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Updated: May 23, 2026
07:15
Social Defeat Stress Model for Adolescent C57BL/6 Male and Female Mice
Published on: March 15, 2024
Physical strength, fighting ability, and aggressiveness in adolescents
José Antonio Muñoz-Reyes1, Carlos Gil-Burmann, Bernhard Fink
1Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de la Salud, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. josantoniomr@gmail.com.
Summary
Adolescent men
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary psychology
- Human behavior
- Adolescent development
Background:
- Evolutionary pressures may shape mental mechanisms for assessing physical strength and aggressiveness.
- Recalibrational theory suggests anger is a bargaining tool linked to fighting ability in social conflicts.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between fighting ability and aggressiveness in adolescents.
- To test the hypothesis that late adolescent men use anger as a bargaining mechanism due to male competition.
Main Methods:
- Study involved 288 Spanish adolescents aged 14-18 years.
- Fighting ability assessed via handgrip strength (HGS) and self-report.
- Aggressiveness measured through physical and nonphysical forms.
Main Results:
- Positive correlation between perceived fighting ability and HGS in both sexes.
- No link between fighting ability and aggressiveness in late adolescent women.
- For men, fighting ability correlated positively with physical aggression, decreasing with age.
- Late adolescent men showed a positive link between fighting ability and anger.
Conclusions:
- Sex- and age-dependent associations between fighting ability and aggression support divergent adaptive skills.
- Intrasexual competition drives these sex differences in adolescent aggression strategies.
- Anger may shift from a physical to a nonphysical bargaining tool in adolescent men as they age.
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