Scientific Blackpill: Difference between revisions

Machiavellianism in particular may serve to assist individuals in negotiating their social world (Turpin, 2021), explaining the general prevalence of Machiavellianism as evidenced by high rates of [[mate poaching]] in the overall population, and Machiavellianism not even being linked to evolutionarily more ancient fast life history strategies, despite being considered a "dark" personality trait (Davis, 2019). However, notably only the calculated and manipulative aspect of Machiavellianism such as lying effectively is actually linked to higher general intelligence (Zhang, 2018), but nonetheless such competition might select for higher specialized/non-general, especially verbal skills which require to be accommodated by more neuronal capacity and larger, complex brains.

Selection for socially complex, Machiavellian behavior would act at multiple levels, from intrasexual to intragroup to intergroup competition, and bullying behavior toward the neurodivergent might be explained by such individuals being particularly easy prey of Machiavellian, socially competitive behavior.

Apart from socially competitive behavior, bullying might also play a role in socially synergistic behavior. In particular, bullying may prevent from individuals straying away from the group's shared goals and values thereby increasing the group's cohesion, and might also ensure a high level of body hygiene thereby increasing the group's parasite resistance.

More speculatively, bullying and avoidance of the [[neurodivergent]] may be an instance of [[wikipedia:Behavioral immune system|behavioral immune system]], i.e. adaptations that lower the risk the of becoming infected by neurotoxic or neuroactive infectious diseases (Curtis, 2011). Parasites alone account for 67% of the worldwide variation in intelligence and the virus ''toxoplasma gondii'' has been suspected to be linked to schizophrenia and lowered IQ (Willyard, 2010, Hunter, 2012).