Human Aggression; Is It In The Genes?

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Human Aggression Is It In The Genes?

• Honoring Father Theodore Hesburgh, President
  Emeritus
• University of Notre Dame
• James J. McKenna PhD Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Chair
  in Anthropology
• Director, Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory
  

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Ethologist Konrad Lorenz wrote about human
aggression this way

• An unprejudiced observer from another planet
  looking upon man as he is today, in his hand the
  atom bomb, a product of his intelligence, in his
  heart the aggressive drive inherited from his
  anthropoid ancestors which their same
  intelligence cannot control, would not predict
  long life for the species. (From On
  Aggression(1969)

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Human Aggression Bio-Cultural Perspectives (is
it in the genes?)

• The sordid history of mankind attests well to
  the fantastic plurality of stimuli that can be
  cooked up to elicit aggression. But how natural
  is it?
• Ralph Holloway (1968)

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Does an answer to this question matter?

• YES! because of the danger of self-fulfilling
  prophecies

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Recall that..

• ..the behavior of men is not independent of the
  theories of human behavior that men adopt
• Leon Eisenberg The Nature of Human Nature pg
  165 (1972)

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Also,

• Pessimism about man serves to maintain the
  status quo.
• Leon Eisenberg pg. 167 1997 The Nature of Human
  Nature

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is it in the genes? or environment? both/
neither?

• recallfor complex organisms..like humans,
  genes produce potentiality--not certaintyof
  expression
• aggression adaptive? some? measured?whether
  self-generated (by genes) or in response to
  experience, a rat fighting another rat on an
  electrified metal grill--to eliminate the
  pain..is adaptive, right?

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What is Aggression?..we surely know it when we
see it

• An animal acts aggressively when it inflicts,
  attempts to inflict, or threatens to inflict
  damage on another animal.The act is usually
  accompanied by recognizable behavioral symptoms
  and recognizable physiological changes.
• Carthy and Ebling 1964

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or..do we always know it when we see it ?

• Perhaps amongst humans, aggression is not so
  easily defined, nor so immediately obvious..?
• Socio-economic and political factors can be as
  injurious to physical and psycho-social health as
  violence can be to limbs and organs of the body

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Consider the changes in levels of human
lethality--made possible by high tech culture..
Weapons that killmassively

• the cultural evolution of cides..
• from suicide.to
• homicidetaking of anothers life, to
• genocide.eliminating an entire group of people,
  to
• ecocidekilling of an ecosystemto
• omnicidekilling of everything or anything
  (D.BarashSociobiology and Behavior)

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About HUMAN Aggression? What does Mel Gibsons
Brave Heart..teach us?

• A rousing speech? exposure of genitals ..to an
  enemy ? What ? A war is scripted..follows some
  rules?
• has social meaning ---full of symbols..and ritual
  as the motivating factors
• dress up for war? flags? pageantry? WHAT?
• fighting for food, protection or..an idea or
  value (Scotland and freedom)?
• technologically-based? Always fatal?

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Anthropology a holistic understanding (four
lines of evidence)
Developmental (socialization)
Cross-cultural (definitions are value driven)
Aggression
Evolutionary
human
abuse and neglect
origins? functons? selective conditions?
Cross-species
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heterogeneity of aggressionit is not a coherent
or uniform behavior and it has many causes
Intra-specific Aggression vs. Inter-specific
Aggression
Predatory behavior
Protection from predators defense of young
defensive of territory
within species- within group competition for food
, resources, mates, allies, status
aggression associated with niche partitioning
protective responses
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Sociobiological View of Aggression? D.Barash

• Rather than consider human beings to be either
  innately aggressive or innately non-aggressive,a
  socio-biological view suggests that we have been
  selected to behave aggressively under some
  conditions and non-aggressively under others,
  depending upon the consequences of such
  aggressiveness or non-agressiveness for our
  evolutionary successAggressive behavior that is
  adaptive behavior under one condition may be mal
  adaptive under others

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Animal Aggression vs..human aggression controlled
by?

• Dominance or social hierarchies .the baboons
  policeman is his own biology?
• Social institutionssocial values.. i.e.ethical
  judgments enforced by laws, police, jails,
  prisons, courtsa uniquely human response
• humans substitute cultural rules for biological
  imperatives

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setting up the issue.a little history
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Any evidence?For Evolutionary Antecedents?

• Primate wide-trends of affiliation and social
  cooperation (Sussman, Garber and
  Cheverud)

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A major basis of maternal-infant attachment is
contact-comfort (rather than satiation)Harry
Harlow
Attachment Unfolding, discriminating bond
between parent and infant genetically-based..
Immediate survival and protection from predators
is main outcome
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Maternal behavior among primates extends
throughout an extremely long infant and juvenile
period, with prolonged periods of physical
contact.
Orang-Utan
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repair the damage caused by conflict? or
protecting cooperation and affiliative
relationships?
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Cooperation or Aggression in Human Evolution? It
all began 3-4 million years agoThe Hominine
Niche

• Emergence of empathy..mind reading..Food
  sharing/bipedalism, infant vulnerability
• Tool use dependence, knowledge, skills,
  communication skills (verbal,non verbal)
• Daddy transport and care (Gettler 2009 omnivory,
  reduced gut mass
• Lack of clear material record for substantial
  division of labor until
• recently! (loss of estrous,too)
• Importance of social knowedge

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What is unique (and scary) about human
aggression?

• that the technology of violence makes it so easy
  to be so massively lethal--and deadly, and
  removed physically and psychologically from the
  violent act--from the appeasement and
  subordination of the victim
• capacity to hate and de-humanize the
  enemy--without knowing who the enemy actually is,
  personally
• and to objectify and to make abstractions out of
  the enemywhich makes violence easy and
  justified.

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Process of Enemy Formation Its Universal

• First, de-humanize by depicting them
  graphically/artistically as sub-human, without
  human emotions an sensitivities like insects,
  snakes, varmin
• depict as vermin, vile, dangerous and
  threatening..
• Use familiar, revered symbols and icons to depict
  their potential for inhumane acts..
• Unite population over perceived threat--the
  importance of acting together (socially marks own
  cultural and ethnic group)
• Learn to think of the enemy as an abstraction,
  not persons..

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Where Aggression Comes From Developmental
Factors

• Socio-cultural values intrinsic to the home and
  local culture?
• Semai vs. Yanomamo peoples
• familial-parental reinforcement-socialization..sex
  role modeling etc etc.
• Infant-child relational experiences (affection,
  love, acquiring and being given self-worth,
  breast feeding, affectionate contact (high and
  low contact..emergence of empathy, attunement,
  conscience)

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From D. Fry, (35 societies in the Standard
Cross-Cultural Sample )
Variable Simple Hunter-Gatherers Complex
Hunter-Gatherers
Primary food Terrestrial game Marine resources
or plants Food storage Very rare Typical Mobi
lity Nomadic or Semi-nomadic Settled or mostly
settled Population Low population
densities Higher population densities Political
system Egalitarian Hierarchical with
classes based on wealth or
heredity Social structure Absence of social
segments Lineages in some cases Slavery Absen
t Frequent Competition Discouraged Encouraged
Warfare Rare Variable/Common
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Specific Developmental Ideas About Origins

• Frustration-aggression hypothesis (continuous
  thwarting of ones goals leads to violence,
  Dollard et.al
• family abuse and neglect including sexual and
  physical violence
• male sexual jealousy and envy
• learn to fight by fighting, learn to win by
  winning (rat studies)
• fighting in response to pain..

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Child abuse is passed from one generation to
another..learned!!
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Material envy ?
Human beings are unique among primates, however,
in that we experience prolonged material
ownership. This custom creates long lasting
grudges and persistent personal violence.
(Barash 1987)
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the negative side of moral beliefs and ideologies

• Humans are alone in our will, desire and
  capability to force another culture to convert to
  a different practicereligious or political?

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Proximate Causes/Motivations Likewise Are
Heterogeneous

• Pain-induced..(tumor on amygdala)
• Parental (protective) aggression
• Kin-based aggression
• Hypoglycemic responses
• Hunger-induced, chemical imbalance
• There appears no singular motivation, hence, no
  singular gene
• underlying each kind of aggressive act

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What does it mean to say that aggression is
actually based on genes

• how and why can aggression actually evolve
• Answer it must increase the reproductive success
  of the actor

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An Evolutionary Point of View Lorenz

• Proposes an independent appetitive drive--to be
  aggressive i.e. the spontaneity of aggression
  hypothesis..
• argues for the inherent adaptive value of an
  aggressive drive ...defend territory, protect
  resources, increase access to mates (status)..
• underlies human cultural life..can be re-directed
  by international sports events

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Lorenz and the Hydraulic Model of Aggression

• An unlearned need to release energy in the form
  of aggression, in some form, expressed either
  directly, or through vicarious participation in
  ceremonies and/or sport rituals
• The longer the interval between the consumatory
  aggressive act .. the lower the stimuli
  threshold becomes needed to set off the
  behavior...and the more likely will the person
  actively seek out the releasing stimuli to
  restore balance i.e. the hydraulic aspect

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a universal independent motivation for
aggression ?

• about which Robert Hinde writes
• .ethologists need not fabricate a general model
  of drive, but rather what is needed is to
  document individual cases and variability as to
  how and under what circumstances different types
  of aggression occur.

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Ethologists such as Lorenz, Tinbergen,
Eibl-Eibesfeldt...

• studied fighting fish, gamecocks, bull fights,
  cichlids, geese, ducks.not primates
• adopted a mechanistic-gene based view of
  aggression..less mutable and organized around
  reproductive fitness modelsdrives/strategies
  (primary and otherwise)

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Contemporary Views of Aggression

• more holistic and transactional in theory and
  explanationboth proximate and ultimate
  explanations---
• acknowledges underlying physiology, hormonal
  status (prolactins, androgens, testosterone,
  estrogens, neuro-transmitters (seratonin) affect
  excitability and mood in generalwithout defining
  what behavior will be expressed..
• The role of experience and socialization..enemy
  formation models

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role of the cortex (discriminating-evaluating)
part of brain ?

• does the biology of aggression accommodate ? or
  cause ? the aggression?

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Does Affection and Touch In Infancy Reduce Adult
Aggression?

• Dr. James H. Prescott (developmental
  neuropsychologist)
• Principle cause of human violence stems from a
  lack of bodily pleasure
• I am convinced that various abnormal social and
  emotional behaviors resulting from what
  psychologists call maternal deprivation, that
  is, a lack of tender, loving care, are caused by
  a unique type of sensory deprivation,
  somato-sensory deprivation (sensations of touch
  and body movement, especially)

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Lets examineanthropologically

• western infant care practices in relationship to
  human infant needs and conditions..is there a
  mismatch ? Do we promote empathy..through
  closeness

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Contemporary Views of Aggression and Warfare

• models recognize huge differences between
  institutional, state, and nationally-sponsored or
  sanctioned aggression, from forms of aggression
  committed by individuals..
• explanations of forms of more global human
  aggression tend to separate these defined
  nationalistic/political/religious motivations
  (especially nation/state warfare) avoid
  biological explanations...

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The Good News

• Human beings have a tremendous capacity to
  identify with the other
• To transcend sense of danger for ones self in
  the sight of another in peril..to lose ones self
  completely and become the other..
• The hero/heroine loses his or herself for the
  sake of others...

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Why Do Such Relatively Tiny Numbers of
Aggressive Acts Seem So Huge and Overwhelming?

• Because peacefulness and positive interactions
  and social cohesiveness are so critically valued
  universally and important to reproductive
  success
• Because It is not as important to notice the
  billions upon billions of daily proactive acts of
  sacrifice, kindness and positive social behaviors
  and interactions---it is expected and normal..
• It is precisely because our evolution including
  the emergence of cultural life depends on
  co-operation and social inter-dependence that it
  is the opposite --aggression--is which threatens
  co-operation.. is so unacceptableand why
  aggression is so salient!

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Competition and Rivalry (YES)Hatred and Violence
(No)

• there is a Lake in Massachusetts.. on the
  Connecticut border (named by the Mohegans..
• Lake Charbunagungamaug..
• You fish on your side, I fish on my side, nobody
  fish in the middle, no trouble.. David Barash
  story..(1987)

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Another Way To View..On Aggression

• We are threatened more by the genetic traits we
  lack than by those we possess
• We lack genetically mediated killing inhibitions
  because natural selection did not have much
  reason to endow us with any Barash (1987)

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Love actually is..all around
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Human Aggression Is It In The Genes?

• Honoring Father Theodore Hesburgh, President
  Emeritus
• University of Notre Dame
• James J. McKenna PhD Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C.
  Endowed Chair in Anthropology
• Director, Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory