DEVELOPMENTAL STABILITY AND HUMAN VIOLENCE

Developmental stability (the precision with which genotypes are transl ated into phenotypes under physically stressful developmental conditio ns), is a major source of phenotypic and behavioural variation, yet re searchers have largely ignored its potential role in the ontogeny of i ndividual propensities toward human aggression and violence. In this s tudy, we measured fluctuating asymmetry of the body and administered a ggression and fighting history questionnaires to 229 college students (139 female and 90 male undergraduates). Among males, but not females, fluctuating asymmetry correlated negatively and significantly with th e participants' number of fights and propensity to escalate agonistic encounters to physical violence. Principal components analyses and scr ee tests suggested that two psychometric factors underlie observed cor relations between self-report measures of aggressive tendencies. The f irst factor, 'aggressive negative affect: reflected verbal aggression and hostility toward others, while the second factor, 'self-assessed f ighting ability: reflected physical violence and a tendency to win fig hts. The two factors correlated minimally. For both males and females, the second factor correlated with number of fights while the first fa ctor did not. Fluctuating asymmetry did not significantly correlate wi th either factor for either sex, but for both sexes, psychometric inte lligence (IQS correlated positively with the first factor.