Aggression
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In psychology and other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior that is intended to cause harm or pain. Aggression can be either physical or verbal, and behavior is classified as aggression even if it does not actually succeed in causing harm or pain. Behavior that accidentally causes harm or pain is not aggression. Property damage and other destructive behavior may also fall under the definition of aggression. Aggression is not the same thing as assertiveness.
Aggression is a perplexing phenomenon. Why are people motivated to hurt each other? How does violence help organisms to survive and reproduce? After two centuries of theories and technological advances, psychologists and other scientists have been able to look deeply into aggression's biological and evolutionary roots, as well as its consequences in society.
Testosterone
Hormones are chemicals that circulate in the body affecting cells and the nervous system, including the brain. Testosterone is a steroid hormone from the androgen group, which is most linked to the prenatal and postnatal development of the male gender and physique, which in turn has been linked on average to more physical aggression in many species. Testosterone is present to a lesser extent in females, who may be more sensitive to its effects. Animal studies have also indicated a link between incidents of aggression and the individual level of circulating testosterone. However, results in relation to primates, particularly humans, are less clear cut and are at best only suggestive of a positive association in some contexts.
See also
- Aggression and testosterone
- Aggression and gender
- Aggressionism
- Anger
- Conflict
- Crime correlates
- Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
- Genetics of aggression
- Gender and crime
- Killer ape theory
- Passive aggressive behavior
- Revenge
- Social defeat
- Trauma
- Violence
- War
