Encyclopedia of Science and Religion | Aggression

Aggression is behavior or a behavioral urge with the object of threatening or harming primarily members of one's own species. Several theories attempt to explain aggression.

Theories of aggression

The theory of instinct in ethology, as proposed by Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), supposes that humans, like other biological creatures, are so constituted that they either continuously or periodically produce physiological energies that must seek outlet in certain kinds of species-specific aggressive behavior. Other ethologists argue that although innate genetic codes, as well as neural and hormonal processes, account for an aggressive disposition, there is no reason to assume the existence of aggressive energies. All ethologists agree, however, that aggression has arisen in the course of evolution and serves the same basic functions in animals and humans in regulating the intercourse between members of a species, although the regulation involves more psychological and cultural aspects with humans than with other animals.

This assumption is endorsed by sociobiology, first systematized by Edward O. Wilson (1929–), which studies the social behavior of humans using evolutionary methods. Like ethologists, sociobiologists presume an innate aggressive disposition in humans, but sociobiologists define innateness as the measurable probability that aggressiveness will develop in a species within a specified set of environments, not the certainty that it will develop in all kinds of environments.

The psychoanalytic drive theory of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) resembles the instinct theory of Lorenz in the assumption that innate drives represent physiological energies. Freud departs from Lorenz, however, by assuming that the activity of the drives does not result in species-specific behavior patterns. Freud concluded that two drive complexes embodied in human beings constitute the basic sources of all human behavior; these were the life-building Eros and the life-demolishing Thanatos, with aggression, directed both outwards against others and inwards against oneself, as its central feature.

The theory of needs by Henry Murray (1893–1988) put forward a list of about twenty presumably universal human needs, among them aggression. In need theory there is no place for physiological energies. If a certain need, such as aggression, is dominant within a person in many different situations, it also appears as a personality trait.

The frustration theory, first presented by John Dollard (1900–1980) and his colleagues, explains aggression in a different way. Although aggression probably is a universal human disposition, aggressive behavior arises only as a reaction to incidents where purposeful behavior is blocked. Because this theory can only explain some kinds of aggression, it was modified by Leonard Berkowitz (1926–), who argued that aggression might still be a basic reaction to frustration.

The theory of learning proposed by Albert Bandura (1925–) and others places the origin of aggression solely in the social environment in assuming that aggressive behavior is learned during life history. Aggression is learned either because it is rewarded, or at least not sanctioned, and thereby reinforced. It may also be learned by observing aggressive behavior at home, on the streets, or from the media and entertainment industries, which show that aggression is worthwhile because it gets results, with aggressive people becoming models for imitation.

There might be elements of truth in all the theories, depending on which kind of aggression is in question in which kind of context: physical or mental, intended or reactive, instrumental or spontaneous, hostile or teasing, assaulting or defending, directed toward others or toward oneself, status demonstration, group conflict, sex, age, personality, and so on. Innumerable circumstances may influence the causes of aggression and aggressive behavior may involve a wide spectrum of explanations.

Aggression as evil

Anger is a faithful partner to aggression. For medieval Christians wrath was one of the seven deadly sins. Only God could pass judgment on righteous and unrighteous deeds, and in many cases anger arises when an offense is experienced as unjust. This tenet might have left deeper marks on culture than people are aware of, showing up in the widespread condemnation of anger and aggression. While moderate anger can instigate constructive action, blind anger often leads to destructive aggression. Yet to psychology and biology even furious anger and aggression cannot in itself be sinful, let alone evil. Because aggression is probably an unavoidable human trait, be it conceived of as innate or acquired, from a scientific point of view the very occurrence of aggression cannot be malice, and the absence of aggression cannot be kindness. For conceptions of good and evil to make scientific sense, evil must be viewed as the absence of an attempt to control aggression, thus preventing love to prevail.

In the animal kingdom human beings alone are able to curb their natural impulses and their learned habits, at least to some extent, and to listen to the voice of conscience, moral qualities that can be learned and even taught using psychological techniques. The attempt to curb aggressive behavior might not succeed, which in itself is not evil because it is bound to happen now and then. Evil is only the absence of the attempt to curb aggression, and the absence of remorse at not doing so. In psychological terms, such remorse could be called guilt in a more general sense than the concrete failure of the attempt, due to the conscience, which in its innermost voice tells a person that every concrete failure is a sin against the general good or a sin against love understood as the basic source of bonding and attachment in personal and social life. In this way, the concrete failure to curb aggression makes a person guilty against humankind, not only against the victim of the concrete failure. If a person grasps this idea of aggressive behavior, and yet in defiance and pride does not attempt to control aggression or seek atonement for the sin of failing to control it, then this person might be called evil. If so, probably all people are evil now and then, and many are evil fairly often. However, control can take the shape of inhibition and aggression can be turned inwards, which is not always mentally healthy either.

See also ALTRUISM; EVIL AND SUFFERING; PSYCHOLOGY; SOCIOBIOLOGY

BOJE KATZENELSON