Aggression
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Image:Drill sergeant screams.jpg Aggression is defined as
- The act of initiating hostilities or invasion.
- The practice or habit of launching attacks.
- Hostile or destructive behavior or actions.
In psychology, aggression encompasses many different types of behaviour, some of which are not clearly related to each other. Consequently, aggression has been a difficult term to provide one concise definition for.
Moyer (1968) presented an early, and highly influential, classification of seven different forms of aggression, from a biological and evolutionary point of view.
- Predatory aggression: attack on prey by a predator.
- Inter-male aggression: competition between males of the same species over access to females, dominance, status etc.
- Fear-induced aggression: aggression associated with attempts to flee from a threat
- Irritable aggression: aggression directed towards an available target induced by some sort of frustration (e.g. schedule-induced aggression)
- Territorial aggression: defence of a fixed space against intruders, typically conspecifics.
- Maternal aggression: a female's aggression to protect her offspring from a threat. Paternal aggression also exists.
- Instrumental aggression: aggression directed towards obtaining some goal, maybe a learned response to a situation
International politics has it's own definition of acts of aggression, relating to the acts of one country against another as opposed to the acts of individuals. The adoption of the definition was the culmination of a long process begun in 1923 under the auspices of the League of Nations. On December 18, 1967, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2330/XXII, which established a Special Committee on the Question of Defining Aggression. This body was comprised of 35 member states: Algeria, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Ecuador, Finland, France, Ghana, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, Norway, Romania, Sierra Leone, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, the USSR, the United Arab Republic (Egypt), the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. After seven years of work, it reported back to the General Assembly with draft proposals that formed the basis of the final Definition of Aggression.
The definition makes a distinction between aggression (which "gives rise to international responsibility") and war of aggression (which is "a crime against international peace". Acts of aggression are defined as armed invasions or attacks, bombardments, blockades, armed violations of territory, permitting other states to use one's own territory to perpetrate acts of aggression and the employment of armed irregulars or mercenaries to carry out acts of aggression. A war of aggression is a series of acts committed with a sustained intent. The definition's distinction between an act of aggression and a war of aggression make it clear that not every act of aggression would constitute a crime against peace; only war of aggression does. States would nonetheless be held responsible for acts of aggression.
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Aggression against outsiders
The easiest aggression to explain is that of a group defending itself against a predator to prevent being eaten.
Either the strong will form a circle around the weak and defend them, thus using aggression and also endangering themselves, or the group will flee and the weak get eaten.
Aggression against the own kind
One function of aggression is that the leader of a group is determined or the pecking order.
Another purpose of aggression is the gaining of an own territory. Initially that means scaring away the competition of the own kind. An effect of this is that the own kind will spread itself over the available space, each having its own territory. Once all territory has been used up, the aggression will, instead of scaring away, lead to death.
Aggression against friends
Since aggression is part of life and partly genetic, not being able to express aggression can be unhealthy. If people are locked up together for a long time they may fight with each other. Aggression can be experienced as fun when it fulfills this drive, in particular if one does not run any risk himself, which may explain the origin of bullying.
Psychology
Aggression is one of the most important and most controversial kinds of motivation. Its use as a category in the psychology of motivation has often been criticised, because it is clear that it encompasses a vast range of phenomena, from modern war to squabbles between individuals. It is far from clear that these have anything in common other than the risk that someone gets hurt. There is a constant danger that concepts and explanations that are useful in the study of one kind of aggression will be misapplied in a different field. However, it remains one of the most important topics in many areas of psychology and other social sciences, including:
- motivation
- ethology and comparative psychology
- social psychology
- psychoanalysis and other kinds of depth psychology
- game theory
- social anthropology
- criminology
- ethics
- international relations
Identification
Not all aggression is direct or readily identifiable. Some aggression may occur in the context of what appear to be a friendship. Such Relational aggression may involve domination, even sadism as the more powerful friend torments the weaker through threats of exclusion. Indirect aggression involves such actions as spreading rumors about others, even lies; as may social aggression which attacks self esteem or social status. Together these are characterized by Rachel Simmons in Odd Girl Out as alternative aggression.
See also
- Bully
- Conflict
- Konrad Lorenz
- Male-male aggression, as component of sexual selection
- On Aggression
- Resource holding potential
- Testosterone poisoning
References
- Berenbaum, S.A. & Reinisch, J.M. (1997) Early androgen effects on aggression in children and adults with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Psychoneuroendocrinology 22:505--515.
- Moyer, KE. 1968. Kinds of aggression and their physiological basis. Communications in Behavioral Biology 2A:65-87.
- Rachel Simmons, Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, Harcourt, 2002, hardcover, 296 pages, ISBN 0151006040
- Reinisch, J.M (1977) Prenatal exposure of human foetuses to synthetic progestin and estrogen affects personality. Nature 266:561--562.
- Reinisch, J.M (1981) Prenatal exposure to synthetic progestins increases potential for aggression in humans. Science 211:1171--1173.
- Ryan B.C. & Vandenbergh J.G. (2002) Intrauterine position effects. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 26:665-678.cs:Agrese
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