Aggression as Instinct
Konrad Lorenz, who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize for his work establishing ethology as a science, assumed that aggression is more instinctive than learned, even in humans (although we shall see that he did propose one environmental element as a contributing cause).
Lorenz’s On Aggression (1963), groundbreaking when published, contains the reflections of a mature scientist based on his own research and that of many others. Sharing this view at least in part are Robert Ardrey, Peter Corning, Raymond Dart, Sigmund Freud, Jane Goodall, Desmond Morris, and Edmund Wilson. In opposition to the notion of an inborn instinct that is a sufficient cause of aggression is an equally distinguished group of scientists including Sally Carrighar, Louis and Mary Leakey, Margaret Mead and Ashley Montagu. They point to supposedly peaceful societies to argue that aggression is learned behavior (see below) and that warfare emerged too late in human evolution to be instinctive.Lorenz distinguished predation from aggression, the latter being “a fighting instinct directed against members of the same species.” It often takes ritualized forms in tests of strength and dominance in animals such as horses, monkeys, sheep, and wolves and contributes to species survival usually without physical injury. Many who emphasize instinct as the cause of aggression see it as serving positive functions. Thus, Lorenz asserts “aggression, far from being the diabolical, destructive principle that classical psychoanalysis makes it out to be, really is an essential part of the life preserving organization of instincts.”
Our ability to breed animals for desired behavioral qualities, particularly aggressiveness in bulls, roosters, and pit bulls is evidence supporting the theory. Birds inherit their songs in most species and Balaban created chickens that behave like quails by transplanting embryonic brain cells.
All these lines of evidence suggest genetic transmission of at least some behaviors in some species.Lorenz argues that since we are descended from apes, our ancestors must have acted like apes. Chimpanzees and baboons are aggressive, so our ancestors also must have been aggressive. Put this baldly, most people quickly realize the flaw. Physical descent may influence but does not insure behavioral descent. Among the apes, orangutans and gorillas are peaceful unless threatened.
Lorenz believed that aggression builds up and then erupts suddenly, somewhat like a balloon that expands until it explodes without warning. This is the “hydraulic theory” of aggression. Aggression that is not released leads to pathology, and therefore to the idea of prevention by catharsis—that is to diverting aggression to competitive games, developing skills, pursuing cultural activities and viewing films with aggressive content to release anger. Lorenz echoed the Olympic slogan when he wrote, “sports promote personal acquaintance between people of different nations or parties, and they unite, in enthusiasm for a common cause, people who otherwise would have little in common.” Unfortunately, it is argument by analogy with relatively little supporting scientific evidence. Sporting events sometimes result in post-game riots. As all humans share the same genetic makeup, but sports riots are largely limited to certain classes and cultures (most infamously, English “hooligans”), instinct is a weak explanation.
Recent laboratory experiments and studies of the impact of television and movies have led to a more complex assessment (see below). The change in interpretation may reflect more sophisticated research methods, a change in the type and amount of violence shown, or a change in the expectations of the researchers—the Pygmalion or Halo Effect that leads people to interpret data on the basis of their preconceptions. Overall, there is little support in the experimental literature for the efficacy of catharsis (Berkowitz 1993, Bandura 1973).
In fact, teaching people to express their anger instead of teaching responsible self-control may be a factor in people “going postal.”Lorenz does suggest a non-instinctive environmental component, proposing that crowding can lead to aggression. Calhoun (1962) demonstrated that rats sufficiently crowded together begin killing one another. Lorenz agrees with those who extrapolate to humans that crowding along with poverty and heat, are factors that explain the high levels of violence in inner cities. However, Judge and de Waal (1997) complicated the picture somewhat in finding that among rhesus monkeys there was no increase in aggression among males, but it tripled among females under crowding six hundred times normal. Not only has much of the supporting research been done on animals, but the causal connection seems less compelling when one recalls the hot, crowded but largely pacific cities of Southeast and East Asia.