Man is not a perfect creature although he strives to be one by developing a civilized society. The human intelligence surpasses any other creature’s level and this superiority has led modern man to believe that aggression, “intentional behavior aimed at causing either physical or psychological pain,”1 is a characteristic only akin to animals. However, man’s attempt to become perfect is unattainable because of biological and sociological factors that lead to aggression.
Sigmund Freud has developed what is called the Instinct Theory which believes that there
are “two primitive forces, the life and death instincts, which oppose each other in our subconscious, and this incongruence is the origin of all desires to aggress.”2
Although the Christian religion would say that man has been created to the image and likeness of God, most of the scientific research on man’s natural parental instincts are saying otherwise. Many cases of brutal infanticide happen naturally in the lives not only of animals but of man himself. It seems that maternal instinct is not simply a natural occurrence but actually
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(Please put the details of your textbook here coz I don’t know the info)
Sarah McCawley, (2002). The Nature of Aggression (or is it Nurture?). Retrieved May 29, 2007 from < http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/ Mccawley.html#1>.
innate and a development also born out of biological and sociological factors.
In the Jan. 1, 2001, issue of Genomics, Duke University Medical Center researchers reported that a particular gene called PEG3, or paternally expressed gene 3, is imprinted in humans, just as it is in mice.3 This particular study implies that when a baby inherits a copy of the gene from both parents, only the paternal gene is imprinted. Researchers hypothesize that the reason why only the paternal gene becomes functional is to ‘ensure that their daughters are good mothers”4 (Reuters 1999). The study also revealed that female mice that were not able to get functional PEG3 eventually became bad mothers in the sense that they lacked the initiative to care for their newborns and even left them to die. This simply throws away the concept of maternal instinct.
However, there are also some studies that contradict the former stand that genes are the controlling factor to becoming human or humane. Studies have been made about paternal instinct and it yielded fascinating results regarding the subconscious physiological effects of anticipating parenthood to bonding with a baby.
According to an article written by Lauren Poon, parents undergo some hormonal changes even before a baby is born.5 This is strengthened by the physical contact of skin to skin
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Duke University Medical Center. (2001) Imprinted Gene Found on Human Chromosome 19; Mouse Version Involved in Nurturing Behavior. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from <http://dukemednews.duke.edu/news/article.php?id=50>.
Reuters. (1999). Good Mother Gene Found. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from <http://www.fww.org/famnews/0408c.htm>.
Lauren Poon. (2007). The Many Sides of Fathering. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from <http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/543>.
once the baby is delivered. These hormonal changes tend to change the attitude of normal people with regard to their babies. Mothers, whose hormones really get altered during and after pregnancy, become loving.
However, the tendency towards good fatherhood ebbs away when the parents do not co-habitate. Once the father spends too little time with his child, there is a tendency for the dad’s parenting style to be more based on human culture and surrounding societal learning than on increase or decrease of hormones.
The hormones that are affected during pregnancy are oxytocin, prolactin and cortisol. The first one is affected during the last weeks of being pregnant where the unusual increase of estrogen level also heightens the number of oxytocin receptors. It is this hormone that starts the bond between the baby and parents because it is chiefly responsible for the flow of breast milk and also allows the parents to recognize their baby through their individual smell that are encouraged further by more social interactions with the baby. Prolactin, on the other hand, also assumes high levels during the period after birth and this signals the brain to direct more of its thoughts towards nurturing the new baby. Cortisol increases up to 100 percent in parents who are waiting for the birth of their children. This also enhances parental instincts because it stimulates the recognition of the baby’s own individual odor and cries. These three hormones work hand in hand to distract the parents from being selfish to being caring and nurturing to their infant.
The debate on nurture and nature has been a long-standing one already. However, regardless of parents’ physiological and psychological make-up, what matters is what happens while the child is growing up and his perceptions toward aggression. One can therefore be helped to understand human aggression from the social point of view.
Famous psychologist, Albert Bandura, developed what is called the Social Learning Theory which focuses on how people develop their views of the world by merely observing and copying the action, attitude or feelings of what he had watched. He believed that learning is detrimental to the human race if it meant completely relying only on individual thoughts and actions to solve every problem. This psychologist believes that it is to man’s advantage that almost all behavior is “learned observationally through modeling: from observing others on forms and idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.”6 With this theory as a basis, aggression is then learned by many from infanthood through simple observation on how other people respond to certain problems. Copying these responses lead to learning on how to cope with certain emotions like anger – which usually triggers human aggression.
According to Center Site, an anger management website, anger is a normal response to frustrating or abusive situations.7 The feeling of anger does not usually last very long because nobody can be sick of chronic anger from birth. The proponents of this website, which goes by the name, MentalHealth.net, stress that being easily angered and violent behavior are reactions that are learned and not instinctive.
There are many ways by which humans learn to express anger through aggression. There are some who learn this style because of the influence of the hostile and threatening people they have grown up with. An example can be seen in the situation of a child who grows up within the
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Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press. p. 22.
Center Site. (2005). Anger Management. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from <http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=5827>.
confines of a family wherein the husband is always verbally abusing his wife. The child’s tendency is to feel verbally abused himself. With this as the “normal thing” he has learned to see as a solution to frustration while growing up, the probability that he will also verbally abuse his future wife is almost inevitable.
On the other hand, some children learn to become hostile and aggressive because of their past experiences as bullies. Children undergo a stage wherein they either become bullies or victims of bullies. The problem comes with those who at an early life had come to understand that bullying someone through aggressive or hostile means is effective in not only protecting one’s self from being hurt by others but also gaining respect from their peers. With the reinforcement of a rewarding social status above the other children, a bully learns that hostility and aggression are tools in getting what they want.
Let us face it. Anger is what usually pushes man to become hostile or aggressive. In fact, “the occurrence of aggression always presupposes the existence of frustration and, contrariwise, that the existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression” (Miller 1941 338) This being the premise, we should also discover the roots and results of anger itself.
Anger is usually a signal to man that something is wrong in his normal environment. This perception invites one to correct the situation to regain what was normal. How one attains the normal situation can be constructive or destructive.
When anger is simply an irritable annoying knowledge of something that has gone beyond the limitations of what is normal, it can be constructive by simply assessing the situation and doing whatever is necessary to correct it. However, when one expresses anger and in turn hurt other people’s pride or bodies, this becomes destructive to the person and the ones around him.
Many theorize that pain is the cause of anger. However, psychologists say that anger usually combines with a provoking thought. These thoughts usually revolve around one’s own general assessment or conclusion of a certain situation that leads them to think that someone is going to hurt them. Sometimes the anger is directed at other people but there are also times that a person himself will be the target of his own anger. Anger therefore, can be considered as a social emotion. There is always someone at the other end to vent the anger on. The usual response to this situation of pain and a provocative thought is impulsive action to correct the situation by targeting the person who is the source of the pain.
Anger can be used to mask pain. There are people who can not accept the feelings of pain and therefore would rather be distracted from thinking of the hurts they feel inside. They do this by redirecting their attention to the object or person who might be causing the pain. When one focuses on finding revenge, the need to feel the pain is set aside to concentrate on planning how to inflict hurt towards something or someone else. This becomes a successful way to hide the fact that the pain has made one vulnerable and scared.
Apart from being able to hide true fears and sensitivity to pain, anger also builds up the idea of power. When one is in pain, one can feel helpless. However, when one is angry, it is easier to perceive aggressive actions as correct because of the justification that the object of the anger deserves it. When anger is flaring up, the tendency to become righteous and morally superior increases because of the wrong notion that when one is hurt, the one who inflicted the pain deserves to be hurt too. Anger easily masks the real reasons that bring about this feeling.
The problem with society, however, is its double standards regarding the issue of anger and aggressive behavior. We do not always agree on what is proper and what is justified and this can reinforce improper hostile behavior.
An example would be the incident of the September 11 bombing of the World Trade Center. All our sympathies are directed towards the victims of this act of terrorism. However, the anger felt by the government towards terrorists have leapt way beyond the bounds of civility because it seeks revenge against the race of the people who are suspected to be behind these terrorist attacks. It has come to the point that innocent people are paying the price for their brothers who were truly responsible. Saddam Hussein has already received the blows of hostile aggression for what he has done but now, the government is using acts of instrumental aggression against Afghans and Iraqis who are merely brothers in faith with the ones who should be real targets of anger.
Society and its different communities have different ways of perceiving what aggression is and when it is justified. When the anger of a certain person is not agreeable to most, social judgment can reap grave results for the angry person. He will not only get disdain but also punishments like a prison term depending on the gravity of his actions. However, there are aggressive behaviors that are considered acceptable by society. Examples of these are the sport of boxing, the idea of killing someone because of self-defense, etc.
Although human aggression is deemed to be encouraged or discouraged by society, it also has a biological or physiological dimension that needs to be examined. To understand the roots of hostility and aggression, one must enter the brain and see how it also affects the situation.
According to Center Site “emotions more or less begin inside two almond-shaped structures in our brains which are called the amygdala.”8 Some of the functions of this part of the
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8. Ibid.
brain is to identify threats to the person and conveying signals to the other parts of the body to react by protecting the person. The normal reaction time of the amygdala to send its signals to the rest of the body usually comes before the idea of a threat reaches the cortex or the part of our brain that we use to think responsibly. This is why most of the time, one can immediately react to a stimulus and regret his response later when he already has the capacity to give a better assessment of the situation he was in. The notion dictating people to “think before you act” is not as easy to do as it seems but can be down with practice and certain methods of brain training.
When angry, the body becomes tense and the muscles stiffen up. This tells the brain to signal the release of catecholamines that give the body a surge of energy. This is what pushes a person to immediately take action when angry. With these chemical released, the normal reaction of the body would also be an increase in blood pressure and higher intake of oxygen to prepare the limbs to act aggressively. Even your brain becomes focused on the target of your anger and will not be easy to distract. After a while, adrenaline will also be released to sustain the energy level for fighting. This is why it is so hard to stop feeling angry once an aggressive behavior has started. The chemicals and organs within the body are already prepared and running in utmost speed and the will itself can find it hard to stop these normal reactions.
Studies have also proven other physiological aspects that trigger human aggressive behavior. In 1998 Terrie Moffitt and some other researchers took a test from 781 people (both males and females) who had criminal histories. Their focus was on the effect of serotonin in the brain as related to aggressive behavior.
The study revealed that men who were considered to have hostile aggressive behavior had high levels of whole blood serotonin. These men may have had low concentration of serotonin in the brain but the considerably elevated rate of this in the blood can be associated with mental problems. However, this was only true for the men because the women showed no significant relationship between their aggressive behavior and serotonin.
The researchers are sure that their result “was specific to violence, as opposed to general crime”9 and that they controlled many other factors that could have affected the results.
Related to this research is the study of Jeffrey Halperin and his team on boys with ADHD. They wanted to know if there was a relationship between parental sociopathy, aggressiveness of children and serotonin. They grouped the boys into four different teams depending on their own history of aggressive behavior and the history of their parents’ own hostile behavior. They used the drug called fenfluramine which is known to release serotonin in the body. They then observed the reaction of the plasma prolactin within the person because this was supposed to be a gauge on how well serotonin functions.
The results showed that “aggressive ADHD boys with a family history of aggression are neurochemically distinct from similar children without such a history.” They also observed that the group of aggressive children who had parents with their own violent attitude showed more hostile behavior than those without a family history of violence. This simply implies that children with aggressive behavior that belong to a family with the same attitude are at high risk of becoming more violent when they reach maturity level.
Another research was done by John Constantino and his team that is related to the previous studies cited above. This time, serotonin levels were measured from 193 infants who were confined in hospitals due to fever. They took samples of cerebrospinal fluid and observed
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Terrie E. Moffit, Brammer, Gary, Brammer L., Caspi, Avshalom J., et.al. (1998). Whole blood serotonin relates to violence in an epidemiological study. Biological Psychiatry, Vol. 43, No. 6, March 15, 1998, pp. 446-457.
the levels of 5-HIAA-a metabolite serotonin.10 It showed that the levels of the serotonin were much lower in babies with family histories of antisocial behavior than in babies without such histories. This study proves that serotonin level is hereditary and therefore, antisocial behavior is also genetic.
There have also been studies pertaining to the effect of certain things we take into our bodies to levels of aggression. These research are saying that cholesterol levels and aggressive behavior have a relation to each other.
Doctor Jacobs and colleagues made 18 studies and found that more men with low cholesterol levels died with violent deaths compared to those with high cholesterol. These seem to happen to those who had to undergo therapies that made them lower their cholesterol levels.
A similar study was made on monkeys. Low-cholesterol diets were given to a group of monkeys and another was fed a normal diet.
Beatrice A. Golomb has been studying the effect of cholesterol on aggressive behavior and says that low cholesterol also lowers serotonin activity which is why the result is an increase in hostility. She also observes that the relationship between cholesterol and aggressive behavior was more stark in males than in females. Another point she addresses is that although lowering cholesterol with medication can increase hostile behavior, “low cholesterol levels are linked to violence in populations that are not receiving cholesterol-lowering medications”.11
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John Constantino, Morris, Jennifer A. & Murphy, Dennis L. (1997). CSF 5-HIAA and family history of antisocial personality disorder in newborns. American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 154, No. 12.
Beatrice A. Golomb. Cholesterol and violence: is there a connection? Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 128, March 15, 1998, pp. 478-487.
Several other studies were made on cholesterol’s effect on human aggressive behavior. In 1999, Marc Hillbrand and his team decided to study 25 patients. They particularly observed the serum cholesterol of these violent psychiatric persons for a week. The report concludes that
total serum cholesterol concentration was positively associated with measures of effect,
cognitive efficiency, activation and sociability, suggesting a link between total serum
cholesterol and dysphoria or negative mood – which in turn is a predisposing factor of
violence in the population.12
This team believes that low cholesterol decreases the function of the neurotransmitter serotonin which results in depression and aggressive acts.
A team of Taiwanese researchers also did their study on 4,444women, cholesterol levels and aggressive behavior. These ladies were patients from different general hospitals and clinics. The study showed that females with low levels of “high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C)”13 had higher incidences of aggression, depression, fears and worries, irritability and psychosomatic illnesses.
According to another research by Beatrice Golomb, there are drugs that can cause extreme irritability. She used the cholesterol-lowering drug called “statin” for her experiment. She and her team found six patients who were willing to do report their reaction to the drug. In all the reports they received, the continuous use of the statin resulted to violent behavior that included homicidal thoughts, threatening family members and destroying objects. This just
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M. Hillbrand, Waite, B.M., Miller, D.S., et.al. Serum cholesterol concentrations and mood states in violent psychiatric patients: an experience sampling study. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Vol. 23, No. 6, December 2000, pp. 519-529.
C. C. Chen, F. Lu, Wu, J., & Chang, C. Correlation between serum lipid concentrations and psychological distress. Psychiatry Research, Vol.102, No. 2, June 21, 2001, pp. 153-162.
proves the other studies that “reduced serotonin activity, in turn, can cause depression or violent
behavior.14
Human aggression is innate in man and challenges our will to achieve perfection. However, because it is caused by many sociological, psychological and physiological factors, violent behavior will be hard to control unless each individual will take it upon himself to learn measures on how to handle anger properly. Learning more about one’s self, the family’s history and the food we take in are all ways of making sure that aggression is controlled at a comfortable level in our lives. Nobody is perfect – not even in a highly-civilized society. One must simply learn to control the impulses that are innate and take great care in choosing what one takes into his mind and body.
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14. Beatrice A. Golomb, Kane, T. & Dimsdale, J.E. Severe irritability associated with statin cholesterol-lowering drugs. QJM, Volume 97, Number 4, April 2004, 229-35.
End Notes
1. (Please put the details of your textbook here coz I don’t know the info)
2. Sarah McCawley, (2002). The Nature of Aggression (or is it Nurture?). Retrieved May 29, 2007 from < http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/ Mccawley.html#1>.
3. Duke University Medical Center. (2001) Imprinted Gene Found on Human Chromosome 19; Mouse Version Involved in Nurturing Behavior. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from <http://dukemednews.duke.edu/news/article.php?id=50>.
4. Reuters. (1999). Good Mother Gene Found. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from <http://www.fww.org/famnews/0408c.htm>.
5. Lauren Poon. (2007). The Many Sides of Fathering. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from <http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/543>.
6. Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press. p. 22.
7. Center Site. (2005). Anger Management. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from <http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=5827>.
8. Ibid.
9. Terrie E. Moffit, Brammer, Gary, Brammer L., Caspi, Avshalom J., et.al. (1998). Whole blood serotonin relates to violence in an epidemiological study. Biological Psychiatry, Vol. 43, No. 6, March 15, 1998, pp. 446-457.
10. John Constantino, Morris, Jennifer A. & Murphy, Dennis L. (1997). CSF 5-HIAA and family history of antisocial personality disorder in newborns. American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 154, No. 12.
11. Beatrice A. Golomb. Cholesterol and violence: is there a connection? Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 128, March 15, 1998, pp. 478-487.
12. M. Hillbrand, Waite, B.M., Miller, D.S., et.al. Serum cholesterol concentrations and mood states in violent psychiatric patients: an experience sampling study. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Vol. 23, No. 6, December 2000, pp. 519-529.
13. C. C. Chen, F. Lu, Wu, J., & Chang, C. Correlation between serum lipid concentrations and psychological distress. Psychiatry Research, Vol.102, No. 2, June 21, 2001, pp. 153-162.
14. Beatrice A. Golomb, Kane, T. & Dimsdale, J.E. Severe irritability associated with statin cholesterol-lowering drugs. QJM, Volume 97, Number 4, April 2004, 229-35.
Bibliography
(Please put the details of your textbook here coz I don’t know the info)
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press. p. 22.
Center Site. (2005). Anger Management. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from
<http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=5827>.
Chen, C.C. Lu, F. Wu, J., & Chang, C. Correlation between serum lipid concentrations and
psychological distress. Psychiatry Research, Vol.102, No. 2, June 21, 2001, pp. 153-162.
Constantino, John, Morris, Jennifer A. & Murphy, Dennis L. (1997). CSF 5-HIAA and
family history of antisocial personality disorder in newborns. American Journal of
Psychiatry, Vol. 154, No. 12.
Duke University Medical Center. (2001) Imprinted Gene Found on Human Chromosome 19;
Mouse Version Involved in Nurturing Behavior. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from
<http://dukemednews.duke.edu/news/article.php?id=50>.
Golomb, Beatrice. Cholesterol and violence: is there a connection? Annals of Internal
Medicine, Vol. 128, March 15, 1998, pp. 478-487.
Golomb, Beatrice A., Kane, T. & Dimsdale, J.E. Severe irritability associated with statin
cholesterol-lowering drugs. QJM, Volume 97, Number 4, April 2004, 229-35.
Hillbrand, M., Waite, B.M., Miller, D.S., et.al. Serum cholesterol concentrations and mood
states in violent psychiatric patients: an experience sampling study. Journal of Behavioral
Medicine, Vol. 23, No. 6, December 2000, pp. 519-529.
Lauren Poon. (2007). The Many Sides of Fathering. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from
<http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/543>.
McCawley, Sarah (2002). The Nature of Aggression (or is it Nurture?). Retrieved May 29,
2007 from < http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/ Mccawley.html#1>.
Moffit, Terrie E., Brammer, Gary, Brammer L., Caspi, Avshalom J., et.al. (1998). Whole
blood serotonin relates to violence in an epidemiological study. Biological Psychiatry,
Vol. 43, No. 6, March 15, 1998, pp. 446-457.
Reuters. (1999). Good Mother Gene Found. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from
<http://www.fww.org/famnews/0408c.htm>.
