Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, And Modern Society w/ Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

Hi, everybody! Today, I bring you an interview with Dr. Viviana Weekes-Shackelford. She 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, 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. 

https://youtu.be/1eIgvW2t5JA

Link to podcast version (Anchor): https://bit.ly/2Kib3UZ