ABSTRACT
The view that social bonding is based on a compromise between hostility and attraction, rather than on attraction alone, has been most strongly expressed by Lorenz (1966). His suggestions were based on observations of pair-bonding rituals in ducks and geese. Reynolds (1980, p. 7) objected to the extrapolation of these “bird-and-fish” insights to humans, and com plained, “One wishes that Lorenz’s knowledge about primates were grea te r” . Lorenz definitely carried the paradox too far, but it is not so obvious that our present knowledge of primates undermines the idea that aggres sive tendencies sometimes play a constructive role in bond formation. Although I agree with Hinde (1970) that aggression per se can hardly be regarded as something “good” for society, the central point of this chapter is to demonstrate that it is not fruitful to consider aggression in isolation from the total context of behaviour. Aggressive behaviour is embedded in social mechanisms, such as dominance, which evolved to mitigate its effects. In many species these mechanisms are so powerful that they allow for the use of restrained aggression to define and structure relationships without disrupting them (Bernstein & Gordon, 1974).
