ABSTRACT
The field of evolutionary biology uses the same models and theories to explain the maternal behaviour of chimpanzees as it does to explain the dynamic growth patterns of plants. Evolutionary psychologists extend that view to the human brain. This chapter gives a brief introduction to the field of evolutionary psychology, and how it can be used to understand criminal behaviour. It then highlights two criminological examples where an evolutionary perspective has been particularly successful: infanticide and domestic violence. Evolutionary psychologists argue that the mind/brain is composed of many information-processing mechanisms that regulate behaviour and other bodily systems in ways that solved particular problems for human ancestors. They use the adaptationist programme to discover the function of different parts of the human mind, including those parts that generate criminal behaviour. Evolutionary psychologists have claimed that the human emotion of sexual jealousy evolved for that function.
