The evolutionary basis of belonging: its relevance to denial of offending and labelling those who offend
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JFP-04-2019-0014 |
| Pages | 202-211 |
| Date | 11 November 2019 |
| Published date | 11 November 2019 |
| Author | Jamie S. Walton |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
The evolutionary basis of belonging:
its relevance to denial of offending and
labelling those who offend
Jamie S. Walton
Abstract
Purpose –The adaptationist approach of evolutionary psychology provides a model of substantial scope for
understanding the function of human behaviour, including harmful behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to
discuss the evolutionary importance of social belonging, and also its relevance to why people deny
stigmatised harmful behaviour, and the potential problems of labelling them by it.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper takes the form of a discussion and professional opinion.
Findings –Evolution reveals how natural selection has shaped the human nervous system for
threat-detection and cooperation. It casts a light on why people convicted of harmful and stigmatised
behaviour may hide, deny and lie as a means of limiting social devaluation and maintaining their fitness to
belong in groups.
Practical implications –Amidst all our efforts as forensic practitioners to empower people to pro-socially
reconnect and lead safer crime-free lives, endlessly associating them with their most unacceptable and
harmful acts, might not help.
Originality/value –Evolutionary forensic psychology and evolutionary criminology are sub-disciplines of
science that are progressively emerging. They place the adaptationist approach front and centre in the study
and theory of criminal behaviour. This paper aims to offer an example of this synergy, but with a specific focus
on forensic practice itself.
Keywords Evolution, Shame, Sexual offending, Labelling, Denial, Devaluation, Social belonging
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
In evolutionarypsychology, scientists use an adaptationist approach (Buss, 2016). This approach
assumes that psychological processes and behaviour can be explained as adaptations that
supportedthe reproductivesuccess of ancestral species.Our ancestors facedmany problems that
threatened their survival and reproduction. Predators, infection, scarcity of resources and mating
competition were amongst the most paramount (Hart and Sussman, 2009, 2011; Harari, 2015;
Trivers, 1972). Some individuals had characteristics that made them better at overcoming these
problems,and therefore, better at reproducing. This is knownas “fitness”. It refers to an individual’s
reproductive success under certain selection pressures in the environment, for example climate
conditions, mating competition and predators. Because many characteristics are heritable, those
that increased fitness were passed on to successive generations in much larger quantities. Over
thousandsof generations, these characteristicswere gradually shaped intoadaptations. This is the
Darwinian process of “natural selection”. Natural selection drives the evolution of adaptations for
fitness in response to selection pressures. The adaptationist approach uses Darwinian processto
generate hypotheses about the adaptive function of traits and behaviour (Buss, 2016).As applied
to forensic psychology, this same approach is used to hypothesise the evolutionarily adaptive
functions of antisocial traits and criminal behaviour (Duntley and Shackelford, 2008; Roach and
Pease, 2013; Durrant and Ward, 2015). This paper aims to provide an example of the use of this
Received 17 April 2019
Revised 25 July 2019
Accepted 30 July 2019
Jamie S. Walton is based at
Interventions Services, HM
Prison and Probation Service,
London, UK and
Interventions Services, HM
Prison Service College,
Rugby, UK.
PAGE202
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JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PRACTICE
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VOL. 21 NO. 4 2019, pp. 202-211, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2050-8794 DOI 10.1108/JFP-04-2019-0014
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