#189 Viviana Weekes-Shackelford: Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, And Modern Society
Dr. Viviana Weekes-Shackelford received her Ph.D. in evolutionary developmental psychology in 2011 from Florida Atlantic University. She is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in Sociology and Criminal Justice at Oakland University and Co-Director of the Evolutionary Psychology Lab. Her research over the years has been evolutionarily inspired and has had the broader goal of gaining a more comprehensive understanding of violence and conflict in families and romantic relationships. Her research interests and record cut across the psychological domains of forensics, development, social, personality, clinical, and criminology.
In this episode, we expand on the first interview I’ve had with Dr. Todd Shackelford (https://youtu.be/-sFFlebGP70), and talk about things related to human romantic relationships and parent-offspring conflict. First, we discuss the importance of parental investment theory in understanding where conflict in romantic relationships stems from, and the role that fathers play in raising children. We also try to conceive how this knowledge could translate into social policy, when it comes to child support and other kinds of social issues. Then, we talk about domestic violence as a set of evolved mate guarding tactics, and violence exerted on children on the part of genetic parents and stepparents. And, finally, before talking about the specific case of filicide-suicide, we go off on a tangent to talk about evolutionary mismatch and some ways by which modern environments might affect us, including technology like social media.
Time Links:
Applying parental investment theory to better understand the evolutionary bases of conflict between partners
Evolutionary psychology as a new framework of looking at life
The role of fathers in raising children
Can we put knowledge from Evolutionary Psychology (EP) to use in the development of child support policy?
How to better apply EP insights to social issues
Domestic violence and mate guarding tactics
Parent-offspring conflict and filicide, infanticide and neonaticide
Violence on the part of biological parents and stepparents
Evolutionary mismatch, and how modern environments might affect us in negative ways
The ways social media might be messing with kids’ minds
The cases of filicide-suicide
Follow Dr. Weekes-Shackelford’s work!
Follow Dr. Weekes-Shackelford’s work:
Darwinian Diva blog: https://darwiniandivaphd.com/
Evolutionary Psychology Lab (Oakland University): https://bit.ly/2Ds3mXc
Researchgate profile: https://bit.ly/2ToysrV
Edited books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ViluNd
Twitter handle: @darwiniandiva