The Behavioural Biology Of Aggression

Part of a new multidisciplinary series examining the functions and evolution of behaviour, this book aims to elucidate the general principles underlying animal aggression. The work divides forms of aggression according to function, examining different species, sexes and life cycle stages.

Unchecked aggression and violence take a significant toll on society. With recent advances in pharmacology and genetic manipulation techniques, new interest has developed in the biological mechanisms of aggression. The primary goal of this title is to summarise and synthesis recent advances in the subject.

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on The Biology of Aggression, Château de Bonas, Toulouse, France, July 21-30, 1980

A unique synthesis of breakthrough research, this landmark book shatters myths about the causes of aggression, maintaining that the roots of violent behavior lie in the way the brain works.

Aggression usually involves a sequence of behaviors, reflecting escalations and de-escalations in the form or intensity of the actions taken, which play out over time. This book provides a context in which social and biological research on the aggressive behaviors of human and non-human subjects, interacting in dyads or groups, can be compared and integrated. Implicit in this juxtaposition is the major question of whether general principles governing the dynamics of aggression within and between episodes may be discerned. Aggressive behavior is described at different levels of analysis in humans and a number of other animal species. Three basic views of aggression dynamics become apparent: * The economic interpretation: Aggression will be escalated when it pays one of the combatants to do so or, more generally, when the potential benefits outweigh the risks. Decisions to escalate or de-escalate are part of a calculated "strategy", in one or another sense. This interpretation is formalized within game theoretic models as applied to animal conflicts and to international conflicts, within the chapters of this text. * The psychological process interpretation: Emphasis is placed on psychological/physiological processes within the individual. The chapters stress the importance of acute emotional states of anger and aggressive arousal and argue the role of peripheral sympathetic activation, while proposing a central neural mechanism. Children escalating their tantrums, adult humans and animals of other species intensifying their interpersonal conflicts, national leaders going to a war footing all appear to suffer a narrowing of attention and progressive failure of cognitive function under the intensifying stress of conflict. Perhaps these changes in attention, sensory and cognitive functions, and risk taking reflect a "commitment to aggression" which is necessary for organisms to engage in potentially dangerous and painful encounters. * The emergent process interpretation: Escalation emerges in a spontaneous and dynamic way as the actions of one participant elicit reactions from the other(s).

This volume is based on papers presented at a Workshop on the Neuropsychology of Aggression held at Newport Beach, California in March 1974. The Workshop was sponsored by the Neuropsy chology Research Review Committee of the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant #MH-23355-0l) and by the Department of Psychobiology of the University of California, Irvine. The goal of the Workshop was to review contemporary approaches to the study of aggression. Thus, the chapters of this book cover not only conceptual issues, but also experimental tech niques of genetic analysis, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropharmacology and neuroendocrinology. It is hoped that these chapters will be of value to investigators of the many important problems of the nature of the biology of aggression. Especial thanks go to Mrs. Chris Johnson who played a major role both in organizing the Workshop and in preparing the manuscripts for publication. In the latter task Miss Sue McKenney also participated and deserves thanks. Richard E. Whalen v Contents Aggression and the Evolution of Man ..•.•.•..•..••• 1 Ashley Montagu Conceptual and Methodological Problems Associated with the Study of Aggressive Behavior in Primates under Seminatural 33 Conditions ....................... , ............... . G. Gray Eaton Experimental Analysis of Aggression and 53 its Neural Basis •..•...•...••....•.....•.....••.•. John P. Flynn Neurophysiological Approaches to the 65 Study of Aggression .••••...•.•.•.............•.... Adrian A. Perachio and Margery Alexander 87 Behavioral Genetic Analyses of Aggression ........ .

Derived from a meeting of natural and social scientists, this interdisciplinary book aims to summarize the main issues regarding the problem of human aggression, as well as human beliefs about the subject. This study brings together internationally known authorities and presents their recent contributions which range in complexity from the physiological to individual aggression, group conflict and international war. The study concludes with a multi-level approach to the problems of aggression and war. In nontechnical language suitable for general science readers, the book provides a valuable framework for the development of ideas and new attitudes in a field rife with misconceptions.

Conceived at a time when biological research on aggression and violence was drawn into controversy because of sociopolitical questions about its study, this volume provides an up-to-date account of recent biological studies performed -- mostly on humans. A group of scientists recognized the importance of freedom of inquiry and deemed it vital to address the most promising biological research in the field. The focus on biological mechanisms is not meant to imply that biological variables are paramount as a determinant of violence. Rather, biological variables operate in conjunction with other variables contributing to aggression or violence, and a complete understanding of this phenomenon requires consideration of all influences bearing on it. This book will familiarize readers with the rapidly growing and increasingly significant body of knowledge on the biological bases of human antisocial, aggressive, and violent behaviors. The editors concentrated on biological influences that support the basic physiological and biochemical processes of the brain and did not cover those biological influences that impact on the health of the individual such as head injury, pregnancy and birth complications, diet, and exposure to lead and other toxins. They focused on biological influences to illuminate their role in the complex behavioral phenomenon of violence. Three different approaches to the biological study of human antisocial, aggressive, and violent behaviors are represented -- genetic, neurobiological, and biosocial. Representing each of these three approaches, individual chapters from investigators in psychobiology, biological psychiatry, and basic-clinical neurosciences address the most recent experimental findings, methods, theory, and common misconceptions in the biological study of aggression and violence. The areas of primary focus are behavior and molecular genetics, neurochemistry and hormones, neuroimaging, psychophysiology and developmental psychobiology. Generally speaking, investigators following these different approaches have experience in different scientific backgrounds, select different methods, generate different analyses, employ different conceptual definitions for some of the same terms, and assume a different philosophical stance in attempting to explain violence. Nevertheless, all are united in their efforts to understand the biological underpinnings of violence. This book then assumes a comprehensive approach wherein different levels of analysis and different approaches inform each other. It is clear from the studies reported that aggression and violence are multidetermined phenomena and understanding them requires an interdisciplinary approach spanning economic, sociopolitical, psychological, sociological, and criminological as well as biomedical considerations. Nature (biology) and nurture (experience, context) are fundamentally inseparable in explaining aggression and violence; biology may affect experience or context, but experience or context also influences biology. Both need to be studied in a search for explanations of this phenomena.