ABSTRACT
Aggression has long been high on Psychology’s agenda for obvious reasons, and most Psychological theories have offered their distinct explanations of it. There is a serious conceptual or linguistic problem with ‘aggression’ in that it is used to describe behaviours of widely differing kinds, having in common only that they involve some form of actual or threatened violence, ranging from a heated argument and a drunken pub brawl, to a door kicked in frustration and a high altitude bombing raid. One well-known Psychological suggestion was the ‘frustration-aggression hypothesis’ (Dollard et al., 1939) – aggression was caused by frustration. This is undoubtedly true in many cases, but in others frustration is not obviously involved at all. In ethology, animal aggression is understood as variously related to territorial defence, establishing and maintaining social hierarchies, competition for mates and disciplining of young as well as predation. Equivalents of all these may be found in human behaviour. In addition, the most dangerous mode of human aggression is what might be termed ‘instrumental’ aggression. Unlike one-on-one physical fights, which involve unsustainably high levels of arousal and can usually be terminated by one party submitting, modern wars are largely fought with ‘instrumental’ methods such as firing missiles from a great distance. These require quite the opposite psychological states in those deploying them – low arousal, calm attention, high self-discipline and sustained engagement, and if opponents wish to submit they may be hard put to let their attackers know! A second way in which the term can be misleading is that, when used as a noun, it gives the impression of referring to a thing-like entity or principle, such as an ‘aggression instinct’ perhaps. More correctly it should be understood as ‘adjectival’ or ‘adverbial’, referring to a style or mode of behaving. Some people have an aggressive personality style, for example, we may do anything from pruning a tree to driving to ordering meals in restaurants aggressively. Psychology and ethology have undoubtedly illuminated many facets of how, when and why aggressive behaviour occurs, but the notion of aggression as a unitary psychological phenomenon has been hard to shake off. A final cautionary point is that psychologists may be tempted to offer Psychological explanations for aggression which is more appropriately accounted for at a sociological level. This can let those with
socio-political power off the hook. And sometimes to engage in aggression is simply to be conforming to a social norm. Again, if faced with the choice of fighting and maybe surviving or not fighting and certainly being shot for cowardice, ‘aggression’ as such plays no obvious psychological role in someone’s deciding to take the first option. Recent research has focused mainly on aggression in girls, adolescent aggression, aggression in sport and inter-group aggression.
