Aggression, human nature and paleopsychology
From: Michael Ragland (ragland66_at_webtv.net)
Date: 10/12/04
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Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 20:36:27 +0000 (UTC)
AGGRESSION AND HUMAN NATURE
In addition, as we have seen, to being an integral aspect of warfare,
human aggression also raises some basic and profound questions
concerning human nature itself. Certainly what we think about aggression
has much to do with how we interpret human behavior and what it means to
be human. It is useful, for example, to know how similar to and
different from other species humans are in this respect. We shall also
want to examine the role of intrahuman violence in human evolution and
to ask whether such aggressive behavior can provide a meaningful
explanation of war.
There are essentially two positions concerning the nature of human
aggression. These positions occupy points along the continuum of the
"nature/nurture" controversy, having to do with the extent to which
human behavior is instinctive or innate and the extent to which it is
influenced by environmental factors such as cultural norms, parenting
and peer influence. Before discussing each of these positions, I should
note that those who hold the middle ground here-i.e., those who see
human behavior as determined by the interaction of genetic makeup and
environment, the proportions of which may vary according to a wide range
of variables-form the majority of opinion on these issues.
One school of thought holds that human aggression is innate or
instinctive. Ultimately this can be seen as a modern version of the
Christian doctrine of original sin. We can trace modern exponents of
this position back at least as far as Sigmund Freud, who expounded the
idea in Civilization and its Discontents that what he termed the life
force was countered by an equally powerful death instinct. More recently
the research of the ethologists Konrad Lorenz and Nikolas Tinbergen and
the sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson also has been used as evidence for
innate human aggression. In the 1960's these ideas were popularized by a
number of writers, most prominently Desmond Morris (The Naked Ape, The
Human Zoo) and Robert Ardrey (African Genesis, The Territorial
Imperative). A number of novels and films also reflect these ideas,
including William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Anthony Burgess' A
Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick's film of A Clockwork Orange, and the
films of Sam Peckinpaugh, such as The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs.
The basic thesis of this position, based upon evidence derived from
human evolution and history, the behavior of other species-especially
non-human primates, our closest animal relatives-and data from
contemporary societies, is that human beings have instinctive tendencies
toward violent aggression, and that the course of human evolution seems
to have favored those less inhibited from killing fellow humans. Such
views represent a form of genetic determinism and consequently imply a
pessimistic image of human nature in the sense that violent aggression
must therefore be inevitable.
Proponents of the idea of innate human violent aggression have been
criticized for making extensive generalizations about human behavior
based upon limited and not necessarily analogous animal behavior.
Arguments against this position make the following points: 1)
generalizations about human aggression based upon studies of animal
aggression tend to ignore significant differences within and between
species; 2) there are many different kinds of animal aggression, none of
which are necessarily related to human aggression; 3) human beings are
much more complex and flexible in their behavior than the species-such
as ants and other insects-whose behavior has been used to formulate
generalizations about instinctive aggression; 4) there is little hard
genetic or biological evidence that supports this position; 5) behavior
and experience restricted at most to 20% of the male population (i.e.,
warfare) can hardly be characterized as universal human behavior.
The other school of thought holds that aggression is almost entirely
learned or acquired and that no specific behavior is genetically
determined. Accordingly, humans are capable of any kind of behavior,
including aggression. All humans have a capacity for aggression, but its
degree, form and direction are determined by culturally determined
patterns of behavior. It's been suggested, for example, that the need
for individuals and groups to control aspects of the environment in
order to assure survival may result under some circumstances in the
generation of aggressive behavior. Moreover, even if it is not innate,
most interpretations of human evolutionary history indicate at the least
a considerable potential for violent aggression.
Let us look more closely at some of the evidence of animal and human
behavior. We may begin by examining some general aspects of aggression
that seem to be characteristic of most animal species. It can be seen
that in most species aggression fulfills a number of adaptive functions,
including protection against predators, protection of relatively
helpless infants, maintenance of order through the establishment of a
stable hierarchy, enabling groups to reach food, establishing
territoriality in order to maintain spacing of groups in order to assure
an adequate supply of food and permitting dominant animals access to
preferred mates. In most animal societies such aggressive encounters
produce few serious injuries or deaths (which would be maladaptive in
terms of group and species survival) by means of the fight-or-flight
response and the existence of a dominance hierarchy, which tends to
reduce conflict because each individual knows and generally adheres to
his or her social rank. Conversely, it has been noted that crowding
and/or scarce resources tend to result in an increase in aggression.
Primates, the order of the animal kingdom to which human beings belong,
are neither more or less aggressive, as a group, than other orders.
However, the order of primates, which is exceptionally diverse, contains
more than two hundred species found throughout the world and represents
several distinct evolutionary grades in terms of physiological and
social complexity; therefore it is difficult to make inclusive
generalizations at this level of analysis. Moreover, aggression in
primates varies considerably according to species and environmental
context. In most cases, aggression functions to minimize divisiveness
within the social group and most aggressive encounters are highly
ritualized. However, as mentioned above, when overpopulation or
population density reaches crisis levels, an inherent potential for
aggressive and violent behavior is activated, expressed largely as an
increasingly hostile attitude by males toward females and the young. It
has thus been suggested that this potential for aggressive violence
serves as a social device to reduce violence when population levels are
stable and to increase violence when the equilibrium between population
and available resources is upset.
Since humans apparently first became scavengers and later hunters at a
fairly early point in their evolution, it has also been suggested that
social carnivores such as lions, wolves and hyenas may also represent a
useful analogue in respect to social structure and aggressive behavior.
Compared to non-human primates, for whom finding food and consuming it
are closely related activities, the relationship between these behaviors
in social carnivores is more separable and complex, especially during
times of scarcity. Thus among social carnivores distinctions can be
observed between aggression and killing and between aggression between
members of the same species and that directed toward other species.
Within these species cooperation appears to predominate against
aggression.
When we compare humans to other species of social predators, however, a
number of differences become apparent. Although humans have also become
highly efficient predators, this development has occurred relatively
recently in evolutionary terms compared to other social predators. Thus
humans may lack to some extent the inhibitions against killing fellow
members of their own species that operate in other species. When we
compare the behavior of humans to other social predators in this
respect, humans seem much more willing and able to kill their own kind,
behavior which in the long run must be seen in evolutionary terms as
self-destructive or maladaptive.
When compared with the behavior of other species, human aggression
displays a number of unique features, features which seem to have
resulted from the course of human evolution over the last three or four
million years. It would appear, for instance, that the development of
the cerebral cortex in the human brain, which has among other things
expanded the capacity for learned behavior, has enabled humans to ignore
or override instincts limiting aggressive behaviors. Unlike animals,
therefore, humans seem to have no biological way of knowing how much
aggression is sufficient to obtain their objectives. Humans also have
the ability to imagine and respond to the thought of aggression, leading
to preemptive murder and warfare. Other uniquely human aggressive
characteristics include: 1) groups organized by principles of social
organization, such as legal systems or the state; 2) deliberate,
sanctioned killing of individuals outside socially defined boundaries;
3) regular, systematic and large-scale killing of members of their own
species; 4) conflict over conceptual realities such as freedom, justice,
religion, etc., thus giving a larger scope to aggression.
Having earlier seen that aggression for the most part serves adaptive
functions in animal species, we now must ask what functions aggression
and warfare might serve in human society and whether such functions are
adaptive or maladaptive. As in other animal species, aggression may aid
in the achievement of certain needs or purposes; in addition, however,
it may serve as means to less immediate ends such as the achievement and
maintenance of freedom or obtaining land and resources. We cannot rule
out the possibility that under some circumstances this kind of
aggression may be functional or adaptive. On the other hand, given our
current understanding of the consequences of such aggression and the
availability of other means of attaining the goals mentioned above, it
may be that such aggression should be viewed as largely dysfunctional or
maladaptive. It is difficult to give a categorical answer here. It may
be that aggression was adaptive at an earlier point in human evolution,
when we were competing with other species for survival, but that our
conceptual ability and creative intelligence which has allowed us to
override inhibitions against killing has become increasingly
dysfunctional now that we have achieved dominance over other animals. It
may also be that even today aggression might be adaptive in some
circumstances and maladaptive in others.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
de Waal, Frans, Peacemaking Among Primates, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1989. Provocative and stimulating analysis bearing on
human capabilities and tendencies toward aggression.
Eibl-Eibesfeld, Irenaus, The Biology of Peace and War: Men, Animals and
Aggression, New York: The Viking Press, 1979. Recommended.
Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents, New York: W. W. Norton
& Co., 1961. Classic psychoanalytical essay detailing Freud's belief in
conflict of life and death instincts.
Fried, Morton, Marvin Harris and Robert Murphey, eds., War: The
Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression, Garden City: The Natural
History Press, 1968.
Groebel, Jo and Robert A. Hinde, eds., Aggression and War: Their
Biological and Social Bases, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989.
Lorenz, Konrad, On Aggression, London: Methuen, 1963. Classic
ethological work suggesting innate human aggressiveness, strongly
influencing popular books by Ardrey, Morris, etc.
Montagu, Ashley, The Nature of Human Aggression, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1976. One of the strongest and most detailed responses
to the work of Lorenz, Tinbergen, etc.
Morris, Desmond, The Naked Ape, London: Jonathan Cape, 1967. Popular
book based in part on work of Lorenz, advocating the "killer ape"
hypothesis.
Neuman, Gerard, Origins of Human Aggression, New York: Human Sciences
Press, 1987.
Otten, Charlotte M., ed., Aggression and Evolution, Lexington, MA: Xerox
College Publishing, 1973. Contains some interesting papers.
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HUXCRSGD.530 - http://www.csudh.edu/hux/syllabi/530/now_3.html
Copyright © 1999 California State University Dominguez Hills
Social Chaos But No Help From Social Science
May 16, 2004
by Kent Bailey
The past one hundred years has seen more progress in the physical
sciences than in all prior human history. Not so for the social
sciences. Rather than trading on new discoveries the social sciences
specialize in erecting new fads, disposing of them in a few decades, and
then going on to even newer fads. Freudian psychoanalysis has been
debunked, behaviorism hangs by a mere thread, and now cognitivists have
triumphantly "discovered" that people have the capacity to think
after all!. Worse still, the social sciences are so handicapped by
political correctness that the most urgent issues of the day are either
censored or simply denied.
While the social sciences flounder, DNA research, evolutionary
psychology, and the brain sciences are slowly unraveling the "truth" of
the human condition. For example, human beings are so genetically
similar (over 99% overlap in DNA) to chimpanzees that we are basically a
chimpanzee that stands upright and has a very large brain. It should,
thus, come as no surprise that human beings are very chimpanzee-like in
our motives, feelings, preferences, and a good number of our
behaviors. Nor should we be surprised that our chimpanzeeness
overcomes and dominates our humanness with regularity. In my view,
this is the most important insight about our species of this or any
other century.
Human paleopsychology was designed to address these issues. This
approach is premised on two basic assumptions: first, human beings have
an ancient and rich evolutionary history, and, second, this ancient
history is thoroughly involved in everything we feel, think, and
do…personally, politically, and morally. According to
neuroscientist Paul MacLean's venerable Triune Brain Theory, the human
brain is composed of a primeval reptilian segment, a later mammalian
segment, and a relatively recent neocortical segment. These three
levels correspond roughly to instincts (reptilian), feelings
(mammalian), and thoughts (neocortex). In 1983, I asked professor
MacLean if it made sense to speak of "regressing down the triune brain"
or "progressing up the triune brain"? He averred that it made perfect
sense. My 1987 book, Human Paleopsychology: Applications to
Aggression and Pathological Processes (Erlbaum) was dedicated to MacLean
and his work.
Human beings are literally designed to "regress" down the triune brain
with ease, but "progressing" up is unnatural, difficult, and requires
years of cultural shaping and formal education in industrialized
societies. Simply speaking, when regressive processes are set against
progressive ones, regression tends to win. Partying tends to win out
over studying, impulsivity over self-control, amorality over morality,
and disorder over order. Human Paleopsychogy focuses on individual
and social breakdowns of cultural, moral, religious, and economic
systems that have taken thousands of years to reach their present
form. Yet, with the slightest provocation in the form of social
malaise, insult, drug or alcohol intake, exposure to pornography, or
even sudden changes in the stock market, we see that good will, manners
and civility, social order, and concern with "higher things" can
disappear in an instant.
The process whereby this occurs is termed phylogenetic regression and it
refers to the sudden stripping away of the thin veneer of culture and
the complementary re-activation of ancient evolved programs of
selfishness, tribality and xenophobia, aggression, sexuality, and the
like. In other words, when highly stressed and/or provoked, a person
easily slips back into earlier evolutionarily adaptive programs that may
have served our ancestors well in precultural times but may be
amoral/immoral, socially chaotic, illegal, and even pathological
today. For example, sexual promiscuity and male gang behavior in
hunting contexts may have served young men well 30,000 years ago, but
activation of these tendencies today in the absence of moral, religious,
legal, or other constraints can easily lead to rape, gang warfare, or
even worst case scenarios like the "inexplicable" murderous actions of
the two young men in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999. Human
paleopsychology tries to make sense of these "inexplicable" events and
others including serial murder involving cannibalism, body mutilation,
and storage of body parts, mothers brutally killing their infants and
young children, and even phenemona such as rage killing, road rage, and
the brutal initiation ritual of the Glenbrook North High School sorority
girls who literally outdid their chimpanzee cousins in chaotic
violence.
Readers, is there any other way to explain these dramatic phenomena?
Kent Bailey [kbailey(at)vcu.org]
Kent G. Bailey is professor emeritus of clinical psychology at Virginia
Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. His major focus is on
how ancient evolutionary processes affect current human affairs.
His major monograph is Human Paleopsychology: Applications to Aggression
and Pathological Processes. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1987.
AD
Amazon.com
Reviewer:"btillier" (Calgary, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews
Bailey presents the next logical step in our understanding of human
nature and psychology. Building on the works of E. O. Wilson
(sociobiology) and others, he outlines the idea of a continuum of deep
seated evolutionary rules. These rules have evolved over eons of
primate, and then human, development. These rules have been integrated
into our genes because they increased our adaptability to our
environment and thus, individuals with these rules were preferentially
selected. Bailey points out that most of our recent development as Homo
sapiens has been in a primitive survival mode - a hunter gatherer type
of setting. It stands to reason that many of the rules involve
aggressive behaviours. The "holdover" of these ancient rules continues
in our natural responses - in the way we see and respond to the world
and they therefore continue to influence our behaviour today. Thus, all
of the adaptive rules selected over millions of years of evolution are
still lurking within us. In the last blink of our evolution, man has
created culture and societal norms and rules. Our higher cognitive
functions allow us to rise above our animal heritage and to develop
cognitive, volitional control of our behaviour. Today, the individual
has to juggle various opposing forces, both from within and from
external sources. We have to control and direct many of the lower
impulses in the face of our new and largely foreign cultural and
societal demands. Most of the time, socialization wins, but as Bailey
describes, sometimes we regress to our lower templates and instincts.
The result of regression is usually pathology and mayhem. A wonderful
book indeed.
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