Paternal Filicide

doi:10.1017/9781108943543.025

21 - Paternal Filicide

from Part III - Postcopulatory Adaptations

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2022

Vibeke Ottesen

Edited by

Todd K. Shackelford

Show author details

Todd K. Shackelford: Affiliation:
Oakland University, Michigan

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Evolutionary perspectives offer a comprehensive theoretical approach to parental investment, as they include not only explanations for why an individual makes such investment, but also for why an individual might withhold such investment. These explanations lay the foundation for deriving predictions concerning when an individual will be more or less likely to withhold investment. This chapter introduces evolutionary psychological perspectives on paternal filicide (i.e., child homicide perpetrated by a man in the context of paternal care). These perspectives suggest that reproductive conflicts between men and the children in their care may activate mechanisms that evolved to regulate paternal investment. These mechanisms may increase the risk of a lethal lowering of investment. Further, these perspectives suggest that reproductive conflicts between men and their current or former partner may activate mechanisms that increase the risk of both filicide and familicide (i.e., the killing of a current or former partner in addition to children). Paternal filicide is then, despite being rare in current societies, no less a result of men’s evolved psychology. This chapter presents the theoretical foundation for disaggregating paternal filicide perpetrators who are genetic fathers from those who are stepfathers of their victims, and paternal filicide perpetrators suffering from nonadaptive psychopathology (such as psychosis or suicidal ideation) from those not suffering from psychopathology. The chapter will further present the theoretical foundation for predicting a distinct pattern of characteristic traits for each of these subcategories, along with a selection of the empirical support for the predicted pattern documented cross-culturally. Although paternal filicide perpetration is reduced to historic lows in several societies, there are still certain groups of men in these societies that are more vulnerable to perpetrating paternal filicide. The chapter will identify these groups of men and suggest why their vulnerability persists, focusing on Scandinavian countries.

Keywords

filicide paternal filicide child homicide familicide child abuse and neglect discriminant parental investment reproductive conflict paternal psychology psychopathology

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology , pp. 489 - 516

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108943543.025 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adinkrah, M. (2003). Men who kill their own children: Paternal filicide incidents in contemporary Fiji. Child Abuse & Neglect, 27, 557–568.Google Scholar

Alder, C., & Polk, K. (2001). Child victims of homicide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Alexander, R. D. (1979). Darwinism and human affairs. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar

Buss, D. M. (2005). The murderer next door. New York, NY: Penguin Press.Google Scholar

Campbell, A. (1999). Staying alive: Evolution, culture, and women’s intrasexual aggression. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 22, 203–252.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar PubMed

Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1994). Some differential attributes of lethal assaults on small children by stepfathers versus genetic fathers. Ethology and Sociobiology, 15, 207–217.Google Scholar

Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (2001). An assessment of some proposed exceptions to the phenomenon of nepotistic discrimination against stepchildren. Annales Zoologici Fennici, 38, 287–296.Google Scholar

Duntley, J. D., & Buss, D. M. (2008). The origins of homicide. In Duntley, J. D. & Shackelford, T. K. (Eds.), Evolutionary forensic psychology: Darwinian foundations of crime and law (pp. 41–65). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Duntley, J. D., & Buss, D. M. (2011). Homicide adaptions. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16, 399–410.Google Scholar

Durrant, J. E. (1999). Evaluating the success of Sweden’s corporal punishment ban. Child Abuse & Neglect, 23, 435–448.Google Scholar

Durrant, J. E. & Janson, S. (2005). Law reform, corporal punishment and child abuse: The case of Sweden. International Review of Victimology, 12, 139–158.Google Scholar

Flynn, S. M., Shaw, J. J., & Abel, K. M. (2013). Filicide: Mental illness in those who kill their children. PLoS One, 8(4), 1–8.Google Scholar

Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour I and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–52.Google Scholar

Harris, G. T., Hilton, N. Z., Rice, M. E., & Eke, A. W. (2007). Children killed by genetic parents versus stepparents. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 85–95.Google Scholar

Hatters Friedman, S. H., Hrouda, D. R., Holden, C. E., Noffsinger, S. G., & Resnick, P. J. (2005). Filicide-suicide: Common factors in parents who kill their children and themselves. The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 33, 496–504.Google Scholar

Kauppi, A., Kumpulainen, K., Karkola, K., Vanamo, T., & Merikanto, J. (2010). Maternal and paternal filicides: A retrospective review of filicides in Finland. The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38, 229–238.Google Scholar

Laurssen, T. M., Munk-Olsen, T., Mortensen, P. B., Abel, K. M., Appleby, M., & Webb, R. T. (2011). Filicide in offspring of parents with severe psychiatric disorders: A population-based cohort study of child homicide. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 72, 698–703.Google Scholar

Lehti, M., Kääriäinen, J., & Kivivuori, J. (2012). The declining number of child homicide in Finland, 1960-2009. Homicide Studies, 16(1), 3–22.CrossRef Google Scholar

Liem, M., & Koenraadt, F. (2008a). Filicide: A comparative study of maternal versus paternal child homicide. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, 18, 166–176.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Liem, M., & Koenraadt, F. (2008b). Familicide: A comparison with spousal and child homicide by mentally disordered perpetrators. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 18, 305–318.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Ottesen, V. (2016). An evolutionary psychological analysis of filicide in Norway, 1990–2009. Doctoral dissertation, University of Oslo. Retrieved from www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/50525 Google Scholar

Ottesen, V. (2020). Filicide. In Shackelford, T & Weekes-Shackelford, V. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of evolutionary psychological science. New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar

Overpeck, M. D., Brenner, R. A., Trumble, A. C., Trifiletti, L. B., & Berendes, H. W. (1998). Risk factors for infant homicide in the Unites States. The New England Journal of Medicine, 339, 1211–1216.Google Scholar

Resnick, P. J. (1969). Child murder by parents: A psychiatric review of filicide. American Journal of Psychiatry, 126(3), 325–334.Google Scholar

Somander, L. K. H., & Rammer, L. M. (1991). Intra- and extra-familial child homicide in Sweden 1971–1980. Child Abuse & Neglect, 15, 45–55.Google Scholar

Sturup, S., & Granath, S. (2014). Child homicide in Sweden: A descriptive study comparing the 1990s and the 2000s. Homicide Studies, 19(1), 175–187.Google Scholar

Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In Campbell, B. (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man, 1871–1971 (pp. 52–95). Chicago, IL: Aldine.Google Scholar

Trivers, R. L. (1974). Parent-offspring conflict. American Zoologist, 14, 249–264.Google Scholar

Weekes-Shackelford, V. A., & Shackelford, T. (2004). Methods of filicide: Stepparents and genetic parents kill differently. Violence & Victims, 19(1), 75–81.Google Scholar

Wilczynski, A. (1997). Child homicide. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Wilson, M., Daly, M., & Daniele, A. (1995) Familicide: The killing of spouse and children. Aggressive Behavior, 21, 275–291.Google Scholar

Book contents

21 - Paternal Filicide

Summary

Keywords

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive