Nature Vs Nurture Aggression Essay

[Maryetta Worm]

Towhat extent is human aggression a factor of the Nature or Nurture theories of behaviour? Human behaviour is continuously debated between scientists assessing the factors that greatly influence and shape human behaviour. This essay will focus on the biological and behavioural approaches that explain the aggressive behaviour. The two theories in this debate are the Nativist (Nature/Innate) and the Empiricist (Nurture/Learned) theories. While nativists (Nature Theory) believe that our behaviour and interactions depend upon inner established mechanisms, empiricists (Nurture Theory) link our behaviour to our experiences. Get Help With Your EssayIf you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!

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"Aggression" is a familiar term in common parlance, as well as a key concept in the study of human behavior. In conversation, we may use the word "aggressive" to define a person assaulting another, a carnivorous animal seeking prey, even a storm wreaking havoc on the earth it passes. For our purposes, the more narrow definition used in psychology is most appropriate. Aggression is behavior whose intent is to harm another. More specifically, aggression is defined as "any sequence of behavior, the goal response to which is the injury of the person toward whom it is directed."[1] You may notice that this definition, even on the surface, poses a conceptual challenge: How do we know the intent of the actor?

While the definition of aggression varies somewhat from author to author, I find it helpful to look at theories of aggression by dividing them into three schools: those that consider aggression as an instinct, those that see it as a predictable reaction to defined stimuli, and those that consider it learned behavior. The three schools form a continuum along which, at one end, aggression is seen as a consequence of purely innate factors and, at the other end, of external factors. In fact, much of the debate on aggression might be framed as a more general "nature vs. nurture" debate.

Thanatos, an innate drive toward disintegration that Freud believed was directed against the self. If he was right, how is it that we all don't commit suicide? In part, it is because of a struggle between Thanatos and Eros [our innate drive toward life], which, luckily for us, Eros usually wins. But it is also because displacement redirects our self-destructive energies outward; we aggress against others to avoid aggressing against ourselves.

How, then, do people manage to avoid wreaking terrible violence upon one another? The answer, according to Freud, is catharsis: Watching violent events or engaging in mild displays of anger diminishes the aggressive urge and leaves us emotionally purified and calmed. [2]

A great many people think of aggression as instinctual. This is the case even though the public-at-large has not read Freud on the subject and probably would not accept his notion of a death instinct, even if they were to become familiar with it. On a popular level, aggression is not seen so much as an outward displacement of an innate internally-directed destructive drive, but rather as a universal externally directed drive, possibly connected to a survival instinct, which unites humankind with the animal world. Many go farther in assuming that we can look to the non-human animal world to gain a clearer understanding of human aggression.

And that is what a number of scientists -- particularly ethologists and socio-biologists -- have done. Chief among them is Konrad Lorenz, whose 1966 book On Aggression made a major impact. Its cover offers quotations that are suggestive of this impact. The New York Times heralded it as "one of the most important works of our age," expressing hope that it "be read not only by natural scientists but by Rand Corporation thinkers, members of the Pentagon, pacifists, and presidents...."

Lorenz defines aggression as "the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species."[3] He relates it to Darwin's notion of the "struggle for existence": "the struggle Darwin was thinking of and which drives evolution forward is the competition between near relations."[4] At least it does so under "natural -- or rather pre-cultural -- conditions... [because] it is always favorable for the species if the stronger of two rivals takes possession of the territory or of the desired female."[5]

Lorenz' own study is based largely on his careful research of a variety of animal species, particularly fish and birds and to a lesser extent, non-primate mammals. In these varied species, he notes a shared instinct to defend territory from encroachment by an animal of the same species, to defeat a rival for a desired female and to protect the young and defenseless of the species. He finds that such aggression serves the animal kingdom well in that it brings about a "balanced distribution of animals of the same species over the available environment"[6], assures that the gene pool is continually modified toward strength, and enhances the likelihood of the young of a species growing to adulthood. In these three ways, aggression helps to preserve the species, regularly improving it to make it more adaptive to the environment. Beyond this, Lorenz attributes to aggression a role in developing the social structure due to its critical role in clarifying the rank ordering of the members of a group. Lorenz sees this as a necessity for developing an advanced social life. Lorenz also attributes to the aggressive drive a range of other functions under the general rubric of "motivation."

The presumption is that the primary functions of aggression accrued to humankind in its pre-cultural state. The problem is that cultural and technological advances have outstripped the inhibitory capacities of the human aggressive instinct. To illustrate this in an extreme form, two male mammals fighting over territory or a female do not fight to the death; the stronger backs off when the weaker acknowledges his loss by exposing a vulnerable body part. Humankind, however, has produced and perfected lethal weapons delivered at a great distance from those being attacked. Sometimes, the attacked do not even know of the attack until the fatal blow has already been struck. Thus they are unable to capitulate and stave off destruction. The babies in the day care center at the federal building in Oklahoma City could hardly have had the opportunity to display their defenselessness to the bomber. Our inhibitory mechanisms were presumably sufficient to allay intra-specific killing when our weapons were limited to our hands and feet, but they were not designed to offset the utilization of something even so low-tech as a handgun.

Unfortunately, such predictions [of catharsis] turn out to be wrong. Couples who argue the most are those who are the most likely to become violent. Husbands who push their wives are those most likely to move on to slapping and punching. The best predictor of an individual's likelihood of criminal violence this year is his criminal violence last year. Violence seems to beget violence rather than decrease it. [7]

The second theory of aggression moves from innate predispositions to external stimuli as sources of aggression. The central supposition is that aggression is a predictable reaction to defined stimuli, the defined stimuli being frustration. In their classic treatise on the subject, Dollard and his colleagues make the bold two-part assertion at the outset, that "the occurrence of aggressive behavior always presupposes the existence of frustration" and that the "existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression."[8]

The reason that I classify the correlated presumptions as bold is the use of the word "always." Human behavior is complicated and multi-faceted; to assume that any variable always leads to a specific behavior and that, furthermore, that behavior is always preceded by that variable, is unusual and daring. And, in fact, Dollard et al. were open to criticism on this score from the beginning. Even the co-authors were soon writing articles, which suggested exceptions to the general guideline (e.g., Doob & Sears, 1939; Miller, 1941; Mowrer, 1960; Sears, 1941). Nonetheless, the book has had a significant impact in scholarly circles; "most authorities today regard aggression as originating ultimately in response to some frustration."[9]

Dollard and his colleagues define frustration as "an interference with the occurrence of an instigated goal-response at its proper time in the behavioral sequence."[10] While we ourselves may not be familiar with language like "instigated goal response," it is easy to draw on our own experience with conflict for examples that meet the definition: the husband that comes home from work to find dinner not awaiting him, the employee who does not get a promotion she feels she deserves, the child who's excluded from a game on the school playground. Examples abound, but the question we ask is whether the husband, the employee, and the child always engage in a "sequence of behavior, the goal response to which is the injury of the person toward whom it is directed?" Does every husband, employee and child who finds him or herself in such a predicament engage in aggressive behavior? Is every aggressive act engaged in by a spouse, worker, or child precipitated by a frustration?

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