its status… Men, right from their teenage years, are sensitive to any changes in power hierarchy in their societies. In teenage, they talk about the fights that broke out in the school playground and who thrashed whom and, as adults, they actively talk about politics and how one country invaded the other.Aggressors have always been admired by males because the trait of aggressiveness is evolutionarily advantageous for males. Sports are another way by which people, especially men, gauge who’s the most powerful amongst them.Just as early hunter-gatherer societies admired men who risked their lives and went on dangerous hunting expeditions, modern societies admire and reward the ‘brave soldiers’ and ‘competitive sportsmen’ with medals and trophies. The more direct the physical aggression in a sport, the more admired the sportsperson is. For example, boxing and wrestling champions are more admired than Tennis champions.  This is the reason why men are so passionate about sports. They identify themselves with their favorite sportsmen and see them as role models. Any character, fictional or real, who’s dominant and aggressive is admired by men.  Real examples would include characters like Alexander, Ghengis Khan and Hannibal while fictional would include the “heroes” in superhero and action movies that are disproportionately viewed by more men than women.