Homicidal ideations

Tens of thousands of murders are committed worldwide each year, yet the psychology of homicide is not well understood. Although a number of theories have been proposed to explain homicide, none provide a complete or compelling account of existing patterns of murder and all are silent on the topic of the homicidal fantasies experienced by adults in the general population. A novel, adaptationist approach to homicide is employed in the current research to generate specific predictions about people’s homicidal ideations. Murder is hypothesized to have contributed to the solution to recurrent problems faced by our ancestors, such as threats of physical harm, spousal infidelity, reputational damage, sexual victimization, and threats to the well-being of kin. Specific hypotheses about the nature and content of people’s homicidal ideations are generated from this adaptationist explanation, including: (a) The majority of homicidal fantasies will involve killing others who are not genetically related; (b) When men and women experience a homicidal fantasy as a result of their romantic partners’ infidelity or cues to infidelity, they will be more likely to think of killing the intrasexual rival their partner is cheating with rather than their romantic partner; and (c) Men will be more likely than women to report experiencing a homicidal thought as a result of a romantic partner’s infidelity. To test these and other hypotheses, participants from the Austin community completed a survey instrument that asked a series of questions about their most memorable fantasy of killing someone else. Seventy-six percent of women and 91 percent of men reported having at least one homicidal thought in their lifetime. The person both men and women most frequently thought of killing was an intrasexual rival. The majority of homicidal fantasies involved the murder of someone who was not a genetic relative. Men were significantly more likely than women to have a murder fantasy triggered by a romantic partner’s infidelity. Women were more likely than men think of killing a rival who damaged their sexual reputation. These and other findings were predicted in advance by Homicide Adaptation Theory (Buss & Duntley, under review).