Aggression, violence and social modulation
Within ethological theory Konrad Lorenz’s intraspecific aggression is based on observational methodology implemented in natural settings, built on the concept of instinct and motor components that express the different impulses that find expression in behavior . The term instinct, in German, is used to denote an internal state agency and Lorenz uses it to denote the energy component of instinct, setting out: neurophysiological organization that translates into a series of complex behavioral patterns. A definition without anything purely quantitative, that is mystical and intangible assets on the contrary had characterized the earlier ones. Even the concept of energy is typically neurophysiological, referring to a series of conditions and states of arousal of CNS. Lorenz identified four main drives: hunger, sex, aggression and flight instinct, selected during evolution and placed at the base of relevant physiological functions, the result of more partial drives, or more than a drive which, acting simultaneously, determine the motivated behavior.
The motivational analysis is the method used by Lorenz to explain the behavior and is divided into three phases: knowing the content of revenue input, breakdown of motor behavior in separate modules and then analysis of individual modules. To attribute a functional significance to the behavior, Lorenz took a path that links the interpretative analysis of the antecedents and consequent movements: starting from a context he considers the relationships that are forming between individuals and the environment, analyzing the terms and instinctive forms of movement and linking with the conditions of arrival.
Motivational analysis is a method that put also the ethological basis for the observation of human behavior in natural settings, on the assumption that each individual acts on the drive of instincts variously combined, provided we understand the derivatives of the basic instincts. For example, hunger is not limited to the mere obtaining of food, but deals with the accumulation of wealth and everything that stands with these objectives. Sex is not only reproduction but combined with other components and encountering cultural aspects, assumes complex and multifaceted meanings and values, as we think of the value of virginity or use mercenary sexual function, only to make two simple examples.
Intraspecific aggression considered by Lorenz, therefore, serves a useful function for survival, allowing a better individual fitness. The critical aspect of the exposure of Lorenz is the attempt to explain human aggression and destructiveness with the loss of inhibitory mechanisms commonly observed in nature, assuming a lower threshold trigger in relation to environmental conditions of constraint.
Freud postulated the existence of a primitive impulse originated from the id, called the libido, an object of psychic investment in the form of narcissism and projected onto objects, such as object-libido, and only after the author has described additional components located in the ego drives self, in particular the aggressive drive. Libido, with its aggressive component, originates from the id is primitive and service to the primary process while leaving the ego at the service of reality and the control of homeostasis. In "Beyond the Pleasure Principle", 1920, the author comes to delineate two major opposing instinctual engines, one part named libido and the instincts of life, the other named the death instinct, which is described as a tendency to the total absence of tensions, of which the aggression was outward directed component.
Just the death instinct is the basis of Melanie Klein’s theory, moving from first object relations requires the existence of a complex mechanism, projective identification, whereby the child identifies the subject as the feeding breasts and target of its investment drive and object instances on which to project aggressive and destructive feelings, resulting from the absence of a cohesive self and identifying the parent object as a container for these pressures. The basis of Klein’s theory, in keeping with Freud and Abraham is the conception of an original aggressive instance, determined by the instinct of death. Other authors, notably Kernberg and Kohut, have been distanced from the concept of death instinct, theorizing an aggressive response not dependent on a primitive biologically determined instinct.
Behavioral psychology does not allow instinctual components, so the behavior is the result of learning arising from the interaction of the individual with environmental inputs. Psychologists have been interested aggressive behavior with the Dollard and coll. study of 1939 "Frustration and Aggressivity" in which it was argued that aggression was considered in conjunction with the frustration of individual and social expectation.
Recent riots in the banlieues of Paris can be spotlight by this theory, as a reaction to living conditions that do not match the expectations of the rebels, young people born in France, who attended the schools and have no access to social and economic position corresponding to those of their peers, unable to access work areas and all that goes with it, like the ability to be attractive to peers from higher social level.
If this theory can explain the outbursts of aggression and violence in large cities, where inequality of living conditions are particularly conspicuously, does not explain individual aggressiveness. Just Lorenz, in his essay of 1964, "Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression", refers failure of the practice of bringing up children in the absence of frustration, the negative consequences on their mental state and showing not any less aggressive than others, as adults.
Theory of aggression formuated by Bandura and coll., put in relation child's aggressive and violent behavior of an observed model to consequences that occur : if the model was awarded the child will imitate him, but if it follows negative effects the child do not tend to conform his behavior to that of the model. Aggression is therefore a cultural option behavior to imitate depending as the effects that fall on the model: a young successful manager, aggressive and unscrupulous, inspire other people to imitate him, as the characters in a comic book or a movie, recompensed for their mischief, would become models for children.
A third approach to aggression is that of evolutionary psychology, which refers to the theory of evolution, ethology, cognitive psychology and sociobiology. Recognizing the importance of adaptation (fitness) to environment, behaviors are related to different developmental levels, such as environmental fitness, reproductive success, both as a species and as individuals, and the ability to survive. It’s immediately clear difference with other psychological approaches: here it’s recognized that the body has a CNS able to express instinctual behaviors, not unlike other species of nonhuman primates, while not disavowing the enormous weight of cultural factors and environment factors.
In the context of evolutionary psychology, some authors, among which Cosmides and Tooby, attach considerable weight to the theory of Dowkins, known as "selfish gene theory''. We may define altruistic, according to this theory, a behavior that reduces the possibility of reproducing their own genes to the benefit of other people's genes and not to be confused altruistic with prosocial behavior, which do not involves reducing prospects to survival: yielding food for others when one has excess is quite different than yelding when it has just the amount for itself. It should be enough clear that concept of reproductive success implies a high dose of altruistic and prosocial behavior, at least just enough to allow the children to survive, but also a great deal of selfishness, at least just enough to allow the children to survive, but also a great deal of selfishness, at least just enough to balance the shared genes, so altruistic behaviors are less likely the lower the number of shared genes .
The motivational analysis is the method used by Lorenz to explain the behavior and is divided into three phases: knowing the content of revenue input, breakdown of motor behavior in separate modules and then analysis of individual modules. To attribute a functional significance to the behavior, Lorenz took a path that links the interpretative analysis of the antecedents and consequent movements: starting from a context he considers the relationships that are forming between individuals and the environment, analyzing the terms and instinctive forms of movement and linking with the conditions of arrival.
Motivational analysis is a method that put also the ethological basis for the observation of human behavior in natural settings, on the assumption that each individual acts on the drive of instincts variously combined, provided we understand the derivatives of the basic instincts. For example, hunger is not limited to the mere obtaining of food, but deals with the accumulation of wealth and everything that stands with these objectives. Sex is not only reproduction but combined with other components and encountering cultural aspects, assumes complex and multifaceted meanings and values, as we think of the value of virginity or use mercenary sexual function, only to make two simple examples.
Intraspecific aggression considered by Lorenz, therefore, serves a useful function for survival, allowing a better individual fitness. The critical aspect of the exposure of Lorenz is the attempt to explain human aggression and destructiveness with the loss of inhibitory mechanisms commonly observed in nature, assuming a lower threshold trigger in relation to environmental conditions of constraint.
Freud postulated the existence of a primitive impulse originated from the id, called the libido, an object of psychic investment in the form of narcissism and projected onto objects, such as object-libido, and only after the author has described additional components located in the ego drives self, in particular the aggressive drive. Libido, with its aggressive component, originates from the id is primitive and service to the primary process while leaving the ego at the service of reality and the control of homeostasis. In "Beyond the Pleasure Principle", 1920, the author comes to delineate two major opposing instinctual engines, one part named libido and the instincts of life, the other named the death instinct, which is described as a tendency to the total absence of tensions, of which the aggression was outward directed component.
Just the death instinct is the basis of Melanie Klein’s theory, moving from first object relations requires the existence of a complex mechanism, projective identification, whereby the child identifies the subject as the feeding breasts and target of its investment drive and object instances on which to project aggressive and destructive feelings, resulting from the absence of a cohesive self and identifying the parent object as a container for these pressures. The basis of Klein’s theory, in keeping with Freud and Abraham is the conception of an original aggressive instance, determined by the instinct of death. Other authors, notably Kernberg and Kohut, have been distanced from the concept of death instinct, theorizing an aggressive response not dependent on a primitive biologically determined instinct.
Behavioral psychology does not allow instinctual components, so the behavior is the result of learning arising from the interaction of the individual with environmental inputs. Psychologists have been interested aggressive behavior with the Dollard and coll. study of 1939 "Frustration and Aggressivity" in which it was argued that aggression was considered in conjunction with the frustration of individual and social expectation.
Recent riots in the banlieues of Paris can be spotlight by this theory, as a reaction to living conditions that do not match the expectations of the rebels, young people born in France, who attended the schools and have no access to social and economic position corresponding to those of their peers, unable to access work areas and all that goes with it, like the ability to be attractive to peers from higher social level.
If this theory can explain the outbursts of aggression and violence in large cities, where inequality of living conditions are particularly conspicuously, does not explain individual aggressiveness. Just Lorenz, in his essay of 1964, "Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression", refers failure of the practice of bringing up children in the absence of frustration, the negative consequences on their mental state and showing not any less aggressive than others, as adults.
Theory of aggression formuated by Bandura and coll., put in relation child's aggressive and violent behavior of an observed model to consequences that occur : if the model was awarded the child will imitate him, but if it follows negative effects the child do not tend to conform his behavior to that of the model. Aggression is therefore a cultural option behavior to imitate depending as the effects that fall on the model: a young successful manager, aggressive and unscrupulous, inspire other people to imitate him, as the characters in a comic book or a movie, recompensed for their mischief, would become models for children.
A third approach to aggression is that of evolutionary psychology, which refers to the theory of evolution, ethology, cognitive psychology and sociobiology. Recognizing the importance of adaptation (fitness) to environment, behaviors are related to different developmental levels, such as environmental fitness, reproductive success, both as a species and as individuals, and the ability to survive. It’s immediately clear difference with other psychological approaches: here it’s recognized that the body has a CNS able to express instinctual behaviors, not unlike other species of nonhuman primates, while not disavowing the enormous weight of cultural factors and environment factors.
In the context of evolutionary psychology, some authors, among which Cosmides and Tooby, attach considerable weight to the theory of Dowkins, known as "selfish gene theory''. We may define altruistic, according to this theory, a behavior that reduces the possibility of reproducing their own genes to the benefit of other people's genes and not to be confused altruistic with prosocial behavior, which do not involves reducing prospects to survival: yielding food for others when one has excess is quite different than yelding when it has just the amount for itself. It should be enough clear that concept of reproductive success implies a high dose of altruistic and prosocial behavior, at least just enough to allow the children to survive, but also a great deal of selfishness, at least just enough to allow the children to survive, but also a great deal of selfishness, at least just enough to balance the shared genes, so altruistic behaviors are less likely the lower the number of shared genes .
