Dear Friends:

I note with interest that the discussion about human violent behavior keeps drifting toward animal world, perhaps in the interest of identifying common elements with them. As we have a large number of members on this forum who subscribe to Darwinian evolutionary theories, naturally they keep peeking into the animal world to explain human behavior.  

Personally,  I see very little that can be compared between the world of animals and humans. The fact that the humans live on intelligence and reason while the animal behavior depends mainly on their instincts (nature’s program), create a very large difference between the two. A tiger killing a deer for food is not violence. That is the only way he can get food; the tiger has no alternatives whatsoever. This act has nothing to do with anger or violence. This is an instinctive action that requires very little intelligence. Various experiments conducted on animal intelligence or capacity to learn or develop intelligence clearly show that the animals simply do not have the ability to acquire intelligence. Only a few species of monkeys have been found with the capacity to develop a limited amount of intelligence which when quantified was not found be more than the level of intelligence of an average 5-6 year old human.  

The man has plenty of alternatives available to him but on times he still chooses to commit violence against others. The man has ability to think, reason, plan, learn on a continuous basis, use previously learned experiences and be innovative. Because of these attributes, the man has the obligation to be responsible and accountable for his actions, while an animal is not, since the animals do not have reason based intelligence. 

In the animal world, all members of a given species show identical behavior no matter what part of the jungle or the continent they belong to. But the human behavior widely varies in different parts of the world or even in the same country depending upon what social class they belong to or what type of social and psychological conditioning they have experienced. Clearly, it shows (but certainly not limited to) the influence of social structure, economic conditions and personal value system being the pervasive factors controlling the human behavior. In order to understand human behavior, we must study humans, their immediate environment where they live, work and interact with each others.  

What triggers the agonistic or aggressive behavior among people, has been a topic of study for several decades amongst psychologists and sociologists. The reasons cited for aggression are almost as many as there are violently aggressive people.  

Another observation that I have made in this discussion is that some writers have given the religion a high place as a cause for violence. Here is a short list of some of the worst violent acts that took place in recent history which had nothing to do with any religion. These are typical examples of collective violence. 

WWI, 1914-18: 15 million died

Soviet Union, Stalin’s regime, 1924-53): 20 million died

Spanish Civil War, 1936-39: 200 000 died

WWII, 1939-45: 50 million died

Korean War, 1950-53: 1.2 million died

Viet Nam War: 2 million died

Soviet attack in Afghanistan, 1979-89: 200 000+ died

Chinese Civil War, 1927-37: 0.5 million died

Mao’s Regime, Peoples Republic of China, 1949-75: approx 40 million (?) died

Pol Pot, Combodia, 1975-78: about 2 million died

US Invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, 2001 - ????:    guesses are 50 000 to 250 000 dead so far. (Not to forget the violence of using the chemical bombs in Falujah) 

All the above aggression took place due to geo-political and economical reasons. These are often the most important factors which motivate collective violence. At individual level, there are usually different set of factors to cause violence or serious aggression as discussed below:  

Aggression and Violence at Individual Level 

Internal State and External Stimuli:  

With any of the following factors (or combination of many) already present in one’s state of mind, almost any excuse from the outside world will become an external stimuli to trigger a violent situation. The risk of a violent act taking place increases when frustration and stress combine with an aggressive stimuli. Under such conditions, occasionally, an external stimuli, as ordinary as cutting some one off on the road while driving, could start a road rage. 

1. Socio-Economic Factors:

Poor upbringing, low IQ level, frustrations of life, personal failures and difficulties, unmet expectations, inability to handle social pressures of the society or culture, dysfunctional family background – lack of appropriate role model, lack of sense of responsibility and accountability, lack of conflict management training, drug and alcohol abuse are but some of the factors which effect one’s state of mind and can cause an agonistic behavior.  

A 1988 study conducted in the US shows that the communities which have highest murder rates on per capita basis, also have highest poverty and population density rates. 

2. Harmones and Aggression:

Researches have reported a link between harmones and aggression in men. It has been shown that high levels of endogenous testosterone seem to encourage dominating behavior that may under certain circumstances lead to aggressive behavior.  

According to a report testosterone was administered to 56 men aged 20 to 50 years. The treatment significantly increased aggressive response on a frustration-inducing computer game. The effect however, was not uniform across the individuals. Only a few showed   prominent effects. 

3. Evolutionary Psychology:

Evolutionary psychology is the study of human psychological adaptation in evolutionary perspective. Its proponents are mostly those who support evolutionary theories, but there are some researchers in this field who do not want to put the ‘evolution’ tag. They prefer to call this by other names, such as human sociobiology, human ethology and human behavioral ecology etc.  

The basic premise of Evolutionary Psychology is that the human brain at birth is not a blank slate, but the brain inherits a lot through genetics. Personally, I do not accept this notion as I believe that genetic influence is there but it is nominal as compared to the influences of the environment in which one grows up. As I have stated in previous posts, one should be ready to accept some exceptions when studying human behavior as there are hundreds of factors which influence the personality. As a result many families end up having a maverick among them. The acceptance of this statement by itself is a proof that the humans are born with a brain which is more or less a blank slate – which is contrary to what most Evolutionary Psychology students believe.  

The most popular example the Evolutionary Psychologists use to connect the genetic influences and hence the link of humans to chimpanzees is the observation that the chimpanzees fend off against chimpanzees of other groups similar to humans, hence the link. Further study of this phenomenon has revealed that the basic reason for such violent behavior is scarcity of food. In fact similar behavior has been shown among mice as well. The mice can live in large numbers in confined spaces without showing aggression while plenty of food is available. As soon as the food quantities are restricted they attack each other.  

Basically it’s the territory and the food that the animals defend which is most often the cause of violent aggression. I am sure we are all familiar with domestic chickens, how violently they defend the territorial domination. 

4. Anger:

A discussion on violence and aggression cannot be considered complete without discussing anger, its root cause and effects on one’s behavior. Anger is the main link between the conflicts and the violence.  

Anger is a state of mind that is created as an emotional response to a perceived injustice. 

[Perceived: (Conflict/Disagreement/Injustice)]

[Perceived:(Conflict/Disagreement/Injustice)] à Anger à Aggression  

Perceived conflicts and disagreements within individuals can lead to the feelings of injustice. Any of the following situations can be the root cause of the conflict: 

Goal Conflict: Situations where the end result or the final outcome of some object of interest is perceived to be different from expected. 

Cognitive Conflict: Situations where ideas or thoughts are perceived to be incompatible between individuals. 

Affective Conflicts: Situations in which feelings or emotions are incompatible between the individuals. 

The presence of substantial amounts of any of these conflicts can lead to perceived injustice, which in turn gives rise to anger. Once anger takes over, the individual may act irrationally or aggressively which may lead to violence. That is why it is often said, “if you don’t control anger, the anger will control you”. 

Low level, on and off conflicts often give rise to emotional stress, which could vent itself out as anger. Those who fly into rage easily are said to have short fuse. They are the people who go from conflict to anger to aggression in a very short time. These are the individuals who often cause road rage incidents. 

Being angry on times in response to certain perceived injustices or someone’s wrong doings is natural. But, for healthy and peaceful living for an individual or for a society, the control and management of anger is essential. Anger is part of us and all around us, but then, so are the diseases. Just the way we control diseases and try to keep ourselves free of them, similarly, we have to learn to control anger to keep its occurrences to a minimum.  

In order to control aggression and violence, we need to control anger. In order to keep anger to a minimum, we have to act, behave and design our lives to minimize the root cause of conflicts, disagreements and injustices around us.   

5. Depressions and Mental Disorders:

Mental health and related issues is an area that very few people pay attention to. A recent Harvard medical School report indicated that at least one in three American suffer from one or another kind of behavioral problem that interferes with his work or normal relationship with others around them. It is an established fact that in the US, diagnosable mental disorder cases are more than the combined total of cancer, heart disease and lung diseases. All those who suffer from a depression or mental disorder are not necessarily more violent or aggressive than others, but chances are high that they can easily feel frustrated and hence angry. The disorders of this cross-section of American society has been reported to be as follows:  Anxiety disorder: 17%, Depressive disorders: 11%, Alcohol abuse or dependence: 10%, drug abuse or dependence: 4%. Studies show that several common mental disorders are hereditary.  

Most severe mental disorders are Schizophrenia and Manic Depression (Bipolar), which are almost equally distributed throughout the world at 2% and 1.5% of a given population, respectively. In the US alone, it makes well over 10 million patients. I am not sure what percentage of these patients would receive proper treatment, but those who do not get treated could be considered walking time bombs and hence good candidates for causing extreme violence. 

It is my understanding that most of the individual violence that we see in almost any society comes from section 1, above, identified as socio-economic factors.  

Regards,

Javed I. Chaudry

Dec 2, 05