Social Psychology Assignment on Aggression No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful than the man who is anxious about his virility. —Simone de Beauvoir 47% of parents describe their primary concern as being the violent environment their children attend, when in school. 46% males and 26% females admit to having been involved in physical fights. 87% of school shootings are engendered by the desire to ‘get back at those who have hurt them,’ with revenge as the strongest motivation for the teenagers involved, and with 86% admitting that ‘other kids picking on them, making fun of them, or bullying them’, are likely to cause them to turn to lethal violence. 61% said students shoot others because they have been victims of physical abuse at home. 54% of these said that witnessing physical abuse at home can lead to violence in school, with the most serious and chronic offenders displaying overt signs of behaviors hinting towards antisocial trends as early as in their preschool years. One million students took guns to school in 1998, and the figures have been rising exponentially ever since. 70% of men who abuse their female partner also abuse their children, with approximately 90% of these children being aware of the violence directed against their mothers. These children are also found to use hitting as an initial method to solve problems, and maturity brings overt hostility towards the mother, as opposed to initial sympathy. Homes with domestic violence show several times more likelihood of producing children with juvenile delinquency, and the higher risk of alcoholism and drug abuse. Boys learn of the supposed appropriateness of violence resolving conflict, and grow disruptive, prone to violent temper tantrums; girls, on the other hand, learn of the inevitability of victimization, and tend to grow passive, withdrawn, clinging and dependent. The child’s brain and nervous system as well might be negatively damaged, causing anxiety, hyperactivity, shorter attention spans, and a variety of psychological disorders. Between 1976 and 1994, nearly 37,000 children were murdered, with about 1 in 5 child victims reported to have been killed by another child. To this day, there are 23,000 homicides each year—10% of these are committed by perpetrators under the age of 18. 99% of forcible rapes involve female victims, with 82% of these also being victims in incidents of forcible fondling and inappropriate physical contact. The year in a male’s life when he is most likely to be the victim of a sexual assault is 4. Overall, 23% of sexual assault offenders were under the age of 18; 77% were adults. One of every four rapes take place in a public area, 29% of female victims reported that the offender was a stranger, with at least 45% of rapists under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In 47% of rapes, the victim sustained injuries other than rape injuries, and 75% of female rape victims requiring medical care after the attack. In particular regions of Africa, a woman is raped every 2 minutes. Defining these various acts of aggression under a single broad umbrella term is difficult, given the cultural values and interpretations that differ over these, the individuals' subjective psychopathologies that engendered such a situation, as well as the nuances of said situation itself. Broadly defined, however, ‘aggression’ refers to any manner of action taken with the intent of deliberately causing physical, mental, or psychological injury to an opposite party, who operates on the intent of avoiding such purposeful actions. A term that bleeds into various aspects of social interaction (and limited not just to school shootings, rapes and domestic violence), aggression manifests itself in several ways—be it bullying, prejudice, or even competiveness. Indeed, aggression is so finely ingrained within the very minutiae of the human psyche that it is impossible, at some point, to separate the individual from the situation at hand. Humans are the only species who are cognitively, psychologically, and systematically able to cause intentional harm to others. Each day, the news display reports of the steadily increasing rates of teenage homicides, rapes, domestic violence, wars, riots and other forms of aggressive behaviors. Our own television programs—24, Prison Break, The Sopranos, Mash—are found to portray violence as a necessary means to an end, regardless of the situation, and disregarding all alternatives. These are eagerly watched, with their values internalized, by millions, who begin to aspire towards the kind of glorification and respect heroes like Tony Soprano and Jack Bauer are afforded, to this day. Cult classics like The Godfather trilogy, Sin City, Scarface, Rambo, Die Hard, the Terminator series, Pulp Fiction etc. are incredibly popular among the vast population of movie-watchers: movies such as these are best typified by their propensity towards big guns and gory action, with little else justifying the unmitigated violence the (predominantly male) protagonists partake in, so as to reach their goals, kill or be killed for the purportedly ‘right’ reasons, disregarding rational, ‘emasculating’ peaceful solutions, and emerging to the venerated, god-like proportions we perceive them with. On a less visible, more everyday basis, commuters often find their baseline exhaustion turn into blinding rage upon being cut off by another driver and often engage in much verbal aggression. Children fight over trivial matters, be it their place on a line, the biggest piece of cake, or a toy. People ambling, or walking at slower paces, are more likely to be jostled and pushed out of the way—hence the propensity towards assuming a brisk, business-like way of walking, as seen in large cities. All these might point in the direction of aggression arising largely out of competitive actions meant for furthering one’s interests to better consolidate their positions within the tacit social hierarchies aggressive behaviors seem to posit. This points us therefore in the view of the evolutionary perspective of social psychology with regards to the psychological and genetic roots to aggression. Both research and common observation state that men are far more likely to engage in behaviors that are defined as overt aggression—be it of negative or non-negative means, meant for solidifying their positions within the male hierarchies in which they operate. Evolutionarily, aggression might have evolved as a method of maintaining social order—and conversely, tipping it in favor of new mechanisms evolved to replace old, degenerating methods of dominating the social hierarchy, as has been seen in every military coup, revolution and replacement of ageing (often monarchical) powers with new, revolutionary governments, in the hands of a few enterprising individuals. Competition forms the basis of the majority of male friendships, and the greater part of male extracurricular activities are encouraged towards sports—at least in the Western context; Eastern contexts hold more academic pursuits as important, but even these hold a fine, agonistic edge meant for bolstering one’s future achievements through entrance into a prestigious university and raising one’s social prestige etc. Given, however, the successes such behaviors might certainly have held in former ancestral environments, such proclivities are likely to find a genetic base, given the environmental conditions at the time which encouraged such mannerisms, and which emerge in different, socially-‘accepted’ ways at present. All manner of living beings—humans and animals alike—display aggression over a wide range of circumstances, from competition over mates, to food, to dwellings and territories, and offspring protection, ultimately leading to dominance hierarchies among social groups. Among our ancestors, males had often to contend against several other males over limited female reproductive resources—often ready to face the threat of social exclusion upon feeling their survival or reproductive capabilities under threat, and exhibiting non-conformist, individualistic attitudes so as to maximize reproductive fitness. Indeed, even the tendency towards tribal warfare in the not-so-distant evolutionary environments of our ancestors, were done so for the basic resources of goods, an expansion of territory, and women. Any resource capable of inciting reproduction-enhancing results served as a practical driving force for survival; individuals with war-like traits were more likely to rise among social ranks among others, leading their respective groups and contributing to an overall development of war-like tendencies among the people. Due to the essential benefits of warfare, human aggression seems to have increased exponentially over time. In a study conducted by Lehmann and Feldman at Stanford University, a model depicting aggressive traits in males attribute their evolution to adaptation to limited reproductive resources, and thus an increased likelihood of relying on tribal warfare for incorporating within their status-centric spheres, the acquisition of much territory, as well as women. The term ‘belligerence’ refers thus to individual (and eventually collective) characteristics that increase the probability of inter-tribe warfare, and ‘bravery’ refers to a trait which hints towards the possibility of inborn traits contributing to victory in the face of attack, or upon attacking. Both belligerence and bravery find a higher propensity of genetically propagating themselves through the male line, with males of the conquering group mating with females of the conquered group, thus passing such traits to their offspring. This might explain therefore the cultural trend towards encouraging young boys to exhibit autonomy, independence, competitiveness, and proactive, enterprising natures, from very young ages. Aggression begins in non-destructive patterns, particularly upon our initial forays into a world of independent motion and an attempt at mastering one’s movements within a foreign environment. This further manifests itself when young children attempt to excel in sports, academics and other extracurricular activities, and exhibit competitive behaviors meant to exacerbate and boost their self-confidence and self-esteem. Evolutionarily, this is an inborn trait and essential to one’s survival, the kind of positive aggression that, with the onset of maturity, translates into assertiveness, or the ability to stand up for one’s choices and take initiative to complete freely-chosen activities. Similarly, Ferguson and Beaver corroborate this evolutionary view by defining aggression as any ‘behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of the organism relative to the dominance position of other organisms.’ A vast wealth of research attributes any initiation of potentially violent motives to basic, instinctual behaviors—one of them being the fundamental fight-or-flight instinct, which translates into an inherited fighting tendency (particularly among males), assuring therefore that only the strongest males will get their share of the best female mates so as to ensure a successful propagation of their genes (Lorenz, 1974). Despite social psychologists often rejecting such notions (given the vast range of ‘aggressive’ behaviors humans often engage in, from social exclusion to physical violence—as well as their varying frequencies across cultures), there do seem to be some significant genetic factors that do play a role in initiating the aggressive response. In terms of former ancestral environments, males seeking desirable mates had often to aggress against other potential suitors, so as to drive away (or even eliminate) any possible competition through successful aggression, thus passing on such genes to their progeny and ensuring therefore a definite genetic bases for the proclivity towards males aggressing against other males. Conversely, males should be less likely to aggress against females, given the rejection they would often encounter in the face of such actions, with research confirming such claims (Hilton, Harris and Rice, 2000). A similar view was held by Sigmund Freud, who—influenced by Darwin’s theory of a biological continuity among species and attributing non-physiological physical symptoms to psychosomatic sources from his work in medicine among his ‘hysteric’ Viennese female patients—held that aggression primarily arises from unchecked death instincts manifesting themselves in various ways. Initially aimed at self-destruction, Freud maintains that anxiety (provoked by varying levels of fixation at the formative stages of one’s psychosexual development) causes the individual to translate such inward tensions into outward-focused behavioral patterns, often to violent effect. According to Freud, humans are governed by two instincts—one of life (Eros) and of death (Thanatos), which respectively translate into the fundamental instincts of sexuality and aggression, influencing the majority of our behavior, which, with the onset of socialization into a greater context, emerge in a variety of different ways. The human psyche was composed of the irrational, pleasure-seeking id, the rational, reality-based ego, and the moralizing, didactic, society-based superego—both former and latter working upon the ego to fulfill its demands, and existing in dynamic divergence. Based on the transference of libidinal energy (i.e. the life instinct) throughout various erogenous zones of our body throughout childhood, said forces could either transfer through natural progression, or otherwise be repressed at particular stages, resulting thus in various kinds of behavior related to the stage one was upon encountering such responses. For e.g., the Oedipus Complex—which all male children purportedly experience—in which the very first aggressive instinct is channelized towards the same-sex parent, given their rivaling of the affections of the sexual attraction channelized towards the opposite-sex parent, is Freud’s characteristic work on childhood aggression. Given the great role that parents play in forming the prototypical roles of social interaction for the child, the realization of such ‘inappropriate’ feelings for the opposite-sex parent lead to the child to identify with the same-sex parent so as to further their chances of fulfilling the intimate relationship they wanted with the opposite-sex parent in other, more socially-appropriate ways, hinting towards thus superego development, and thus displacing such instincts within to broader populations in general. Such ideas reflect Freud’s view that aggression is an innate, instinctual behavior, universal in nature, and one of the key motivations of behavior—but likely to be resolved by adulthood, should the expression of libidinal energy be afforded a healthy balance between suppression and manifestation. Upon all childhood conflicts being successfully resolved, aggression should be removed—or at least, markedly reduced, due to this development. A flaw, however, in Freud’s works was his inconsistency over verifying a fixed pattern to his findings; shortly after, he began to speak of death energy—or Thanatos, the antithesis of libidinal energy, or Eros—encouraging violent, destructive instincts channelized initially towards one’s self, but displacing to others through a slew of defence mechanisms due to the anxiety it causes. Eros and Thanatos are locked in perpetual conflict; Eros—dominating the majority of self-related behaviors which seek to maximize pleasure—often precedes Thanatos, which might thus be relocated and channelized towards others. This, according to Freud, was the basis of aggression. Relating to Freud’s theory of internal drives motivating outward expression, aggression finds itself posited in different models which attempt to analyze the external, cognitive factors which play a role in its engendering. Social psychologists believe, therefore, that the causes of aggression are more related to external elicitations of drives meant to intentionally harm another. This view is reflected in the approach towards drive-theories of aggression, and suggests that external conditions—particularly frustration—arouse within individuals a strong desire to engage in such intentionally harmful acts. A ‘need’, therefore, refers to the recognition of a particular resource as essential to the survival of the organism, and the requirement of it likewise—for e.g., food, water, sex etc. The resultant psychological tension, coupled with physiological arousal, arising upon encountering an unmet need that motivates the organism to engage in activities conducive to reduce said psychological tension and fulfill the need are referred to as ‘drives’ (Hull, 1943). Drive-reduction theory suggests a connection between internal physiological states and the behavior expressed—primary drives involve the basic essentialities of survival, such as hunger and thirst, while secondary (or acquired) drives involve learned responses imbibed through conditioning, such as the need for fame, prestige, social approval, habits etc. The concept of homeostasis, or the tendency of a body to remain at a steady state, plays a role in this. Upon encountering a need, and the consequent drive desiring to fulfill said need, the body shifts to a state of imbalance, stimulating the consequent behaviors to bring the body back to homeostasis. Relating said theory to aggression are drive theories, attributing aggression to impulses created by innate needs, and thus resulting in the behaviors that follow. The frustration-aggression hypothesis suggested by John Dollard and his colleagues at Yale University suggests the cause/effect relationship between aggression and frustration. Frustration leads to the arousal of a drive aimed towards the primary goal of intentional harm towards another—often regardless of whether they are the perceived source of frustration or not. Early empirical evidence was garnered from studies conducted on prison populations, determining the age, economic status, intelligence levels etc. of the inmates to relate it to potential sources of frustration, as well as to gauge these as determinants of levels of frustration among individual prisoners. Results showed a clear trend towards high frustration levels signaling high levels of aggression. At the same time, however, people aggress for different purposes, and in response to different factors—be it rewards in the form of winning a prize (and hence the high propensity for competitive sports engaging in aggressive actions, such as wrestling or boxing), saving lives (hence why such great numbers join the armies due to a sense of patriotism and duty), and for a number of other instrumental, largely self-serving reasons. Frustration was described as a ‘weak instigator of aggression’ (Geen and Berkowitz, 1967), thus leading to much modification of the frustration-aggression hypothesis. In terms of rewards gained through the exhibition of aggressive behavior, another perspective attributes the relative changes in behavior garnered through experience to vicarious sources. This introduces the concept of social learning theory into possible explanations for why people engage in aggressive behavior. Unlike other models, social learning theory attributes the display of aggression to behaviors thought of as appropriate, and thus imbibed through observation. The two hypotheses underlying this theory involve its suggestion that aggression arises from being learnt from social behavior, and thus being maintained by other conditions. A variety of methods—in particular operant conditioning—are reasons behind this imbibition of learned aggressive responses. The method of positively reinforcing the accomplishment of a particular behavior increases the likelihood of such behaviors repeating themselves in the future due to the rewards gained—hence why a high degree of sports activities involves what would otherwise be perceived as a display of systematically ordered violence, and why involvement in sports teams is often a symbol of pride among children and adolescents, particularly boys. Similarly, aggressive acts can often become associated with such positive reinforcements, encouraging the future exhibition of such aggression and an increased likelihood of such behaviors attaining a level of permanence. Such behaviors are, according to social learning theory, imbibed through social modeling, or social referencing—hence the high degree of conformity found among adolescents during these formative years of comparing one’s burgeoning, yet fragile, sense of self-worth and identity to others of a similar level, known as a ‘reference group’. Festinger’s social comparison theory states comparisons to ‘upward’ reference groups arise as a way of motivating ourselves. This might explain why the competitive hierarchical structures within which males often operate involve aggressive behaviors arising as an observed phenomenon thus thought of as providing the grounds for furthering one’s hierarchical position. The observation, and motivation thus elicited, of such behaviors are positively reinforced due to the evolutionary circumstances that encourage such behaviors from males, and thus lead to an increased propensity for them to be repeated in the future. Similarly, in the case of children, even infants are likely to glance towards a familiar face to seek confirmation of the appropriateness of their response, and parents often unconsciously reinforce inappropriate behaviors within them. Not only do parents who lose their tempers, express anger and frustration, and generally engaging in acts of aggression find such behaviors being repeated in their children, it is likely to be internalized as appropriate actions as well. Evidence indicates that children growing up in abusive homes tend to hit and strike out as an initial method of solving any problem, and are more physically violent against their siblings. Even attentive, loving, well-intentioned parents can, through the simple act of being preoccupied, often neglect reinforcing positive behaviors within children, given the satisfaction afforded through them engaging in such ‘good’ behaviors in the first place. The lack of feedback can often cause children to hanker for the parents’ attention, given the powerful positive reinforcer it is, and engage in all kinds of activity—even ‘bad’ behaviors, to achieve it. In the same way, one can unknowingly encourage aggressive behaviors through exposing children to negative models of particular behaviors. In a classic experiment by Albert Bandura, (1963) children exposed to a model engaging in aggressive motions towards an inflated doll (i.e. sitting on the doll, punching it, kicking it several times around the room, hitting it repeatedly with a toy mallet), showed an increased likelihood of engaging in the exact same behaviors upon encountering the doll. This was in direct contradiction to children who had been exposed to a model who did nothing to the doll, but merely sat quietly. Said children were of nursery age. Bandura and his colleagues concluded that the children must most certainly have learnt that their observations of supposedly appropriate ‘adult’ aggressive behavior were motivation enough for them to engage in the same acts, so as to gain the rewards associated with compliance and conformity that children learn from a young age. Given, also, the high degree to which aggression is a dominant theme in television channels, films etc., the children must most likely have begun to associate it with the acceptable standards of behavior they are encouraged to maintain. Further studies conducted by Liebert and Baron (1972) corroborated these findings when children exposed to a highly violent television show (The Untouchables) were found to be more likely to ‘hurt’ another child by pressing a red button, as opposed to children who had watched a highly exciting, but non-violent television show. In such a way, by modeling the behaviors suggested as appropriate by the television characters, children use these roles as reference points along which they modify their own behavior. Research indicates that upon acquiring such aggressive traits, a variety of other factors come into play to maintain their presence—one of them being self-reinforcement, in which the individual learns to take pride in their aggressive acts, often being rewarded (whether tangibly, or intangibly) for such actions, in the form of praise, attention, admiration etc. Bandura suggests also that aggression reinforced by family members serves as one of the most powerful reinforcing mechanisms possible, given the proximity of relational ties and prominence within the individual’s (particularly a child’s) life, at the time. Given that families form, for the most part, the prototypical base upon which we base most future interactions, a child watching his father engaging in violent acts against his mother might most certainly internalize such behaviors as appropriate. Social learning theory is also a perspective pertaining to behavior modification in its close ties to the field of criminology and its attempts to understand the underlying causes that form the basis of various anti-social behaviors. Bandura argues against the innate nature of aggressive responses, emphasizing instead the three principles of observation of behavior (either personally, or through influential sources such as the media, or one’s immediate environment), the belief in that replicating such behaviors will bring positive reinforcements and rewards (including a reduction of tension, praise, increases in self-esteem etc.), and the motivation the potentiality of gaining such rewards posits within the individual. Modeling also allows individuals to widen their behavioral repertoires. Bandura referred to this phenomenon as ‘informative function’, in which the observer gains knowledge about the behavior by experiencing the context within which responses to such behaviors take place, and their nature. Upon attending to the consequences of one’s behaviors, a motivational force which seeks to either reinforce or inhibit said behavior, allows individuals to view their behavior at a vicarious level. Also, observing others can provide as a social prompt for the future propensity (or lack thereof) of particular behaviors. There are four component processes to the imbibition of observed behavior—attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation. Attention pertains to the selective relegation of mental activity to particular stimuli of one’s environment, particularly the details of what one is observing of the modeled behavior, while retention requires the coding of information into long-term memory so as to be better retrieved, and in better detail, in the future. Motor reproduction refers to the ability of reproducing modeled behaviour, or possessing its physical capabilities learned through attention and retention, with motivation (or reinforcement) involving the expectation of positive rewards for their successful repetition of modeled behavior. Children observing and learning the aggressive actions posited by the model in Bandura’s study used these four components so as to make the most use out of the stimuli they encountered, and thus best attend to, retain, reproduce and motivate themselves to repeat said behavior for the rewards they surely felt themselves likely to receive for such an accomplishment. Human behavior is increasingly viewed as flexible and self-regulating, depending on cognitively-based decisions about whether to enact particular decisions or not. Interpersonal problems can often occur when one perceives dysfunctional expectations about interactions with others, or hold particular views about the behavior of others due to negative expectations, or past experiences. Such expectations are often found to operate as self-fulfilling prophecies by restricting their behavioral choices, and denying them the flexibility of interactions upon new encounters with people. The dependence of such cognitive factors introduces thus the angle of social cognitive theories, and thus the theory of cognitive distortions which may engender aggressive tendencies within individuals. Social cognitive theory subscribes to the assumption that thoughts are one and the same as the neurological bases from which they arise, and that it is through a relegation of mental activity upon specific aspects of one’s physical and social environment that is conducive to forming our subjective perceptions of the same. Said sensory stimuli is translated into its particular forms of perceived notion through the broad mental frameworks, or schemas, we hold within us—or conceptualized branches of knowledge, past experiences, beliefs, values, attitudes, expectations etc. that shape our manner of thought. The nature of said experience is, however, largely a construct of the social and physical environment the individual chooses to subsist within—and at the same time, his perception of the assumed elements of said social and physical environment arise largely from his own thoughts. Under the aegis of Albert Bandura, the connections between learnt behaviors and vicarious processes was attributed to our interpretations of the supposed significance of the model upon our pre-existing beliefs, attitudes, experiences etc., as well as our belief within our own abilities at rising to such an occasion and exhibiting such behavior as well. Cognitive processes—memory, attention, perception, thinking, decision-making, problem-solving, language—emerge from brain activities and exert determinative influences upon one’s behavior. Piaget’s theory of cognitive organization plays a role here: humans are perceived as only able to cognitively organize, or adapt in ways conducive to their current state of cognitive development; they thus choose either to assimilate (or fit in new incoming information within pre-existing, rather egocentric, schemas), or accommodate (or modifying present beliefs for the allowance of new information, in a more sociocentric view.) In Bandura’s view, however, what is important is the individual’s subjective construal of the events that follow the observation of such behavior, as well as their belief in their own abilities at being capable of effectively internalizing, learning and producing the relatively permanent changes in behavior as a result of experience. Based on such cognitions, a foundation for the stability of behavioral tendencies across a gamut of situations is provided, despite several discrepancies, given the specifics of the situation. The information conveyed by a variety of social influence develops the internalized standards of behavior that assume a kind of baseline significance in terms of initial response. In line with the Cognitive Neoassociation Theory, which suggests that exposure to negative influences tends to encourage thoughts, feelings, expressive physiological and other evocative reactions pandering to the innate fight-or-flight response regulated by the amygdala and the associated behaviors, Berkowitz (1989) emphasized upon the mutual associations formed between affect, cognition, situational cues etc.—i.e. one’s psychological state, mental condition and the environment, and the specifics pertaining to it. Negative affect and environmental cues encourage the activation of particular cognitive processes involved in the evaluation of significance of one’s present state of mind, emotion with regards to the environment. The following behavior and affect depend on such cognitive processes. Indeed, the different information-processing/social-cognitive models that arose as a result of recent theoretical developments pertaining to social behavior conceptualize the human memory as an associative network of complex structures, with a network of ‘nodes’, representing thoughts and emotions, with experiences leading to a strengthening of links between them. The assumptions holds that these ‘knowledge centers’ are strongly interconnected, influencing perception at various levels from basic sensory patterns to complex behavioral interactions. This complexity is directly related to its frequency of use, and the subsequent strength of association between links. High levels of activation involve a ‘usage’ of the knowledge structure; when a stimulus, however, increases levels of activation but only partially activates the knowledge-structure, such information is said to have been ‘primed’ within the individual’s cognitive consciousness. Such implicit, non-conscious responses to external stimuli are what determine our responses to people’s interpretations, and the picking of cues from our social and physical environment. Such knowledge structures are closely tied to one’s affective state, beliefs, values, past experiences, knowledge, expectations etc.—which collectively contribute to forming the broad, general schemata which govern the basis of the filters through which external sensory information passes, is organized, interpreted, and thus acted upon, in terms of externally manifested behavior arising from internal sources. The information is thus encoded and interpreted, keeping in mind environmental cues, the behavior required to guide responses is thus generated, its appropriateness evaluated, and enactment follows an interpretation of others’ responses. Current emotional states can directly prime specific knowledge structures and influence the choice of schemata required to respond most appropriately to the situation. The social-cognitive model thus posits aggression to arise from a combination of individual variables and situational variables influencing the present internal state; research indicates that pain and hostility interact effectively to produce aggressive cognitions (Anderson et al., 1998). Said present internal state engenders a variety of appraisal and decision processes and often, instinctive action emerges. Accumulating empirical evidence corroborates the notion that several basic social psychological processes constantly operating among individuals explain a great deal in terms of individual differences in aggression and violent behavior, and the interaction of said individual predispositions with situational factors which increase or decrease the propensity towards violent tendencies. Aggression is thus most likely to find its place among children raised in environments reinforcing aggressive responses to any form of stimuli, providing aggressive models to emulate, much frustration and victimization, and the acceptability of aggression as an appropriate response. The acquired schemata—the beliefs, values, thoughts, and expectations that follow such experiences and group into a collective whole—are likely to produce aggression in response to situational factors. Beliefs and attitudes also seem to play a role in one’s aggressive preparedness. The study of ‘normative beliefs’ was extensively studied by Huesmann and Guerra, which included an estimate of the appropriateness of aggression in certain contexts, and which was said to stabilize within most children by the middle-elementary grades. Beliefs were thus found to be influenced by aggressive behavior, but aggressive behavior was not influenced by their beliefs—though by the fifth grade, these two spheres of thought were found to converge, with aggressive actions arising from beliefs among these children, with minor influences of behavior upon them. Guerra et al. was also to show that such beliefs were reinforced by factors such as socioeconomic status, and neighborhood violence-induced stress. Children from low socioeconomic status families typically showed higher levels of aggression, greater acceptance of such behaviors and greater neighborhood violence-induced stress. The combination of such factors, and the beliefs reinforced by them, was found to be a reliable predictor of subsequent aggression by the child. The contributing factor of the social and environmental context necessitating the manifestation of aggressive responses is a controversial debate encompassing various factors, which might play a major role in terms of individual determinants of behavior. Of these are biological factors such as genetic, hormonal, neural activity, which might engender such behavior. Others include evolutionary characteristics, such as territoriality, the formation of personalities most conducive to manifesting aggressive responses, cognitive and gender-based factors. In terms of the highly contentious topic of a possible genetic base to aggression, aggressive behaviors are hypothesized to be expressed in a social context in a manner that necessitates the influence of the phenotypes, and potentially genotypes, of individuals and their social partners. Indirect genetic effects, arising from one’s social and physical environment, provide the grounds for a source of heritable variation on which natural selection of the appropriate traits most conducive to survival and the propagation of one’s genes, can act. In this vein, studies have confirmed that aggression—defined as agonistic actions undertaken towards a conspecific entity—are intimately linked to the social context from within which they arise, thus leading to the linking of a particular phenotype to a universal principle as inadequate, given the variety of situational and behavioral subtleties which govern human interaction. Researchers now attribute behavior to a complex interaction between multiple phenotypes; indeed, studies conducted among deer mice used quantitative genetic models of five traits—mounting, naso-anal contact, sniffing, rearing and the latency to fight—all related to aggression, pitting agonistic behaviors of focal individuals against opponents. Three of said traits—sniffing, rearing and fighting—were found to yield repeatable and heritable differences, supporting the presence of indirect genetic effects, and high estimated correlations between direct and indirect genetic effects. Individuals exhibiting aggressive tendencies were found to display higher phenotypic value across the traits considered. Results confirmed that consistent, and repeatable differences in levels of expressed aggression are present and differ individually, arising from genetic variance, with a strong positive covariance between genetic effects found in the focal and opponent individuals. Positive covariances of this sort are said to augment a rapid evolution of traits, given its affording positive feedback between genetic and environmental effects (such as the increase in frequency of aggressive alleles and leading to one choosing a social environment likely to encourage high levels of agonistic behavior.) Consequentially, selection of aggressive traits and the evolution of one’s social environment arose simultaneously as a correlated response (Wilson et al., 2009). In other studies, based on observations of individual cases of the degree to which aggressive behavior is exhibited, reactions to environmental stimuli are strongly related to trait-like behavioral physiological response patterns (otherwise known as coping strategies.) Said coping strategies are principally aimed at preventing or reducing or manipulating the presence of a stressor—non-aggressive individuals are more passive in temperament, tending to accept or react unreceptively to environmental ‘threats.’ Such behavioral coping styles were found to be closely linked to varying, but distinct levels of autonomic and endocrine activity, as well as several principal neurobiological correlates and other hormonal, neural and genetic determinants. Such individual differences might determine individual vulnerability to stress-related disease, and hence be an important element in the population dynamics of the species—hence the evolutionarily-linked trait of good health leading to much favor in terms of maximizing reproductive fitness, and thus encouraging several forms of aggressive mannerisms and behaviors to encourage such circumstances (Boer, van der Vegt, and Koolhaas, 2003). Aside, therefore, from the social/domestic spheres within which pathologically aggressive acts such as homicide, suicide, and physical violence operate, an important issue highlights the propensity towards such aggressive behaviors arising from a wide spectrum of greatly prevalent neurological and psychiatric disorders—traumatic brain injury, mental retardation, Huntington’s disease, manic depression, schizophrenia, addictive behaviors etc. (Fava, 1997; van Praag, 2001). Much of the recent advances made in molecular biogenetics has encompassed within it a vast array of neurotransmitters, hormones, enzymes, growth factors, and the various social, neural and molecular mechanisms etc. that are involved in the initiation and progression of normative functional types of aggressive behavior into the violent, maladaptive and destructive proportions they often take. Indeed, even animal studies confirm the strong genetic component to phenotypic differences in aggression. In many animal species—humans included—the existence of different phenotypes in the physiological and behavioral responses is recognized and categorized into different terms, such as temperament, boldness, type A or type B personality, coping strategies etc. The developing field of neuroscience elaborates upon the complex structure of the genome, containing as it does, in Steven Pinker’s words, ‘a rich tool kit of growth factors, axon guidance molecules and cell adhesion molecules’ that are found to aid developmental cortical structuring, as well as augmenting the plasticity mechanisms that are so essential for learning. Behavioural genetics have discovered that virtually all manner of behavior and mannerisms are partly heritable. Behavior itself arises from a multitude of activities carried out by the central nervous system, the neuroendocrine system, as well as peripheral autonomic physiological processes—differentiating thus the physiological activity that occurs between members of either aggressive or non-aggressive temperaments. Such a dichotomy suggests a difference in coping strategies, as well as the associated neuroendocrine and central nervous system mechanisms—more aggressive individuals display higher levels of sympathetic reactions when exposed to situations holding a degree of challenge and threat to them, as opposed to non-aggressive individuals. Larger plasma noradrenaline and adrenaline responses, higher sympathetically driven increases in heart rate, blood pressure, glucose etc. reflect such higher sympathoadrenal reactivity in response to a variety of stressful events—the preceding descriptions of physiological activity are indicative of the incredible amounts of stress-related health diseases people described to fall into the category Type A are often victim to, including coronary heart disease. Aggressive individuals also have higher levels of corticoesterone responses to stress. The link, therefore, between high levels of aggression, its following effects on one’s health, as well as the identification of a broad standard against which such behaviors are seen as common all corroborate the link genetics—or the manifestations of outward behavior arising from an inward hereditarian blueprint—might have with such phenomena in the first place. Growing evidence also seems to suggest that individual genes, coupled with environmental stimuli, play key roles in the regulation of aggressive responses. Referred to as ‘monoamine oxidase A’ (MAOA), this gene has been found to regulate enzymatic substances that are involved in the breaking down of key neurotransmitters in the brain—dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, included; humans across various cultures have varying levels of MAOA, leading thus to differences in levels of enzymatic activity, and regulating thus the propensity towards engaging in aggressive responses. Those registering low levels of activity produce less of the enzymatic substances associated with MAOA, and those with high activity produce more of the enzyme. Only about a third of people from Western societies have low activity-form of MAOA, reported as it has to be highly prevalent among individuals descended from cultures renowned for their history of warfare. Indeed, the ‘warrior gene’ controversy arises from here, with associations between high levels of risk-taking, aggressive behavior and criminality among the Maori people, the indigenous populations of New Zealand. Given that monoamine oxidases are capable of manipulating the affective state of the individual through its activity upon the different neurotransmitters operating within our cerebral cortices, as well as their location within the X chromosome (thus males inheriting only a single maternal copy), such a relationship seems highly likely. Sabol et al. conducted a study in which it was reported that MAOA contains a 30 bp repeat polymorphism associated with transcriptional regulation, or gene function. Several epidemiological studies of the MAOA-30bp-rpt have established associations between its prevalence, as well as psychiatric disorders—depression, anxiety, addictive behaviors, and aggressive acts, for e.g. Findings also imply the high likelihood of risk-taking and aggressive behavioral traits correlating positively with higher dopamine levels and MAOA activity, suggesting therefore that individuals with such levels of physiological activity were therefore genetically predisposed towards aggression and criminality. At the same time, however, the findings of said ‘warrior-gene’ study were ‘strikingly over-represented’ in Maori men, and arose from indirect associations, insufficient rigor in interpreting and applying the relevant literature, and lacking adequate scientific investigative journalism. No main effects were found between the relationship of the MAOA genotype and antisocial behavior—an interaction effect was, however, documented between the high-activity form associated with males abused and neglected during childhood with an increased likelihood for antisocial behavior in the future. Evidence arose conclusively from analyzing it in conjunction to the environmental conditions which may or may not have been conducive to its engendering and manifestation; left to itself, analyzed in isolation, the gene variant did little to reliably predict the propensity for aggression in male carriers. This does not, however, conclude the scientific verifiability of such a statement, given that this was a single, unreplicated study carried out on animals and posited as ‘the warrior gene’ in the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. There is, thus, no direct evidence to support the likelihood of MAOA conferring ‘warrior-like’ qualities upon Maori males, of various cohorts. Given, however, the multifactorial nature of neuropsychiatric and behavioral conditions, some of the reported associations to MAOA-30bp-rpt are modified significantly when analyzed in conjunction with environmental factors. Another study carried out by Johnson et al. (2009) aimed to test whether low-activity MAOA individuals were found to display higher levels of aggressive behavior in response to provocative interaction. Subjects genotyped as having higher concentrations of the MAOA gene played a highly competitive game over networked computers, after performing a simple vocabulary test for which they were told they would earn money. Upon choosing an anonymous partner linked over the network (which was actually the computer itself), the subjects were informed that said ‘partner’ could choose to take some of their earnings away from them. He could then be ‘punished’ by being forced to eat an incredibly spicy sauce, but to do so would require money as well, thus a high-cost punishment. Results confirmed strong evidence for the gene-environment interactionist hypothesis. MAOA was unrelated to low levels of provocation, but peaked to significantly higher levels when the situation grew greater in terms of provocation—such as, when the partner made to take away nearly 80% of the subject’s money. These findings support earlier research confirming the role MAOA plays in influencing aggressive behavior in terms of interpersonal aggression, violent acts, decision-making, criminality etc. In terms of introduction of the aversive stimulus, humans are conjectured to be ‘altruistic punishers’, who often single out individuals for the good of the group, with underlying evolutionary logic corroborating such a statement. Some, however, seem to punish more than others, as was found by this study and several others before. In a similar vein, several neuroanatomical circuits have been established, in terms of underlying why such strategies of coping with external threat arise. Researchers have focused largely on serotonergic and vasopressinergic systems, with Henry and Stephens (1977) suggesting that different circuits explain different styles. Lesion studies and neuroanatomical traces have revealed the core neural substrates of the aggressive response, comprising as it does several regions in the hypothalamus, amygdala, septum, prefrontal cortex, and brainstem. More recent studies have established the presence of particular neurons displaying levels of activity during expression of aggressive behavior. In particular, said neurons seem most active in terms of prevalence in regions proximal to the amygdala, ventrolateral hypothalamus, lateral septum, dorsal raphe and supraoptic nucleus (Delville et al., 2000.) Such findings seem to indicate the definite differences within the neural circuitry between non-aggressive and aggressive individuals, as well as the fact that highly intricate neuroanatomical activity underlies the initiation, interpretation and implementation of an aggressive act, as well as the coping strategies to follow a received act of aggression. Recent molecular and pharmacological studies have vastly increased the repertoire of neurotransmitters, hormones, cytokines, enzymes, growth factors, signaling molecules etc. that may have some level of influence upon the engendering of the conditions conducive to an aggressive act, as well as coping responsiveness. Most of such factors seem to have an effect upon various elements of the serotonin system, the classic neurotransmitter system which is the main molecular determinant in aggression. Various studies prove that even slight variations in serotonin levels, turnover, reuptake affinity, binding, density and metabolism can influence the exhibition of aggressive behaviours. A prevailing notion remains that higher levels of serotonin are indicative of lower levels of cerebrospinal fluid, and blunted autonomic and neuroendocrine responses to serotonergic challenges. These, in turn, are found to hold several positive correlations with aggressive, violent and impulsive personality traits among humans. Similarly, animal studies as well corroborate this view that lowered levels of serotonin activity contribute to higher degrees of exhibited aggressive behavior. Serotonin-manipulating studies demonstrate that subsequent increases or decreases of the neurotransmitter is directly correlated to an increase or decrease in aggression among animals (Bjork et al., 2000), leading thus to the strongly-supported serotonergic deficiency hypothesis of impulsiveness and aggression, in terms of trait-engendered behavior. At the same time, however, a sharp positive correlation was found between the level of trait-like aggression and basal cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of serotonin, as well as noradrenaline, dopamine and their metabolites. The hypothesis thus seems to pertain more to humans displaying forms of aggression which follow a more overt, impulsive manner of exhibition, rather than individuals engaging in instrumental forms of aggression (Coccaro, 1996.) Indeed, indices of central serotonin function seem to hold strong correlations with normal aggressive behaviors aimed to posit a position of dominance within the social hierarchy. Also, both acute and transient displays of aggression (related to state-engendered aggression), were associated with increased levels of serotonin activity, as indicated by neural activity in the dorsal raphe, and increased CSF serotonin turnover. The fact that serotonin functions as an inhibitory, antagonistic neurotransmitter during state-engendered aggression holds little before the role of activational agents played its metabolite receptor agonists, thus turning the favor towards the initiation and execution of an aggressive response, relating the hypothesis also to general motor activity (Jacobs and Fornal, 1999.) Recent experiments also demonstrate that individuals displaying high levels of aggression register significantly-enhanced levels of serotonin-metabolite inhibitory autoreceptor function, compared to individuals displaying low aggression. Studies carried out in wild-type rats and house mice have demonstrated that males displaying higher levels of aggression show significantly higher levels of activity within their vasopressinergic networks, and higher concentrations of vasopressin within their lateral septum, as opposed to aggressive males. Stimulated release patterns are also linked to the likelihood for levels of neuropeptide to hold lower storage patterns; this suggests that males displaying higher levels of aggression exhibit higher levels of release than their non-aggressive counterparts (Landgraf et al., 1998.) Vasopressin is also able to increase aggression-related behaviors in animals upon being activated in the lateral septum. In another species, lateral septum vasopressin is strongly related to territorial aggression. Together with decreased levels of serotonin-metabolites, concentrations of vasopressin within cerebrospinal fluid displayed higher levels of enhancement among pathologically aggressive patients (Caccaro et al., 1999.) Mutant mice with their vasopressin receptors obliterated showed virtually no signs of aggression, even in the face of environmental threat. These findings thus suggest that aggression is directly linked to varying levels of vasopressinergic activity within the cerebral cortex, with its effects mediated through interactions with serotonergic neurotransmission. At the same time, the influence of hormones—particularly those situated along the gonads—seem to pose a significant effect as well, mediated via the signaling properties of both vasopressin and serotonin, given the effects hormones (particularly testosterone) have in regulating the aggressive response. Hormones are not directly related to aggression. At the genetic level, they are responsible merely for stimulatory and inhibitory neurons increasing or decreasing in terms of sensitivity in the fact of other neuronal stimuli. Hormonal activity upon stimulatory neurons increase its efficacy for responding to, and eliciting particular behaviors, and the opposite for inhibitory neurons. Given that these are injected directly into the blood due to neurological activity, they are slower to act, but more lasting in their efficacy. Hormones are also found to modify cell permeability, influence ion concentration, membrane potential, synaptic and neural transmission and communication—and eventually, behavioral patterns. Even more specifically, when hormones act upon target neurons, the neurotransmitter’s released amount is affected. Indeed, a study carried out by Kruk et al. found a positive feedback relationship between hormonal stress responses and the aggression systems of the neurological framework. Given the high degree of similarity between mammalian neurophysiology, such findings might lay grounds for the self-perpetuating nature of aggression, as well as preventive strategies for pathologically-engendered aggressive acts. Five experiments were carried out on 53 male rats, in which aggression-specific areas of their cerebral cortices were electrically stimulated to gauge the results of such stimulation upon the rise of blood-pressure levels due to cortisol, a stress hormone—as well as the role played by said hormone regarding associated with aggressive behaviors elicited by the cortex-centered areas. Results indicated that raising the level of cortisol within one’s bloodstream led to a positive feedback loop between stress and aggression. This might explain why the stress caused by, say, occupational failures might escalate to physical violence against more vulnerable victims, such as one’s spouse, or children—as well as how the ongoing stress reaction engendered by such aggression makes it hard to cease such violent actions upon starting. Indeed, 3-year old children are found to display moderate rises in salivary cortisol following temper tantrums. The electrical stimulation of the rats’ cerebral cortices was also to yield significant links to the relationship between the cognitive component of aggression, as well as its underlying neurophysiological origins. Stimulation of the rats’ hypothalamic ‘attack-centre’, from which attack behavior can be reliably triggered, yielded releases of coricosterone, a hormone similar to cortisol, released by humans upon encountering a stressful event. Indeed, attack-behavior was found to be organized within the hypothalamus, given its regulation of the baser, fundamental drives within humans—with the higher-functioning cerebral cortex operating as an inhibitory presence towards the release of aggression. Electrical stimulation of the hypothalamic nuclei elicits predatory aggression among a vast range of species, while stimulation of the medial hypothalamus accomplishes a similar goal in its eliciting violent attack behavior. Even humans with hypothalamic tumors are found to be more irritable and intransigent in temperament. In terms of such palpable physiological structures, the amygdala too plays a major role in the regulation of implicit, emotional responses to environmental stimuli—particularly that of fear. Lesioning the amygdala, or amygdalectomy, serves to cancel all aggressive affects within animals—emotional responses included, as well as a disruption of dominance hierarchies (Pribram, 1962): a phenomenon known as the Kluver-Bucy Syndrome, or the malfunctioning of both left and right temporal lobes. Indeed, temporal lobe epilepsy too can involve violent behavior, given that the amygdala is particularly implicated in the pathogenesis of such a syndrome—rabies, caused by a viral infection of the temporal lobe, is the reason for violently aggressive behavior in animals. Animals having the Kluver-Bucy condition are characterized by a variety of symptoms, ranging from dietary changes, visual agnosia, hypersexuality (often with inappropriate objects), and most importantly, docility, or placidity, even in the face of threatening environmental stimuli. Also, given the proximity of the hippocampus and the amygdala, memories too might provide grounds for the emotional significance of particular stimuli—thus the high prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder, and another notion corroborating the statement that fear responses have been evolutionarily hardwired into our very systems. The amygdala occupies a double role, both in the inciting, and—ironically, enough—the inhibition of the aggressive response. While enabling the release of aggression through a modulation of hypothalamic productivity, attack-behavior stimulated within the hypothalamus can be inhibited by stimulation of the basomedial nuclei of the amygdala. At the same time, however, attack-behavior can also be facilitated upon stimulating the hypothalamus by stimulating the lateral nucleus of the amygdala. The presence of another rat was found to be a minor instigator of hormonal activity—an ethological anomaly, given that rat’s aggress only upon requisite motivation, social cues and, most importantly, the presence of opponents. Aggression was thus not necessary to gain an adrenocortical response, merely the activation of its respective neurophysiological regions. Even the removal of the rats’ adrenal glands and artificial insertion of corticoesterone led to a hormonal facilitation of an identical attack response, formerly engendered by hypothalamic stimulation. In this way, the mutual facilitation on both ends could contribute to the ‘precipitation and escalation of violent behaviors under stressful conditions,’ as the authors conclude. The activation of the inbuilt aggressive system turning on the adrenocortical stress response without even the benefit of a threatening environment stimulus leads to the buildup of this vicious cycle of aggressiveness and stress: a signal from one’s central nervous system (via the pituitary gland, and a hormone known as ATCH) heralding the advent of an emergency response by signaling the adrenals to produce a corticosteroid response, otherwise known as the ‘fight-or-flight’ response, regulated by the amygdala. Said corticosteroid response returns to the brain, lowers attack thresholds, and facilitates violence of response. Thus, violence—itself a stressor—engenders its own magnitude of stress, in terms of the response elicited. These findings might reveal much of the evolutionary logic behind many of these behaviors. Hormonal activity linked to stress might increase due to reasons having little or nothing to do with aggression, but at the same time, its derivative of producing a significant lowering of attack thresholds (as quickly as within 10-30 seconds) can lead to much violence, and aggressive behavioral patterns. This could also explain why even those of peaceable disposition display much violence in nature in settings holding aggressive associations—or conversely, even in benign surroundings. These adrenocortical and hypothalamic responses pertain to stress and aggression respectively, and are innate responses finding success in ancestral environments, given the relatively fatal nature the absence of such traits would have lent to the environment—and our methods of coping with it—otherwise, thus vastly increasing the ecological validity of such an experiment to broader populations, and real-world settings. The inextricable links between behavior and hormonal activity are exacerbated by the propensity for said behavior to either increase or decrease due to the presence or absence of said hormone. Vast amounts of evidence exist regarding the likelihood of the outward exhibition of an aggressive response, as well as the activity of perhaps the most characteristically aggression-related hormone, testosterone. Animal studies confirm that castration among males leads to a marked decrease in exhibition of aggressive responses, across various species. When artificially inserted through hormone therapy once more within the animal, testosterone is found to lead to a rapid spike in terms of aggressive activity, sometimes even higher than pre-castration levels. Through its operative interactions with androgen receptors, testosterone exerts its behavioral and hormonal effects during, according to some, a critical period, where it serves to sensitize particular neural circuits within the cerebral cortex—particularly during development. The sensitization of such neurological frameworks allows for the manifestation of said hormonal and behavioral effects of testosterone in adulthood. Another theory holds that immediately after birth, newborns develop an ‘androgen-responsive system’ due to the testosterone levels present within them—particularly in males, and higher levels of exposure to androgens required to induce traits of overt aggression within females. It has been suggested that testosterone acts on serotonergic synapses, lowering the amount of serotonin available for synaptic transmission, and counteracting upon the inhibitory effects serotonin exudes upon the aggressive response. Medication which serves to inhibit serotonin reuptake (e.g. most antidepressants) lead to high levels of decreased aggression in both humans and animals. Testosterone’s operation with androgens serve to cause the masculinizing effects of the onset of burgeoning virility that young adulthood often brings about, with various aspects of one’s personality—including humor—often arising from what seems to be an inborn need to aggress. In a longitudinal observational study carried out by Shuster (2007), in which he travelled throughout the streets of his residence on a unicycle, the responses he received were highly stereotypical and predictable of underlying biological phenomena; initially a documentation of people’s reactions to novel phenomena, the observations of the responses of 400 people were recorded. Nearly 90% responded physically, with an exaggerated stare or wave, and sex differences emerged in terms of verbal responses. Shuster reported that nearly 95% of women were encouraging, praising, or showed concern—while only 25% of men did the same. Indeed, the remaining 75% engaged in much verbal banter, engaging in snide commentary and attempting at a combative, mocking brand of humor intended to put another down, but which took a repeatable and predictable note after some time. Shuster also reported that the initial similarity between sexes regarding age shifted, among boys, from curiosity (ages 5-12) to aggression (ages 11-13), with several young boys who often tried to get him to fall off the unicycle. Male teenagers tended to engage in disparaging comments, and mocking songs. Young men in cars—the age when their notion of virility peaks—were found to be particularly aggressive. This brand of unpleasant humor tended to mellow with age, and older males responded either with neutrality or a few jovial attempts at putting down. In sharp contrast, initial female curiosity dimmed down to indifference or minimal interest, before ameliorating to the concerned or laudatory adult female response. In terms of this receding and advancing of aggressive male humor, Shuster states that such repetitiveness might be indicative of underlying evolutionary differences among the sexes; the change in the effect of testosterone (and collectively, androgens) reinforces the ideas of virility among men, and thus an increase in perceiving the status of one’s self in relation to others among their gender group, as well as the desire to further it so, conversely, putting down others. On a similar vein was research conducted on sexist jokes, in which a higher level of exposure to humor carrying such notions reinforcing a tolerance within young males towards hostility and discrimination, as well as a certain amount of objectifying of women. Brushing off such humor as ‘just a joke’ and thereby unconsciously encouraging such disparaging humor leads to the perception of a shared standard of tolerance of discrimination—and thus indirect aggression—that may guide individuals to believe that others perceive their views the same way (Ford, 2007.) Genetic and non-genetic factors collectively contribute to the shaping of one’s personality; individuals differ in terms of their assessment of a perceived threat from their social and physical environments. Evolutionarily-engendered cultural stereotypes of machismo and typically ‘male’ traits of sexual aggression, competitiveness, etc. find themselves classified into broad traits of personality, which might hold grounds for establishing the possibility of aggressive behaviors. Such personality traits arise largely from said culturally-supported stereotypes, which later translate into coping styles for various kinds of stress, of which aggression can be one type. The manifestation of said traits is highly dependent upon the situational subtleties within which it occurs, given that social behavior is the result of a complex interaction between the environment, one’s personality, and other characteristics (Kammarath, Mendoza-Denton, and Mischel, 2005.) One theory that takes this into account is the TASS model, or the ‘traits as situational sensitivities’ model, which suggests that aggressive behavior is only triggered when the corresponding situation variable responsible for it is of a particular intensity. Thus aggression only arises upon the crossing of a particular threshold of tolerance within one’s subjective perception. Thus, for people high in responding to situational factors that could account for a relative ease of crossing this threshold of tolerance, aggressive reactions will occur even at minor provocations. For those lower, higher levels of provocation are required to elicit an aggressive response. In a study conducted by Marshall and Brown (2006), this trait of aggressiveness was measured in a group of students, before placing them in situations of either no provocation, low provocation, or high levels of provocation from another person. The participants were allowed to aggress against the other by setting the burst of noise signaling the loss of the other on a competitive reactions time task, to a particular intensity. The results confirmed the hypothesis, with those responding aggressively even to minor provocation reacting with much negativity to mild criticism, while those on the opposite end reacting with less aggression—though increasing in terms of aggression when provocation grew stronger. From such findings, one could conclude the influence personal dispositional factors and genetically-predisposed behaviors could have upon the regulation of the aggressive response. It is, however, the combination with situational factors that leads to the manifestation of such violent behaviors, particularly in terms of the coping strategies individuals use—based both on disposition, as well as learning—to mitigate the deleterious effects of stress, of which aggression is one of the negative responses. Indeed, psychologists have demarcated two stress-related dispositions in terms of differing personalities, regarding their interpretation and response of a potentially stressful stimulus. Those falling under the ‘Type A’ personality are characterized by high levels of ambition, competitiveness, seem to always be in a hurry, are easily provoked, seem to be unable to relax unless they are working, and show high levels of irritability and aggression. There is a constant sense of pressure, a desire to accomplish multiple tasks at a time, high levels of success meeting even higher levels of dissatisfaction. On the other end of the spectrum are the ‘Type B’ personalities, who are marked by a definite lack of the aforementioned ambition and competitiveness, who can ‘relax without guilt’, tend to be easygoing and slow to anger, and are much more relaxed in temperament. Indeed, the Framingham Heart Study found that the risk of coronary heart disease for working women of Type-A personalities was four times than of working women of Type-B personalities. Other research narrows down these correlations of key factors within the Type-A personality and increased risk of stress-related diseases to aggression in the form of hostility, or the prolonged lingering of unresolved ill-feelings, conflict, and anger. In this study, 42 patients who had undergone the necessary exploratory surgeries for possible coronary heart diseases were examined; the presence of heart disease was far more prevalent among those scoring high in hostility, as well as other key characteristics of the Type-A personality, leading to a hardening of the arteries in the heart (Williams et al., 1980.) Even more so, those scoring higher in terms of Type-A personality characteristics were found to engage in more acts of hostile aggression, or actions undertaken with the intent of truly causing harm to another (Strube, Turner, Cerro, Stevens and Hinchey, 1984), with findings corroborating such a statement. Those with Type-A personalities were found to be far more likely to engage in domestic violence against both spouses and children (Strube et al., 1984), and dabbling far less in instrumental aggression, or intentional acts performed primarily to further one’s own interests at attaining particular goals, aside from harming a particular victim (for e.g., earning praise due to ‘tough’, assertive behavior.) A traditional view of aggression holds that it arises from the anxiety engendered by low self-esteem; recent studies, however, bring to the fore the notion that not only do both aggressive and non-aggressive individuals have high self-esteem, newer constructs such as narcissism and an unstable self-concept are effective predictors of the aggressive response. This link between one’s self-perceptions and aggression is explained by a new theory, which attributes aggressive responses to a sense of threatened egotism, which depicts aggression arising from threats to one’s highly ideal notion of self, from one seeking to demean it. The view of aggression and low self-esteem seems largely inconclusive; those scoring high on such personality characteristics are found to shy away from much conflict, display high levels of modesty, uncertainty and confusion about themselves and the paths their lives seem to be taking, oriented towards negative outcomes to avoid rather than positive outcomes to achieve, emotionally labile, and thus displaying traits more commonly associated with depressive, and anxiety-related disorders. They submit readily to the influence of other, stronger individuals and lack confidence in their own beliefs, values and abilities. Indeed, the aforementioned description seems to be as far removed from the overtly aggressive Type-A personality as possible, and thus possibly less likely to engage in aggressive acts. However, young girls—typified by the sudden drop in self-esteem during their early adolescent years—are often found to engage in different forms of indirect or covert aggression, such as gossiping, spreading malicious rumors and lies, and socially excluding victims they intend to harm (Lagerspetz et al., 1988.) In this way, it seems that even those with low self-esteem are not above engaging in intentional acts of hostile or aggressive behavior, regardless of the form. A major program regarding this angle of personality regulating the likelihood of the aggressive response was carried out by Capara et al. (1994, 1996), identifying three personality traits most consistently related to aggression. These involve ‘irritability’, or the tendency to hold a low threshold for provocation, ‘rumination’, or the tendency to retain feelings of anger following said provocation, and ‘emotional susceptibility’, the tendency to experience feelings of discomfort and inadequacy. Not only are aggressive people likely to hold a minimal rein over their emotions, they also brood in their negativity for long periods of time, thus laying grounds for the likelihood of such pent-up stress emerging in destructive ways in the future. Such aforementioned feelings of inadequacy are directly linked to one’s self-concept, and the sense of esteem that forms its foundations; those whose sense of high self-esteem is newly burgeoning, or fragile and unstable are far more likely to engage in defensively aggressive acts (Baumeister et al., 1996). On the other hand, those with low self-esteem would be far less likely to engage in such risk-taking behavior, far more likely as they are to be mired in avoidance-related behaviors towards potentially risky, or loss-based actions; low self-esteem would involve submitting to influence, while aggression is often posited as rejecting the perceived limitations of said influence; those with low self-esteem are often highly confused and uncertain about their sense of identity, while aggression precipitates from an effort to defend and assert strongly-held opinions about one’s identity. Much research has painted a picture of violent men that borders several of the characteristic encompassed within the Type-A personality. They are described as having a strong sense of personal superiority, and pride bordering on arrogance, their aggressive actions arising from a wounded sense of shaken pride. Any misgivings cast upon such a highly idealized portrait of themselves, and they respond with much aggression. Indeed, various studies found strong links between such high self-regard and violence—murderers, rapists, those engaging in domestic violence, aggressive nations are all markedly defined through an emphasis on their own conceived notions of superiority, at the cost of others’. Groups with high self-esteem—when juxtaposed to groups of differing self-esteem—are usually found to be far more violent, assuming their belief in themselves and their abilities as providing a kind of justification for the acts that follow. Even in situations involving a rise and fall of self-esteem display a predictable pattern. Patients suffering from manic-depressive disorders show inflated senses of self-esteem during their manic phases, than during their depressed phases. Alcohol consumption seems to be directly linked to changes in self-esteem, due to its temporary boost to it, as well its momentary bouts of encouraging aggressive tendencies, as has been seen in the kind of activities in barrooms etc. Other findings reveal more about such individuals: those with high self-esteem seem to occupy either end of the spectrum—i.e. they are either highly aggressive, or highly non-aggressive (Kernis, Grannemann, and Barclay, 1989), with differences in the stability of self-esteem forming the major differentiation between the two. The researchers were to find this by computing the degree of variability the individuals showed over time, in response to various situations: people with stable high self-esteems, or whose positive self-regard arose independent of daily events, were the least likely to engage in hostility or aggression. In sharp contrast, those with high, but unstable self-esteem scored highest on hostility. Such narcissism, or grandiose opinions of personal superiority, low empathy towards others, delusions of grandeur, a belief that one is situated above others (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) seem quite plausibly linked to aggression and violence, particularly when such beliefs in one’s sense of self are threatened. Laboratory studies testing the links between self-esteem, aggression and narcissism have been carried out (Bushman and Baumeister, 1998), in which participants insulted/praised by an experimental confederate were later presented with the opportunity to aggress against the person by means of sounding a blast of loud, aversive noise. Those scoring high on narcissism and perceived such criticism as a personal affront scored the highest in terms of decibels, than those scoring low. Self-esteem, thus, has no effect on aggression, and neither does either high or low self-esteem in combination with receiving the insult. Such results, however, confirm that threatened egotism is most likely to engender aggression. At the same time, however, narcissists’ aggression did not differ significantly from those of other people, but only insofar as insulting provocation was absent. Even upon being insulted, however, narcissists were found to be no more aggressive than anyone else towards a third person. Such patterns indicate that their aggression is thus a specifically-targeted and socially-meaningful response, wanting others to share and agree upon as they do with their own high opinions of themselves. When facing an unflattering portrait of themselves, the narcissist’s aggression is channelized towards specific people alone. Such aggression is thus a means of defending and asserting their grandiose self-views. Due to a perceived lack of ecological validity of such experiments, another study was conducted in which scores of self-esteem and narcissism were obtained from incarcerated violent felons (Bushman, Baumeister, Phillips and Gilligan, 1999.) What was expected to be a catering to particular items in the test (for e.g., “I certainly feel useless at times”) due to their situation of having been arrested, tried, convicted and sentence, was in fact a sharp contrast to the perceived expectation to push all scores towards low self-esteem and low narcissism. Indeed, the prisoners’ scores all pointed towards high narcissism as the major cause of aggression, outscoring the baselines from other, non-incarcerated groups, and exhibiting traits similar to vanity, exhibitionism and authority. Indeed, the dangerous aspects of narcissism involve far more than excessive self-love, it extends to an inflated sense of interpersonal superiority and entitlement to privilege, as well as the intention of having others know such a sentiment, often to violent effect. In this vein, the negative actions of others intended to purposely elicit anger and hostility from another finds itself an interpretation from a cognitive angle. Studies pertaining to the theory of attribution suggest that the perception of another’s negative actions as intentional elicit anger, functioning thus as a requisite motivator of hostile behavior. Such linkages between attribution/affect/action patterns were studied among adolescents of ethnic minorities—42 Latino and African-American middle-school children labeled as ‘aggressive’—to a baseline, non-aggressive sample of children of the same age (Graham, Hudley and Williams, 1992.) In line with the social cognitive theory in terms of a cognitive determinant for aggressive behavior, the researchers aimed to investigate how children’s attributions of others’ behavior in social situations are related to their expressions of aggressive behavior. Another study conducted by Dodge et al. concluded that aggressive children display marked attributional biases at assumed hostile intent following a peer-initiated negative event (for e.g., being pushed around the hallways, or being jostled while waiting in line.) Such biased attributions hold a high likelihood of resulting in retaliatory behavior, with even non-aggressive children feeling their right to aggress as justified, given the endorsement of retaliation being at the receiving end of aggression often brings about. Either through some distortion of social cues, or recalling available information in a selective manner, aggressive children often associate, and inappropriately so, hostile peer intent in situations described as attributionally ambiguous. The question thus arises towards the mediating processes and mechanisms which are responsible for such cognitions, and their subsequent precipitation of actions. Attributional theory deals with the construct of causal responsibility and the related concept of causal intentionality, linking responsibility to behavior based on the situation involved. A lack of responsibility attributed to particular behaviors based on either external and internal factors determines the kind of response elicited to it—say, for e.g., when those not perceived as responsible for negative outcomes (such as when a child interacts with a less-intelligent peer who experiences much academic difficulty), as opposed to individuals judged responsible for negative events often elicit anger, and a lesser propensity towards prosocial behavior (such as when a child interacts with a gifted peer who never completes assignments.) An emotion linked highly with the ‘should’s’ and ‘ought’s’ that so accompany a child’s burgeoning sense of moral conscience, a reliable finding in the wealth of attribution literature speaks of emotions such as pity and anger as directly influencing helping, or conversely, aggressive behavior—even more so than attributions of responsibility. Social cues work upon the individual’s subjective perception of a perceived intentionality of the dynamics of a situation, and such a dichotomy between cognitions, affects, and behaviors represent rational patterns of response to social dilemmas. Children exhibiting high levels of aggressive behaviors are found to be less proficient at this kind of social information processing, especially when the context requires an accurate interpretation of intent (Dodge and Crick, 1990), as opposed to socially competent children who aggressed far less. In response to initial studies of frustration leading to much aggression, Berkowitz (1989) was to develop a new theory regarding how hostile aggression is often triggered off by provocative circumstances that arouse a negative affect, and thus hostile aggression. Other factors such as pain, high temperature, coming across people we dislike (due to the implicit, non-conscious judgments we instinctively make upon encountering them), etc. can all cause negative affect. In fact, it is said affect rather than a single factor such as frustration that triggers off the likelihood of pandering to an aggressive response. This theory was later to be known as the cognitive-neoassociationist model, which stated that negative affects (brought about by unpleasant conditions) are encoded within one’s memory, cognitively associated with specific negative thoughts, emotions, reflexes etc., and grow stronger the more they are relied upon. Such cognitions hold to them an underlying physiological base—i.e., the fight-or-flight syndrome regulated by the amygdala, which activates upon encountering a situation perceived as a potential threat, and thus causing the physiological responses required for rising to the occasion for such an event. These are related to biological, learning, and attentional variables that either facilitate or inhibit aggression. Such responses are, however, primitive, rudimentary in nature, and thus are often independent of higher-functioning cognitive processes. If more sophisticated thinking does not operate, such expressions of aggressive behavior can often unconsciously lash out, quite of their own volition. According to Berkowitz, this is most prevalent when we engage in routine activities that do not require much allocation of mental activity upon specific elements of our environment, hence why the majority of arguments arise among commuters on crowded subways, or similar situations. Conversely, however, should higher cognitions come into play, such responses are often modified and controlled. Researchers suggest that an increased self-awareness encourages this, as well as the societal and cultural norms that might disapprove of the outward expression of such sentiment. Thus, frustration might lead to an active assessment of the reasons of our negative affect before engaging in consequential behavior, but upon concluding that no one is to blame, any form of negative affect is likely to subside. Even retaliation against an identified blameworthy individual might be viewed as inappropriate. Given, however, the lack of socialization that causes children to forbore from taking such factors into consideration, the opposite effect often occurs, with much spontaneous expressions of aggressive acts. In this way, it is the subjective interpretation, or appraisal, of particular situations which leads to the consequent physiological stress responses, a possible consequence of which could involve the aggressive response. Indeed, Lazarus’s appraisal theory divides these two methods of perceiving situations likely to elicit an aggressive response into primary appraisal, or the assessment of a situation into one of threatening or non-threatening nature. Secondary appraisal involves assessing the coping strategies present to cope with a situation already deemed as threatening, and taking one’s abilities into account. These two methods go hand in hand in terms of determining the kind of response likely to be elicited by the individual, based on their interpretation of the importance of an event, as well as the coping mechanisms present—divided by Lazarus into direct actions, and cognitive reappraisal mechanisms. Primary appraisal involves a dual evaluation of a situation into an assessment of motivational relevance and congruence, appraising therefore whether the goals to be gauged from the situation are aligned with the goals posited by one’s needs, and by extension, one’s subjective well-being. Upon such a situation holding a high level of relevance, an intense emotional response is elicited, often translating into aggression (Smith and Kirby, 2009.) On the other hand, a secondary appraisal of situations involves an evaluation of resources and options required, and present, for coping. Based on one’s sense of control held over a particular situation, a person might allocate responsibility to external sources—thus directing any possible aggression outwards. In a similar vein, perceptions of unfairness are often the primary cause of workplace aggression (Baron, Neuman and Geddes, 1999.) In a study conducted among Dutch nurses, researchers were to find that the more injustice they perceived, the more destructively they were found to respond to problematic events (Van Yperen, Hagedoorn, Zweers and Postma, 2000.) Distributive and procedural injustices were found to be countered by absenteeism, a kind of counterproductive strategy used in work-related behavior used to ‘get back’ at one’s oppressors. Dysfunctional work-related behaviors, such as sabotage, were also found to be related to perceived injustice (Ambrose, Seabright and Schminke, 2002.) Researchers thus identified two types of cognitions involved in the precipitation of such behaviors: aggression-inducing cognitions, and aggression-inhibiting cognitions. These fall under primary appraisal when the focus of interpretation involves the apparent fairness of the situation and under secondary appraisal when decisions arise regarding the course of action to take against a perceived act of injustice (Greenberg and Alge, 1998). It is, however, only when negative outcomes are intensified by social cues and information suggesting that aggression-inducing cognitions arise; the onset of aggressive behavior is often triggered by specific events, such as experiencing severe discipline. The sequence generally begins with a single stressful event (or a series of events), creating thus the perception of an unsolvable internal affect, or psychic state, producing thus much emotional tension, which often translates into the aggressive response—either overtly or covertly (Martinko and Zellers, 1998.) Much like the attribution-engendered actions undertaken by the children of Los Angeles, the workers in these studies felt as though their actions were endorsed by these feelings of injustice, and thus justifying the aggressive acts against offenders, given the sense of moral outrage unfair acts often bring about. Given the three different kinds of injustice, Jawahar (2002) suggests that perceptions of procedural injustice (referring to the fairness of procedures underlying outcome distribution) tends to elicit aggression primarily against the organization, perceptions of interactional injustice (referring to the fairness of interpersonal treatment, Bies and Moag, 1986) are more likely to be channelized aggressively against the offending individual. Being treated fairly or unfairly also reflects the person’s social standing within the group (Lind and Tyler, 1988). Supposed ‘fair’ treatment leads to less focus on personal needs, in the face of higher needs, such as the good of the group; such individuals are more likely to behave cooperatively to demands and requests of the group as a whole, as well as others. On the other side of this spectrum, ‘unfair’ treatment leads to a self-interested orientation that decides every request on the basis of short-term implications based on self-interest motivated desires. Cooperative actions are thus rejected, and the individual is more likely to aggressively assert his needs and personal desire in an attempt to reflect upon the hostility such treatment brings about. In fact, the cognitive-stage model of injustice-related aggression holds that three sequential stages are involved in guiding the individuals’ response towards engaging in an aggressive response (or not.) Such cognitive processes occur in the face of interactional, procedural or distributive injustice: the victim should first recognize, and indentify the kind of aggressive response which would retaliate the most effectively against the offender. The first stage, involving identifying an unjust experience, has two sub-stages: forming a justice judgment in comparing the event, in its actuality, to their subjective threshold of injustice, and then assessing its magnitude. The occurrence of particular events, such as the distribution of an outcome, enactment of formal procedures and interpersonal encounter is likely to trigger judgments on a perceived standard of fairness and justice; this arises out of the individual’s subjective standards of the aforementioned qualities, comparing experience to the actual event. Based on any kind of discrepancy between either, a sense of injustice might arise. The second stage, involving accountability for injustice, includes two sub-stages: blame attribution and the development of aggression-inducing cognitions. If an unjust act is perceived as intentional, aggression-inducing cognitions are likely to arise. The individual constantly ruminates over the intricacies of the situation, questioning why it occurred the way it did, what the offender’s real intentions were and what actions to take. Vengeful cognitions might be fueled by attributions of blame (Aquino et al., 2001.) For a meaningful experience of justice, the victim must identify a target upon whom to attribute blame upon; this advocating of blame attribution brings about the fairness theory, which states that the central topic of social justice is the assignment of blame. Appropriately blaming the concerned party upholds issues of fairness within the topic of social justice, implying thus the identification of a target upon whom the avenger can direct a retaliatory response (Bies and Tripp, 1988.) The third stage involves the decision to react to injustice. Its two sub-stages involve: selecting a particular form of aggression, and executing the aggressive response. Given the model’s establishment of a link between injustice and aggression, it implies that aggression is an appropriate way of responding to an offender; at the same time, however, the avenger faces a variety of choices regarding the manner of aggression to undertake—obstructionism, expressions of hostility, overt aggression etc. Baron et al. (1999) was to find that passive forms of aggression (obstructionism and expressions of hostility)were more frequent within organizations, given their concealment of identity. The cognitive stage model concludes thus that such three stages occur in sequence upon the perception of a victim contemplating aggression as an appropriate response to injustice. A subjective assessment of a particular event as just, or unjust, would lead to the attribution of blame upon the offender, against whom one would plan their retaliatory motives. By engaging in such ‘revengeful’ cognitions, the model explicitly suggests that the individual reacts to a series of events leading to the conclusion of aggression as the only appropriate solution to unjust acts. It also implies that aggression in the face of injustice is not entirely an irrational act borne out of the heat of the moment, but an elaborate, methodological process of cognitive assessing and deciding the relevant course of action to take. Justice and rationality are thus powerful instigators for the engaging of aggressive responses (Tripp and Bies, 1997.) At the same time, however, such a model places a largely culturally-engendered emphasis on a particular entity to blame, and attribute retaliatory actions upon and to—a phenomenon most clearly witnessed among individualistic Western cultures, which place a high degree of emphasis upon the development of individual nature, and independence from the social context within which one operates. Among collectivistic Eastern cultures, the norm towards cooperation is far more pronounced, leading thus to much suppression of aggressive-inducing cognitions, and thus aggression posing a non-normative response likely to lead to much loss of social face, and disapproval from the group within which one operates. Such actions are seen to be highly frowned upon and underlain with the threat of social exclusion, and given the emphasis upon negative outcomes to avoid rather than positive outcomes to achieve, such cultures would thus be far less likely to end up as one of the generalized masses such a model would surely aim at identifying with. Pertaining therefore, to the idea of control stipulated by Lazarus’s theory of appraisal, the cognitive stage model considers the development of aggression-inducing cognitions as a derivative of the accountability stage, which in turn arises due to subjective differences within individuals’ injustice thresholds. The importance given to such largely subjective issues gives the individual free rein to engage in a variety of maladaptive behaviors. Managers might, however, diffuse such cognitions by, say, offering detailed explanations about the wisdom of their decision, thus reducing the likelihood of relying upon such aggressive actions as a response to injustice. Said sense of control is often attributed to as the theory of ‘social representation’, which thus introduces the angle of gender differences among acts of aggression. While widespread beliefs, as well as common observation state clearly that men are more likely to be implicated in aggressive acts, meta-analytical studies carried out implicate both genders as being equally accountable for much aggression—merely of different types. While males are more likely to engage in acts of overt, physical, hierarchy-related aggression (Eagly and Steffen, 1986a), women are very similar to men in their expressions of anger, and in terms of verbal aggression. British social psychologist, Campbell et al. proposed therefore, the theory of ‘social representation’ to bring forth the idea of gender differences in terms of an interpretation and presentation of aggression. Women were found to view their aggression as a result of much stress, and thus precipitating from a loss of culturally encouraged self-control that erupts in negative, and destructive ways. Women’s aversion to engage in unplanned, unprovoked behaviors typical of hostile aggression is more definitive of their propensity in engaging in antisocial behaviors. On the other hand, the planned and calculated aggression of an instrumental nature is far more definitive of male aggression. At the same time, however, women are found to engage in various forms of indirect aggression—social manipulation, in which the aggressor attempts to cause harm to another without the inconvenience of face-to-face, confrontational interaction. These include gossiping, spreading rumors often of malicious intent, discouraging others from associating with a particular person, revealing another’s secrets etc., and are corroborated by field studies carried out among Finnish adolescent girls, which indicated that such periods of indirect aggression increase exponentionally with the onset of adolescence (Björkqvist et al., 1992; Lagerspetz et al., 1988). Similar interactions were found among peasant Mexican women in Oaxaca (Fry, 1992.) Such gender differences in the expression of aggression might arise from the culturally-encouraged norm of the ‘peaceful female’ stereotype, given that girls are generally discouraged from engaging in overt acts of aggression. Differing socialization patterns encourage this, given its higher social acceptability, as well as the social structure among girls, who favour smaller, tight-knit, intimate social settings—as opposed to the larger, general social settings that boys operate within. Such intimate social settings are far more likely to cause situations of gauging vast amounts of personal information about others. Similarly, differences in physical abilities too characterize the female propensity towards engaging in indirect acts of aggression. Given the physical disadvantage females often face before males, such acts of physical aggression are typically ineffective. Given also the female propinquity towards knowledge of the nature of emotional bonds and the intricacies it posits within social interaction, indirect aggression is more effective and less costly than direct attack. Indeed, the worst thing a young girl could do to another young girl is to exclude her socially from their circle. As suggested by the Finnish researchers, the greater use of indirect means of aggression reflects the earlier onset of emotional ‘maturity’ girls encounter. As negative as it might seem, such indirect aggression is their initiation into a broader social context within which they will later operate under the onset of socialization. On the other hand, forms of aggression among women seem to be largely a cultural construct. Modernized ‘civil’ societies, in which resources abound and higher forms of etiquette are often demanded, tacitly encourage the presence of such forms of indirect aggression, given the lack of outlet otherwise. In more rural, less ‘civil’ societies, the cultural trend differs. While despite widespread cross-cultural studies abounding, it is a common norm that women are truly physically disadvantages before men; at the same time, however, certain cultures are found to even teach and encourage their women to exhibit physical aggression (Cook, 1992.) This was documented in a study of women living in the island of Margarita, off the coast of Venezuela. Anthropological studies were to find that exhibiting physical aggression was an integral part and parcel of being a woman in Margarita, with elderly women proudly recounting tales of their being encouraged to display such ‘physically strong’ traits, and the supremacy such hierarchies bring about. Contradicting therefore Campbell et al.’s attribution of female-induced aggression to a loss of control, particular cultures attribute their exhibition of aggression to, instead, an exercise of control, employed against others of one’s social group to maintain one’s position within the social hierarchy—much like males. Such antisocial actions are found to rise largely from disputes over authority, jealousy over mates etc., thus laying doubts upon such sentiments being evolutionarily male-centric. Such findings reflect that women are most certainly far removed from being ‘the gentler sex’, and that all humans, regardless of gender, hold the ability to truly harm one another. At the same time, recent findings indicate that such aggressive behaviors might operate as a social advantage for both genders alike, conferring high status and appeal to those able to tread the fine balance between aggression and prosocial acts (Hawley, Card and Little, 2007.) Individuals combining aggression with equally high levels of relationship-enhancing actions, such as social skills, high levels of extraversion etc., are described as ‘bistrategic controllers’, who are often successful at gaining much social approval, as well as rewards. Such behaviors are seen as equally prevalent between both genders. Described as ‘the bright side of bad behavior’ (Hawley, Little and Rodin, 2007) suggests that gender differences in aggression might be far more overstated than the rigid cultural norms observed in the past. In terms of a shift in terms of cultural norms, the notion of personal space (arising from an underlying evolutionary propensity towards exhibiting fierce territoriality so as to maximize reproductive fitness) is introduced, given the high degree to which particular cultures emphasize individual growth and demarcation of individual standards of achievement, success, independence, and by extension, personal space. Described as the psychological region surrounding a person, and regarded as their own, most individuals are found to exhibit much aggression when they find their personal space encroached upon, or invaded, given that such actions are largely engendered due to relational proximity, familiarity and intimacy between individuals. Given the onset of modern civilizations and the facilities afforded with crowded urban communities (in particular, public transport, which prevents such luxuries), many individuals report such intrusion within physical limits as psychologically uncomfortable. Eye contact tends to be avoided, and physical contact between strangers is usually viewed as inappropriate, which might signal a kind of indirect aggression against those not immediately a part of our intimate circle. Such intense emotional reactions are said to be linked to the amygdala, which regulates fear responses—such responses are absent in those having suffered amygdalectomy, or in the presence of familiar others. This phenomenon seems closely linked to the subtle cultural rules posited by the social context within which the individual operates: individualistic Western cultures encourage a stringent maintenance of the notion of personal space, while other, more collectivistic cultures might discourage outward expressions of any possible discomfort, though the cultural ties that foster dependence upon group norms might mitigate such discomfort in the first place. Among the United States, and several European nations, more levels of space are kept between conversational partners, with greeting rituals limited to a simple handshake and minimal bodily contact. Indeed, this is indicative of the positing of a tacit social chain of command, with members of affluence and high social status engaging in a kind of indirect aggression in their maintenance of a particular position of influence and dominance, by demanding personal space (which can extend up to 10-13 feet in particular countries.) One way of dealing with undue physical proximity with strangers, and otherwise unwanted physical contact is, according to Sommer, a dehumanization of other entities to inanimate objects, and a phenomenon seen often in crowded areas, such as railway stations, crowded subways etc., where individuals have often to deal with such intrusions upon their personal space. This too is a form of indirect aggression arising from the underlying evolutionary logic that the territorial aggression our ancestors defended their lands with were most conducive to marking their place within the social hierarchy, and thus maximizing reproductive fitness. Indeed, territoriality is a ubiquitous presence within the animal kingdom as well, with mating opportunities laying grounds for competition over highly-prized resources, such as territory and fertile mates, and thus opportunities for conflict as well among animal species. Natural selection has provided different species with various characteristics for such conflicting interests—be it hooves, claws, pincers, size, jaws, roaring etc., thus enhancing resource holding potential, or the ability to defend the territory won from directly engaging opponents. At the same time, however, such aggressive, agonistic actions are exceptions to the rule, rather than the norm. Most animal, bird, and insect species settle for contests in non-injurious, but aggressive and competitive behaviors, such as trials of strength and displays, rather than pitting, of aggression. Red deer engage in bellowing contests for highly-prized females. Male fiddler crabs wave their pincers during territorial conquests, and hermit crabs rap gastropod shells in a bid to lay claim to them. It seems, therefore, that genetic mutations, rather than the norm, seem to account for overtly aggressive displays of aggression against one another, given the underlying evolutionary logic behind such non-injurious actions being conducive to maintaining the overall good of the species. Humans, on the other hand, tend to follow inclinations towards culturally-specified behaviors serving to maximize reproductive fitness based on either individualistic or collectivistic means. The game theory approach, borrowed from economics, attempts therefore to explain the varying likelihood of a particular evolutionary alternative being at a higher chance of being naturally selected for the further propagation of one’s genes, once adopted by the specific population. It is from these culturally-specified behaviors that the social determinants of aggressive behavior arise. These include frustration, direct provocation, heightened physiological and sexual arousal, as well as the culture within which one operates. The first four factors are largely general to wider populations, given their increased propensity towards actualizing in terms of an aggressive response. Cultural differences are the basis of much disparity in results—as well as the propensity to aggress, either overtly or covertly, among different nations, given the high degree to which interpersonal relations differ. Indeed, even cultures that encourage strict social rules, behavior and etiquette might foster drinking cultures characterized by rowdy, disruptive behavior. Cultural features such as militaristic readiness and participation in wars (which are positively correlated to interpersonal violence as well), glorification of military heroes, violent sports, unequal concentration of wealth, socialization of male children towards aggression, a higher than normal proportion of young males within what is thus a male-dominated society and strict codes of male honor (which precipitate into higher rates of homicide), are found to result in a ‘culture of violence’, in which idealize such aggressive responses as appropriate, justified, even necessary. This view of cultural norms affecting the propensity towards the expression of an aggressive response is seen in different aspects of interpersonal interactions—particularly sexual jealousy, and the notions of maintenance of honor, which continue to be an integral element of the male ego, to this day. Cultures of ‘honor’, in which strong norms indicate aggression as a standard of propriety arising from insults to one’s honor and pride engender beliefs, values and expectations justifying and endorsing aggressive behaviors. Inter-caste marriages in North India or adultery in Middle Eastern countries are viewed as actions liable enough to endorse ‘honor’ killings, or other forms of punishment for individuals engaging in actions that demean the fundamental beliefs of their respective communities. Cohen and Nisbett (1994) attribute such attitudes to an evolutionarily-engendered sense of severity in the face of losing what could be counted as indications of one’s ‘honorable’ status—formerly cattle, domiciles, wives, slaves, children etc. that were indicative of a man’s status within the social hierarchy. Given that in some geographic areas, wealth was concentrated within assets that could easily be stolen, it made evolutionary sense for the possessor of such objects to clarify that his worth as a man stood in line in the face of losing such assets, and thus a less likelihood of condoning such losses, which would be interpreted as a personal affront to one’s honor. Thus, norms condoning violence in response to insults to one’s supposed notions of honors emerged and were deeply ingrained within the very psyche of several of these cultures. Such insults to one’s honor are often seen in cases of sexual jealousy, where infidelity is rarely condoned by men, given the underlying evolutionary logic behind such a sentiment. Evolutionary psychology maintains that biological sex differences develop in responses to adaptive changes within one’s environment, given that the main focus remains the propagation of one’s genes. Social structural theory maintains, on the other hand, that biological sex differences result from shifts in perception within societal structures, and the subsequent social roles occupied by men and women. In terms of sex-specific evolved mechanisms which lead to sex-differentiated behavior, men and women are found to be differing in terms of parental investment. Given the high degree to which women invest within reproductive processes (as well as their certainty that any child they bear is theirs), they are thus far less likely to condone emotional infidelity, should this mean a lack of support and protection afforded to her by her mate. Men, on the other hand, are less selective over their choice of mate, given their sole desire to propagate their genes (Wood and Eagly, 2002)—and for this reason, are highly unlikely to condone sexual infidelity, given the perpetual hint of doubt even a faithful mate encourages, in terms of whether the child borne to them is truly his. Jealousy is thus defined as an emotional state aroused by perceived threats to a highly desirable trait, necessitating thus the behaviors meant towards removing such threats. Cultures of honor are found to endorse such ‘crimes of passion’ (for e.g. South America, India etc.) in which male lovers are often murdered, along with the unfaithful wives, by jealous husbands. Sexual infidelity is viewed as the ultimate insult to male pride and dignity, and in particular cultures, such actions are viewed as both justified and necessary. In a study conducted by Vandello and Cohen (2003), the response of the woman in a conflicting couple (after the participants had an opportunity of witnessing the man respond jealously to a supposed visit she was planning to a former lover’s house) as either contrite, or accommodating served as the antecedent to the responses obtained from either the northern part of the United States, the southern part of the United States or of Hispanic descent. Participants from the southern part of the United States and those of Hispanic origin tended to rate her accommodating response as more favourable, tolerating his aggressive treatment of her as merely a sign of a bruised ego wanting to maintain its honor. Participants from the northern part of the United States reacted oppositely when the female confederate responded in a forgiving manner, encouraging her to take a stronger stand against the controlling mannerisms of her partner. Evolutionary psychologists see sexual jealousy in a different, more fundamental light. For men, sexual infidelity reinforces the underlying uncertainty that the child borne to them is not truly theirs, and a distaste towards this ambiguity of paternity, thus triggering much sexual jealousy. For women, on the other hand, a man’s sexual infidelity can be condoned (given that it, for the most part, does little to jeopardize her children’s likelihood of reaching adulthood, or change her assurance in parenthood). But emotional infidelity results in a shift in time, attention, energy, resources, commitment and protection from her child to another’s—a loss deleterious to the child’s survival, and a cue for sexual jealousy (Buunk, Angleitner, Oubaid, and Buss, 1996.) A deprivation of emotional support thus triggers jealousy. For males, therefore, actions engendering jealousy might involve attention paid upon younger, more physically attractive, and higher status males. The actions precipitating from this involve monopolizing sexual access to his mate. Women, however, are intuitively aware of reductions in commitment due to emotional infidelity, and easily pick up social cues related to emotional connection, or the presence of younger, more attractive women (Looy, 2001.) Emotional infidelity is also often though to lead to sexual infidelity, and vice versa—both consequences thus leading to much distress. Male aggression would thus be said to arise from paternal uncertainty, and a desire to monopolize sexual resources from his mate—thus an increased propensity towards rape and violence (Archer, 2000.) Women too are found to be far more physically aggressive within the relationship, often resulting to much aggression, upon gauging a lack of emotional commitment. The build-up of such tensions, escalating to jealous aggression, finds a more elemental explanation in terms of the incitement of the aggressive response in the first place. Such an account introduces the angle of frustration into the regulation of aggressive behaviors. As aforementioned, the frustration-aggression hypothesis suggested by Dollard et al., which suggests the cause/effect relationship between aggression and frustration, leading to the arousal of a drive aimed towards the primary goal of intentional harm towards another, often uninvolved, victim. ‘Frustration’, defined as an external condition preventing one from reaching goals congruent to their internal condition, was said to be the sole cause for aggression, with every aggressive act being likely to be traced back to an underlying deficit in terms of need. Engaging in aggressive acts led to a catharsis of sorts, thus reducing the psychophysiological need engendered by the lingering of such unresolved frustrations. Studies conducted among prison populations considered a variety of variables to relate it to potential sources of frustration, as well as to gauge these as determinants of levels of frustration among individual prisoners. Results showed a clear trend towards high frustration levels signaling high levels of aggression. Archival studies too have found negative correlations between economic conditions and aggression towards African-Americans in the pre-1930s South (Hovland and Sears, 1940), when economic depression due to a drop in cotton prices led to much frustration being vented against the presence of a minority. African Americans thus became the scapegoats of displaced Caucasian American aggression. Other studies corroborate such correlations between severely depleted economic conditions, loss of jobs within communities, and an increased propensity towards higher levels of aggression (Catalano et al., 1993.) Frustration can also serve as a determinant for aggression—particularly when the concerned behaviors engendering such a response are perceived as illogical, irrational or unjustified, as specified by the cognitive stage model spoken of previously. Direct provocation—which is perceived differently among individualistic Western cultures, and collectivistic Eastern cultures—may lead to the build-up of frustration should one respond inadequately. Criticism—in particular, harsh, destructive criticism that aims more at the person rather than the action, (as well as the interpretation of the situation as such)—is a powerful determinant of aggression engendered by provocation. At the same time, however, following studies confirm that frustration forms only a single—and that too, minor—variable in the eliciting of the aggressive response; several factors account for the reasons people engage in such intentionally harmful manners. The frustration-aggression hypothesis makes far too broad a generalization regarding the causes for both frustration and aggression: the latter is not necessarily a consequence of the former, nor is the former necessarily the only reason for the latter. Evidence indicates the limitations of the frustration-aggression hypothesis in its attribution of far too much importance to frustration alone; upon experiencing such a sentiment, the mode of action taken need not necessarily be one of aggressive means. Indeed, a vast multitude of responses encompass grief, despair, depression, a higher tendency towards substance abuse etc., underscoring thus the fact that aggression is not an automated reaction to frustration. At the same time, also, interims between the incitement of a frustrated affect, and an allowance at releasing it are found to have a mitigating effect on the likelihood of aggression (Buvinic and Berkowitz, 1976.) Also, direct acts of aggression are not always responsible for the catharsis. In fact, several studies indicate that the allowance of frustration-release in the form of aggression only resulted in increased amounts of aggression (Buss, 1966; Geen, 1968.) Sociological research has indicated this vicious cycle to be a major source of conflict, ultimately escalating, and leading to the patterns observed in domestic violence—verbal quarrelling, leading to screaming and yelling, and finally physical aggression (Strauss and Golles, 1990.) What was intended to be a source of catharsis instead increases the likelihood of a prolonging of an aggressive affect. The literature regarding such phenomena posit verbal aggression as being difficult to keep within manageable bounds, especially given the high propensity towards bordering vindictiveness and spite. In line with the cognitive neoassociationist view propounded by Berkowitz (1989), impulsive and affect-driven reactions to external stimuli are often reliable predictors of aggression. One example is the ‘heat hypothesis’, which states that people are more likely to aggress in situations when temperatures are hot, and thus physical discomfort engendering the advent of negative thoughts, feelings, beliefs, heightened levels of physiological arousal etc., which are often vented out upon others (Anderson et al., 1995) and increase the propensity towards negatively stressful experiences, and thus aggressive behavior. The phenomenon known as the ‘upward spiral effect’ speaks of discomfort caused by high temperatures increasing the degree of aggression, with progressive rises in intensity. Archival studies speak of the majority of urban riots erupting in several American cities in the 1960’s as more likely to have occurred during hot climates, and then diminish in intensity as winter approached (Carlsmith and Anderson, 1979.) The upward spiral effect has also found implications in domestic violence, murder, assault, rape etc. (Anderson and Anderson, 1984, 1996.) Conversely, high temperatures—and the discomfort that follows—have often been found to decrease the likelihood of engaging in an aggressive act, leading to the conclusion therefore that people are far more likely to be preoccupied with their own discomfort to afford any greater importance to external stimuli. In any case, such a relationship indicates that environments within which the temperature can be controlled (through the functioning of air conditioners etc.) can curb and modify the likelihood of aggressive behavior—for e.g., in prisons, among inmates. The heat hypothesis also has implications for global warming. An increased usage of chlorofluorocarbon activity will conversely lead to a rise in global temperature, which in turn might signal an overall rise in aggressive behavior throughout the world (Anderson, 2001.) Another example of heightened physiological arousal affecting our cognitive and affective states is what is described as the ‘excitation transfer theory’ (Zillman, 1988; 1994.) Upon encountering a particular situation which elicits an intense physiological response—accelerated heartbeat, quicker breathing, high blood pressure etc.—is likely to translate into aggression (depending, however, on its intensity) to other, unrelated stimuli. Road rage is the most common example of this, with drivers being cut off and narrowly missing an accident finding their baseline mood turning aggressive in nature. This theory thus suggests that arousal produced in one situation is likely to persist and intensify emotional investments within other situations. Thus minor hassles escalate to seemingly all-pervasive problems, due to people’s general lack of awareness to the residual arousal, or perhaps an attribution of said residual arousal to present events. While the aforementioned factors are a single source of exacerbating the deleterious effects of heightened physiological arousal upon the eliciting of an aggressive response, another basic factor which often translates into aggression is the fundamental physiological instinct of sexuality. A sentiment built solely for the purpose of propagating life, the sociocultural and cognitive implications of such an act are, more often than not, translated into endorsements of aggressive acts. Social learning theory provides a useful framework for the study of sexual aggression. Despite research confirming that sexual aggression occur in both sexes, clear differences exist, given the higher propensity for men to display higher levels of said phenomenon. Muelenhard et al. (1991) speak of the differences between sexes in terms of experience in being coerced into sexual intercourse—men rarely resist physical use of force to fulfill the masculine stereotype of always being prepared for sex, while women might not always be able to fend themselves or rebuff the attempts of a sexual aggressor. Over the course of several years, institutions such as colleges and universities have reported high numbers of sexual assaults against female students (i.e. nearly 20-25% of the general population) committed by acquaintances and strangers alike (Koss, 1985.) Special attention has been paid to the high degree of prevalence of such acts in fraternity houses (Earheart and Sandler, 1985). The question thus arises as to whether such high propensity towards such aggressive acts arise out of individual characteristics, or whether one’s behavior within an organizational framework is guided along relevant social cues meant to maximize one’s chances of furthering status. Sexual aggression is thus viewed as deviant behavior learned primarily through the individual’s social interaction in groups comprising of positive or negative reinforcers for particular kinds of behavior stipulated as appropriate. The environment is thus most certainly one in which sexual aggression is viewed as a standard of propriety, and the individual is exposed to the relevant standards, attitudes and models. While college does not comprise of such an environment alone, learning contexts for the internalization of such values, as well as initiation and continuation of such behaviors are present elsewhere as well, on and off campus during these years. For one belonging to a fraternity, the organization might just serve as a subjectively more important context, due to prior socialization experiences predisposing such proclivities, and a possible difference in preference towards sexual aggression between fraternity and non-fraternity men. The probability of encouraging sexual aggression might thus arise as a result of the all-male environment, emphasizing thus norms of masculinity, valuing male qualities and thus devaluing female qualities. Fraternities might reinforce sexual aggression through the pledging processes through which neophytes are initiated, and in social events, in which the consumption of much alcohol and a proclivity towards pornographic entertainment are common. The environment is thus conducive to encouraging discussions of sexuality and aggression pertaining to it with tolerance, and even approval, of possibly misogynistic motives in mind. There is a definite trend among male cultures which tend to objectify women as commodities, and the use of alcohol to get past a woman’s initial reluctance is often encouraged. In line with social learning theory, sexual aggression would thus be expected to the extent that one has been differentially associated with others prone to sexual aggression, that sexual aggression has been reinforced as appropriate over non-aggressive sexual behavior, and that it is neither morally nor situationally wrong—indeed, even justified, appropriate or proper behavior for males. Given the different, larger contexts males operate within, the social milieu within which they feel their position to best be consolidated provides the basis for the values they uphold regarding sexual aggression, and the behaviors precipitating from it etc. In a study carried out among fraternity members, Boeringer, Shehan and Akers (1991) found that these students did not significantly differ from independents in terms of self-perceived likelihood of sexually coercive behavior (i.e. using force or committing rape), but their mean scores indicating actual use of nonphysical force and drugs or alcohol to obtain sex were significantly higher than independents’ scores. Fraternity members did not also differ significantly in their reports of having raped a woman. One-fourth of fraternity members reported that more than 10 of their friends had used alcohol to obtain sex. Similarly, previous research on the relationship between exposure to violent pornography and sexual aggression suggested that sexual images presented simultaneously with the underlying notion of the appropriateness of violent acts precipitate a desensitization of sorts towards rape victims, and thus to women in general (Malamuth and Check, 1985.) A vast amount of research corroborates the view that reliable links exist between sexually explicit media and overt acts of aggression. Pornographic depictions hold higher male viewership ratings than female; also, individuals prone to sexual aggression might form violent sexual fantasies, even using relatively non-violent depictions. Much has been documented of the negative effects of pornography on men’s attitudes and behavior towards women, as well as their perception of the power balance between them (Russell, 1998.) In a review carried out by Fisher and Grenier (1994) regarding different kinds of violent pornographic material, and their effects on those who viewed them, ‘R-rated’ or ‘slasher’ films. Such films, which depicted the victims as experiencing much suffering was held as a litmus test to the audiences’ desensitization, and on attitudes such as rape myth acceptance etc. There was no condition including the kind of depiction that so accompanies experimental research—for e.g. the supposed notion that women truly enjoy being aggressed against (Malamuth and Check, 1981.) Significant predicted effects were measured regarding the audiences’ emotional and sympathetic reactions to rape victims. Those exposed to R-rated films, which depicted violence against women, showed a tendency towards lower sympathy towards rape victims portrayed in a trial. They were also found to be less able to sympathize with rape victims in general when compared with no-exposure controls subjects and those exposed to other kinds of films. Malamuth et al. also assessed the impact of exposure to a sadomasochistic portrayal on reactions to a rape story. There was no direct measure of men’s acceptance of violence against women, but one of the measures assessed the moral outrage towards the rapist. It was found that males who had the sadomasochistic version of the first story were more severe in their castigation towards the rapist than those who had read the neutral version. There were even found to be several negative effects of exposure to the sadomasochistic portrayal—moderated, however, by individual levels of aggression-anxiety. Men scoring low on these scales tended to perceive the rape victim as experiencing less suffering and resisted the rapist less. High aggression-anxiety males, however, tended to be more conscious of the plight of the rape victim and the pain she experienced. Finally, males exposed to a sadomasochistic version of the story in which the victim received true pleasure, a greater perception of pain began to be associated with greater sexual arousal, in contrast to males having read the neutral version. Similarly findings by Goldstein, Kant and Hartmann (1973) report that despite rapists reporting lesser exposures to pornographic material in adolescence than control comparison groups, various aspects suggest that the type of pornography they were exposed to—as well as the degree to which they were affected by it—differ. These individuals report earlier ages of ‘peak experiences’ with pornography, and were far more likely to have encountered pornographic photographs depicting sexually explicit acts, rather than mere nudity—most likely at an early age, and therefore a period when they wished to imitate such acts. Rapists also reported a stronger likelihood of masturbating to pornographic scenes and thoughts of it, developing an interest in pornography earlier in life, becoming progressively aroused by a particular theme, and reporting more feelings of frustration and guilt related to their pornographic exposure than control participants. In a comparison between rapists, child incest molesters, non-incest child molesters and non-offenders in their use of ‘hardcore’ sexually explicit material, most groups of sexual offenders did use pornography more than non-offenders. In terms of use, 67% of heterosexual child molesters and 83% of rapists (as compared to 29% of non-offenders) reported using pornography, often as ‘instigators’ to their crimes. Multivariate analyses (Boeringer, 1994) indicated that the strongest correlates of sexual coercion and aggression and proclivity towards rape were exposure to hardcore, violent and rape pornography. Such material has also been found to hold associations with self-reported likelihoods of engaging in sexually aggressive acts, such as forcing a woman to engage in sexual activity, forced rape, or sexual harassment. Malamuth and Briere (1986) speak of an ‘indirect effects’ model, in which mass media is one of the various social forces that may, along with other factors, influence the development of attitudes that condone such aggressive behaviors, thus increasing the likelihood of antisocial behaviors against women. Taking the angle of mass media a step forward in terms of aggressive behaviors, and their provocation is the notion that televised media plays a major role in the internalization and acceptance of aggression, violence, and hostility as normative, appropriate standards of socialization. Social learning and cognitive theories of such behaviors attribute the likelihood of such behaviors repeating, in greater intensity, and spreading onto other aspects of an individual’s life due to their constant reinforcement. Borrowing from the cognitive angle from which such behaviors find justification, Huessemann (1986b) was to propose the idea of such aggressive behaviors being controlled by cognitive ‘scripts’, or preconceptions about how a series of events will transpire. In the engendering of an aggressive response, children’s aggressive scripts are acquired through observation of others’ behaviors, learning from parents and peers the appropriate manner of responding to provocation, and thus recalling the relevant information from memory. Not only does this provide a roughly reliable prediction about what next will occur, it also provides the socially-accepted prompts upon which one will act. The higher degree to which children are exposed to negative and aggressive role models, the greater and more detailed the amount of aggressive scripts they will acquire, and encode into memory. Highly detailed aggressive scripts result in a greater likelihood of relying on aggressive responses to resolve conflicts, given the natural manner in which they arise. In terms of statistics, more than 70% of American male teenagers have played violent games such as Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft, God of War, Call of Duty, Mortal Combat etc. and are found to be far more likely of displaying aggression, as opposed to non-players. From the values incorporated from these games, the future generations seem to be reaching a societal trend of alienated, aggressive, and progressively untrusting adults. Video-games and television shows are found to display unprecedented levels of violence marketed particularly to children, while underage children are found to be the most likely targets. Adult-rated entertainment products are found to be pervasively marketed to young children, and 80% of the youngsters attempting to purchase these products were able to do so easily. Such games often involve common themes—most particularly the glorification of violence, especially against women. As aforementioned in the form of humor, the low degree of conscious awareness of such sentiments poses a greater problem than any overt expression of hostility, given the normalization (and subsequent desensitization) it thus posits to the pre-teen and teenage boys who purchase such products and greatly contribute to their popularity. Even levels of interpersonal popularity are found to be regulated by a young boy’s tendency to play such games or not—to do so is considered ‘cool’, and greatly contributes to one’s social status; nothing bruises a young male’s ego worse than a drop in position within a male-dominated social hierarchy. Research on exposure to television and movie violence also reveals that the children watching such material are found to be more likely to aggress. In different towns of Kentucky, Arkansas, and Colorado, three towns experienced similar multiple school shootings from students who were later found to be habitual players of violent video games. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine High School students who murdered 13 people wounded 23, before killing themselves, were said to greatly enjoy video games involving great deals of blood and gore, such as Doom. Another problem regarding such high levels of exposure to adult content involves the lack of parental supervision. Teens from grades 8 to 12 report that nearly 90% of their parents never check the ratings of their purchased video games, and nearly 89% reported that parents were quite permissive in their allowance of time spent playing video-games. Several of the underlying psychological processes identified within television shows, movies and video-games are all identical. The General Aggression Model (GAM) based on earlier models of human aggression provides a framework for understanding human aggression engendered from violent media. The enactment of aggression is based generally upon the learning, activation and application of aggression-related knowledge structures (scripts, or schemas) stored within memory. Situational input variables influence the likelihood of affecting aggressive behaviors through their impact upon the individual’s emotional and internal state, based on cognitive, affective and arousal variables. Violent media is found to have significantly deleterious priming effects relating to aggressive cognitions, teaching one how to systematically and methodically aggress against another, increasing physiological arousal and inducing aggressive affective states. In terms of long-term learning processes, relevant knowledge structures modified by repeated exposure to violent media are linked to the development of an aggressive personality, given the interplay of situational and personological variables as well. Huessemann et al.(1994) developed a model of social and academic effects of exposure to television violence. The habitual aggression that forms a part of the child’s nature also change the quality and type of social interaction he engages in. As another negative effect of high exposure to violent media, the likelihood of overall tendency to engage in prosocial behavior too is found to be markedly reduced. Indeed, the propensity towards antisocial forms of behavior is found to hold a high positive correlation to increased levels of violent media viewership. At the same time, however, even non-violent video games are found to result in negative cognitive and physiological affect, given the high levels of frustration they elicit. Exciting non-violent video games can increase arousal, but are still found to increase aggressive cognitions indirectly, through their links between feelings and thoughts (Anderson and Dill, 2000.) These findings, however, pertain largely to acts of overt aggression, and among male children. Research conducted among a wider audience found that scenes of ‘backbiting’, and engaging in forms of indirect aggression as most seen in soap-operas, are most likely to be internalized by teenagers, particularly girls, who showed a high likelihood of displaying similar behavior. It seems that the constant portrayal of engaging in indirect forms of aggression as actions that can result in interpersonal popularity, or subjective well-being—actions such as gossiping, spreading lies and rumors, of malicious intent, engaging in emotional bullying etc.—are responsible for the upsurge of aggressive behaviors among school-going teenagers (Coine et al., 2004). Nearly 60% of such scenes showed female characters indulging in such behavior, and even worse so, said characters were described as ‘popular and pretty’, with their behavior portrayed as being justified and rewarded. Such behaviors among female teenagers are reflective of their earlier onset of socialization, and an earlier encounter with the relevant behaviors perceived as socially acceptable within a group setting, encouraged as they are to be more other-oriented and collectivist. Such a setup primarily functions to create a sense of social support and integration, and chiefly accomplishes positive outcomes. It is, however, when functioning within a group setup that results in a complete loss of identity in the face of external stimuli that leads to deleterious effects. This phenomenon, known as ‘deindividuation’, refers to the shedding of moral norms, and higher cognitive functions, and operating purely on baser, more functional forms of behavior, within a group. Thus the normal constraints usually placed upon behavior are loosened, the persons involved lose their sense of individuality, and the lack of personal accountability, and thus anonymity within a large group can often account for a high degree of conformity to aggressive acts of often brutal, far-reaching proportions. This psychological state of decreased self-evaluation causing anti-normative and disinhibited behavior is the cause of several mass movements of aggressive intent—most significantly, the Jewish Holocaust, in which Hitler’s Secret Service agents could easily hide their perpetrators within their distinctive uniforms and group identity. Even more so, however, is the increased propensity for individuals to participate in lynch mobs, riots, mosh pits etc., all situations in which the relative anonymity that operating within a large group affords allowing for a momentary suspension of morals, and rationality, a submersion of individuality into a single, groupthink-engendered entity, rendering social mores irrelevant in the face of the all-pervasive external influences that so increase suggestibility, and that are found to inevitably engender aggressive actions. Deindividuation theory has been used to explain several forms of collective, group-based behavior functioning under the guise of anonymity—such as online ‘trolling’, or the spread of much offensive, hurtful or misguiding information on the Internet, the behavior of unruly crowds and mass movements which hold grave political, social, economic and historical significance, and most particularly, the study of individuals occupying a stringent role and having to uphold severe, potentially life-threatening ‘duty’-based norms, as seen in the officials of the Nazi Reich, or more recently, among the young men who participated in Phillip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. A psychological study investigating the potential effects occupying a stringent social role—such as a prisoner, or a prison guard, the Stanford Prison Experiment was led by Zimbardo et al. (1971) in a bid to determine the causes of prisoner/jail-guard conflict among the military. 24 out of the randomly selected 75 students of Stanford University were chosen to play the prisoners—the rest operated as jail-guards—in a mock prison, and were found to adapt to their roles to an efficiency that even Zimbardo himself had not expected. Indeed, the prisoners were ‘arrested’ by police cars with wailing sirens as they went about their everyday business, or their houses raided without warning, and they were charged with false accusations of armed robbery. As though they were true criminals, the prisoners were read their rights and had their mug-shots and fingerprints taken, strip-searched, sprayed for lice, heads shaved, locked up with chains upon being given a number and treated with much contempt by the authoritarian attitudes the participants ‘acting’ as jail-guards. The prisoners’ were referred to as numbers by the prison guards, who were also given the authority to stipulate 24-hour rules. In another modification to the experiment, said guards were outfitted in clothes similar to the military uniforms, given police batons to brandish, if not physically use against the prisoners, with their eyes covered in dark, mirrored shades to depersonalize them in the eyes of the prisoners. Zimbardo himself, acting as the prison superintendent, informed the guards before the experiment, that no physical punishment was allowed. Aside from that, they were allowed to induce conditions of ‘boredom, a sense of fear to some degree…a notion of arbitrariness’ that their life is completely controlled by a particular system, and by the prison-guards. The guards were also allowed to take away the prisoners’ privacy and individuality, and to create within them a sense of powerlessness. The rules of the prison were left to their discretion and the guards divided into regular working shifts and patterns. Prisoners, on the other hand, were dressed in cheap smocks, and stocking caps, no underwear, and a chain around one ankle to continually drive home the fact that they were inmates within a rehabilitation facility—addressed by, and made to answer to, identity numbers alone. Conditions were poor, with thin mattresses within the cells, and plain food. Of the 24 selected from the random 75 (from advertisements placed within local newspapers), Zimbardo had made sure to select mostly middle-class white young men, and more importantly, those judged to be the most emotionally and mentally stable. Prior to the experiment, these young men had been background-checked, and showed no signs of psychological impairments, criminal history, or medical problems. After an initially uneventful first day, the prisoners—unable to bear the physical and mental humiliations and punishments they suffered at the hands of the prison guards—organized a mass rebellion against their imprisonment, refusing to comply to the guards’ orders. Brutal retaliation resulted from the guards, who devised a newer, more rigorous work-shift process so as to maximize authority over the prisoners, even attempting to attack the prisoners with fire extinguishers, without necessarily informing the staff. Stripped once more, and left devoid of their beds in the cells, the rebellion’s ringleader was placed in solitary confinement, while the prisoners began to be harassed, and humiliated in a bid to break their will. The guards thought of systematically, and psychologically abusing the prisoners through the introduction of a ‘privilege cell’, within which those having not participated in the rebellion were allowed good meals, rather than their normal bland rations. The inmates allowed to occupy this cell did not comply, choosing instead to band together with their fellow inmates, in a show of solidarity. The prisoners suffered much systematic abuse and several denials of their human rights, and some began to show signs of grave emotional and psychological distress. After a mere three days, ‘#8612 began to act crazy,’ as recounted by Zimbardo himself, screaming, cursing, raging uncontrollably, and ultimately having to be discharged. It took ‘quite a while’ before the authorities were convinced of his suffering The guards continued to have the prisoners suffer much humiliation in the form of roll-called ordeal and ritual degradation, for e.g. forced exercise, making them wear women’s clothes, not allowing them to even look out of the window, and occasional simulating sexual activities with each other. One prisoner even broke out into a psychosomatic rash upon learning that his ‘parole’ had been denied. Mattresses were removed; the prisoners were compelled to sleep on the cold, stone floors of the prison. Toilet facilities soon became a privilege, and access to the bathroom was often severely denied: the prisoners had often to wash away their excrement with their own hands, thus leading to a severe degeneration of sanitary conditions. Sexual humiliation too, as a form of intimidation, was used frequently. Indeed, nearly one-third of the guards began to exhibit serious and extreme sadistic traits and expressed disappointment once the experiment was terminated prematurely; Zimbardo himself began to play his role as superintendent with an internalized efficiency. Despite two of the participants having to be removed early due to extreme signs of emotional trauma and psychological distress, the rest of the prisoners adapted to their institutionalized roles very quickly, with none of them wishing to quit the experiment early, even when threatened with the loss of participation pay. Even when a replacement prisoner was introduced, and attempted to induce a hunger-strike (as part of his instructions so as to obtain an ‘early release’), the other prisoners viewed him as a troublemaker rather than a fellow victim., and—as ordered by the guards—often spent much time, banging on the door to his cell, hurling abuses at him. All but one refused to give up their blankets when told that he would be released from solitary confinement if they did so. Finally, it was only through the intervention of Christina Maslach, a graduate student (and later Zimbardo’s wife) who objected strongly to the filthy conditions, Zimbardo’s transformation into an intransigent institutional authority and his passive allowance of such unethical acts and humiliating treatment the prisoners underwent; indeed, she was the only visitor out of perhaps 50, who was to raise such concerns. Despite the experiment initially planned to have extended to two weeks, Zimbardo terminated the experiment after only 6 days. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a landmark psychological study of human response within captivity, and the propensity towards incredible amounts of impressionability and obedience when provided with a legitimizing ideology upon which they base their oftentimes aggressive actions—dehumanizing other, weaker entities due to the social and institutional support afforded to it. Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance too finds grounds here, as well as the debilitating effects of over-emphasizing the importance of seniority and authoritarian attitudes and leaders, as well as the far-reaching effects social influence of either normative, or informational kind, can have. The results of the experiment, (while low on external validity, and high on experimental realism and internal validity,) also clearly represent situational, rather than dispositional, attribution, given that the personality traits, background etc. of the young men involved had been kept at a constant. Even despite the seeming pervasive opportunity to quit the experiment at any time (and even allowed to apply for parole), none of the prisoners did so. According to Zimbardo, they had internalized their identities as mere numbers within a correctional facility, based more so on the situation they found themselves in rather than any individual characteristics, to deleterious effect. Even the young men instructed to play the roles of prison guards, formerly described as ‘pacifistic’, were involved in brutally disciplining and humiliating the prisoners, with several admitting to truly enjoying it. The study has often having been criticized for its utter lack of adherence to ethical codes, small sample size (consisting mainly of white, middle-class males) and a purported lack of scientific rigor, replicability, generalizability and reliability, given Zimbardo’s inability at maintaining traditional scientific controls (and thus maintaining merely neutral observation, rather than his influencing of the direction of the experiment, in the form of his briefing the guards regarding the way they should treat the prisoners). Critics have challenged Zimbardo’s attribution of situational factors alone leading to changes in behavior, as well as the possibility of them merely role-playing stereotypes engendered by the experimenters themselves. This might have led to the participants internalizing such instructions to maintain a particular level of conformity. At the same time, however, several conclusions drawn from the study have been found to hold true to other situations as well. One of these is the condition of inmates at prison facilities, such as in Abu Ghraib, where the guards felt morally and ethically justified regarding the acts they commit against the detainees (due to institutional support, as well as a degree of personal anonymity), or the high degree to which support arises for ethnic conflicts in various regions of the world, such as communal violence in India, or tribal warfare in nations in Africa. Similar findings have been documented from interviews of jail guards from Rikers Island, New York’s largest penal colony, in which they explained how inmates quickly grow immune to escalating levels of violence from their guards. At one point, nearly 12 guards were arrested for assault of inmates in the Central Punitive Segregation Unit of Rikers’, officially charged. This transformation of individual identities into rigid institutional or social figures operating as the harbingers of a particular cause, and more concerned with the implementation and enforcement of their goals, as opposed to the well-being of anyone posing opposition, relates well to deindividuation theory. The Stanford Prison Experiment, as well as the Milgram Experiments on conformity have been touted as seminal studies in their highlighting of the darker aspects of human nature, and the unmitigated aggression we often find ourselves engaging in, upon finding it justificatory to do so, and being aware of a marked lack of personal accountability in the engaging of such a deed. Such findings have often been used to interpret wider social and political occurrences which encompass several humanitarian questions as well—particularly the testimony of Adolf Eichmann, who stated that his role in the organization of the Nazi ideology and its systematic persecution of Jewish minorities arose merely from his ‘following orders.’ Indeed, an analysis of said case was undertaken by Hannah Arendt, a Jewish political theorist, who ended her report with concluding that Eichmann displayed no traits of anti-Semitism, or psychopathology, or any form of psychological disorder; indeed, his most pressing desire seemed to involve furthering his career. At his trial, he seemed to display no hatred or guilt, appearing to all judgment, one of a trite, common, non-confrontational personality. Such findings were compressed into Arendt’s theory of the ‘banality of evil’, opposing therefore the notions of the ‘collective madness’ that seemed to encompass the high-ranking officials of the Nazi Reich, and the suggestion that they might all have been suffering from some form of psychosis, or any kind of mental disorder from which acts of such horrifying cruelty could precipitate. Most eerie about such circumstances was that even ordinary, commonplace people were found to be capable of such actions, most particularly when backed by the might of a powerful organization, or given particular incentives. Indeed, such findings corroborate the theory of the agency theory of obedience, in which people exhibit high levels of aggressive behavior within particular situations, which are usually different from their usual individual natures. Thus, institutionalized aggression promotes several factors that are conducive to one assuming themselves to be operating on behalf of a larger social organization. Individuals thus no longer act of their own volition, and believe their actions to precipitate from an underlying belief within the tenets of a higher, all-encompassing system. In this way, a blind adherence to orders given by those occupying positions of higher authority is common, even were this to compromise one’s own personal standards of morals and ethics. Such findings are similar to Milgram’s shock experiments, in which nearly 60% of participants continued to ‘shock’ the learner up to nearly 450-volts, upon being compelled to do so by the experimenter. Milgram himself speaks of several factors contributing to this agentic shift from autonomy. ‘Buffers’ refer to concealments of true identity, and the notion that without gaining feedback about the consequences of our actions, we are more likely to continue engaging in them. In this way, if we cannot directly observe the effects of our aggressive behaviors, we are more likely to continue behaving so. Another factor involves a supposed belief in the legitimacy of the organization, arranged as society usually is into a chain of command from which orders arriving from one of higher authority are obeyed, given the aversive consequences that surely follow. Examples involve the 1994 war in Rwanda between the ethnic groups of the Hutus and Tutsis, in which propaganda spread from government-sponsored radio stations encouraged Hutus to systematically organize and enforce the annihilation of millions of Tutsis. The agentic shift in thought caused the idea that such actions, being endorsed by the government, were justified and thus legitimate, thus the engendering of such obedient aggression. Also, German civilians who identified Jewish individuals to Hitler’s Secret Service officers could not directly observe the consequences of their actions, and thus complied to avoid the negative consequences that would surely follow. Such findings are also indicative of a definite deindividuation, or the diffusion of identity from individual, rational boundaries into larger, less well-defined, socially-based dimensions, the transition to which is said to increase responsiveness to group norms and social mores particular to the crowd, rather than those of a more general, universal nature. The diminished sense of self and individuality decreases self-restraint and what would otherwise be regulating one’s behavior in a normative fashion. As aforementioned, such a phenomenon finds ample grounds for explanation in events such as genocide, prejudices and stereotypes, a lack of inhibitions over computer-mediated communication etc. Gustave Le Bon (1895) was one of the pioneering proponents of what was then to be known as ‘crowd theory’, or the degeneration of the individual within a larger collective into a supposed inferior form of evolution—irrational, fickle, suggestible, and opportunistic. Oftentimes, even the most heroic acts escalate to an atrocity that the crowds involved fail to see, which might therefore explain why violent mass movements such as the French Revolution spiraled downwards from an intellectual, liberal-minded development aiming at political and social change, to a brutal, bloodthirsty massacre led by a faction of uneducated rabble-rousers and ignorant, opportunistic agitators, aiming more towards the execution of undesirable elements within the society (i.e. the aristocracy), rather than affecting positive change. Le Bon’s emphasis on racial factors also holds true for leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini, who advocated much ideological and racial supremacy among their people. Other factors which might account for the perceived lack of direct, personal accountability involve contextual factors as well, such as diffusions of responsibility, heightened physiological arousal, sensory overload, altered, ‘drugged’ consciousnesses, and a perceived lack of predictability, or contextual structure (Zimbardo, 1969.) Thus deindividuation theory differs from Le Bon’s crowd theory in that it considers this diminishing of personal boundaries to engender a complete loss of control from internalized moral constraints, and reliance upon baser, instinctual behaviors, which are often irrational, impulsive, regressive, and unmitigated in their aggression. In a milder variant of the study of deindividuation, Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982) conducted a study based on the flexibility of attentional structures, and their impact on levels of aggression. Subjects in the first group were instructed to focus their attention outwards, and then placed within a dimly-lit room with loud rock music playing, enthusiastic conversations being carried out, and groups playing exciting video games (an environment similar to a barroom.) Levels of aggression were found to escalate in such a condition. In contrast, those in the second group were instructed to focus their attention inwards, and placed into a quiet, well-lit room, instructed to perform individual tasks, and play non-arousing games. Levels of aggression markedly reduced. More importantly, however, was the focus of attention—hence possibly why practitioners of yogic techniques, which pay great attention to such methods, are found to display high levels of self-awareness, intense levels of internal focus, greater empathy, less emotional reactivity, and thus, far lower levels of aggression than non-practitioners. Such examples of institutionalized aggression are found to be largely prevalent among larger organizational institutions, such as the military, schools, prisons, even social contexts such as barrooms, caring homes etc. Genocides refer to deliberately, and systematically planned extermination of particular groups, particularly those of ethnic, racial, communal and religious minorities. The most infamous example of this was the Nazi Holocaust of 1943-1945, in which more than 6 million Jews were murdered in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz, Dachau etc., in Rwanda when nearly 800,000 members of the Tutsi tribe were exterminated in the space of 100 days by police, militia and civilians, in the Indian Partition, which displaced nearly 12.5 million, and resulted in the deaths of several hundreds of thousands on communal grounds, in Little Bighorn where several thousands of Native American tribal peoples were eradicated by the forces of George Custer, as well as countless other examples. Genocidal mass movements are, according to Staub (1999), brought about by several progressive stages; difficult social (particularly economic) conditions can bring about the spread of much discontent, which—rather than attribute such causal relations to one’s own limitations—look for the next possible scapegoat, most particularly a less powerful group, preferably a minority. Such was seen in the aftermath of the First World War, in which Hitler and the die-hard reactionaries who formed a part of the National Socialist Party headed by him, blamed Germany’s defeat to the ‘stab in the back’ brought about by the Communists, Socialists, the bourgeoisie, and the aristocratic and wealthy minorities—particularly the Jewish community. Such groups are thus the target of much negative propaganda, and harmful attention—dehumanized and victimized, often deprived of their fundamental rights and progressively marginalized until they have little or no resources to retaliate, or cope. Thus, the majority (or, in Hitler’s terms, the harrenvolk), begin to attribute to themselves aspects of superiority—in particular racial, ethnic and communal superiority, thus identifying specific reasons behind their discrimination against the minority groups. Such reasons might include a possible bastardization, so to speak, of the racial purity of the majority (as was seen in Nazi Germany), or the intentional ‘mistaken’ attribution of the murder of Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi respectively, Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, at the hands of supposed Tutsi rebels, forming grounds of organizing mass attacks against the Tutsi—a conflict which arose fundamentally from resentments among the class warfare between the two ethnicities. Once the conditions within which both conflicting groups operate in reach breaking point, in terms of no possible alternatives present to better the situation, moral values and reason grow irrelevant as the situation escalates in terms of violence. Killings soon begin to take upon themselves highly systematic, organized and methodical natures rather than disorderly violence, oftentimes resulting in state-sponsored aggression. One example of this is in the war in Darfur, where the Sudanese government was seen to be tacitly supporting the Janjaweed, through provisions of financial assistance, and weapons to the militia, as well as organizing target attacks upon civilian populations. In fact, the presence of civilians, the proverbial bystanders in the situation, exacerbate the violent situations, given the fact that they mostly hesitate to act, so as to avoid becoming a next possible target. Another explanation for the vast degree to which such phenomena seem ingrained within human behaviors involves the social identity theory, introduced by Tajfel. The former examples stress largely on overt aggression; in terms of indirect aggression, however, this theory holds valid. It states that upon identifying ourselves as part of a group, our perceptions of others grow largely categorical and hence, one-dimensional in nature—thus, one is either ‘one of us’, or ‘one of them’, either in the group, or not in the group. This kind of social categorization forms the basis of ethnocentrism, racial prejudice, biases etc. Members of a group begin to share the same mannerisms, and identify socially with each other, speaking the same language, adopting the same mentality etc. In order to boost our own self-concept, in-group norms are viewed far more favorably, in an attempt to posit one’s self above out-group members. An example of this would be cultures which promote much solidarity among themselves based on racial, national, cultural and linguistic grounds, often at the cost of indirectly aggressing against ‘outsiders’, in the form of social exclusion etc., as is sometimes seen among the Europeans and Japanese. On a more minor basis, cliques, gangs, fraternities and sororities, religious groups, communities, military organizations, sports teams etc. all endorse such values, to different extents. Another, highly prevalent example of aggression arising through a sense of agentic internalization involves the high propensity towards which people are often drawn to cult movements. The word ‘cult’ often refers to unorthodox groups whose beliefs and practices border non-normative forms, and are often characterized by individuals who voluntarily embrace lives of regimentation, obedience and zealous ideology. The word holds a rather derogatory connotation and is often associated with mind control, brainwashing techniques, run by socially-inept, maladjusted people. While partially true—for cults do make use of several sophisticated social influence strategies (Baron, 2000), they are instead inhabited by a diverse array of normal, healthy, well-functioning people who do not necessarily sport strange clothes and live in communes, and instead aim to be ‘relatable’ to the wider population. Indeed, such similarity of dress, speech, manners and behaviors are often effectively put to use by skilled, intelligent, charismatic cult leaders to attract followers into believing that they are, ironically, not joining a cult, when reality claims otherwise. In fact, nearly 2 million young adults are said to be involved with cults in the United States alone (Robinson, Fry and Bradley, 1997.) There are several types of cults—those of religious, commercial, self-help and counseling, and political nature, all of which supposedly aim towards offering a haven to lonely, unstable, alienated outsiders (Richardson and Introvigne, 2001), but which in fact, have several far-reaching effects to a wide population. According to Zimbardo (1993), people join cults and groups so as to gain simple solutions to complex problems, to gain a kind of order and structure to what is otherwise a disillusioned and disorganized lifestyle, and a sense of meaning and purpose. Hunter (1998) speaks of how identity confusion, weak community ties and estrangement from societal bonds often make people particularly vulnerable to cult followings. On a more sinister note, and pertaining to how aggressive activities stem from such movements, the term ‘destructive cult’ has been used to identify unorthodox religions or other groups holding the likelihood of encouraging, justifying and even protecting acts of aggression within its own members, as well as non-members. While overt aggression is most definitely present (as has been seen in militant religious groups, which encourage acts of terrorism) other kinds of indirect aggression, such as emotional abuse, social exclusion and discrimination often stem from such cults, against others. According to Steven Hassan, a destructive cult is a ‘pyramid-shaped authoritarian regime with a person or group of people that have dictatorial control. It uses deception in recruiting new members; people are not told up front what the group is, what the group actually believes, and what will be expected of them if they become members.’ Examples of these are mostly of religious, therapeutic or political nature, and involve a high degree of manipulation and psychological exploitations of its recruits. Indeed, ‘destructive cultism’ is described by Shapiro as a sociopathic syndrome, involving changes in behavior and personality, loss of personal identity, estrangement from family, society, and community, and a marked allocation of resources towards an enslaved existence at the hands of cult leaders. In terms of overt aggression, the well-known September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City were blamed on the Al-Qaeda, a militant religious fundamentalist terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden, typifying the kind of destructive cults engaging in much aggression. In a study conducted between the personalities and subjective psychopathologies of destructive cult leaders, Olsson found that several of these individuals—Jim Jones, Shouko Asahara, David Koresh, Rajneesh, and bin Laden—all fit several criteria for what might describe Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the correlates with aggression for which are well-known. Indeed, Al-Qaeda—often compared to the Nazi Reich—is said to characterize a classic, destructive cult. Both involved indoctrinating its members, forming a totalitarian, close-minded society, headed by a self-appointed, charismatic, messianic leader who encouraged ends to justify means. In terms of indirect aggression, several examples of obscure, but pervasive religious cults fit appropriately. One example includes a Sacramento-based ministry, known as ‘Free Love Ministries’, which advocates a militant religious attitude, and views its initiates as warriors battling anti-Christian elements and the ‘demonic forces’ of several phenomena, ‘from homosexuality to karate to psychoanalysis to fairy tales.’ Its minister, Jim Green (who holds not a single degree of theological training) fills his monthly publication titled as ‘Battle Cry: Aggressive Christianity’, illustrated with knights, battlements, demons, and scenes of violence and carnage—a stark contrast to the messages of love, peace and harmony as advocated by the Bible. Green speaks casually of casting out ‘devils’ and seeing ‘a lot of miracles’, and that ‘real demons (are) walking the earth’. One of them is rock music, which is said to have ‘deadly effects’ on young people. Prayer sessions in their residence are of an unorthodox air, in which followers ‘stretch their arms to the ceiling, babble in tongues, moan and cry out.’ Green even encourages prayer and fasting to overcome the temptations of such Satanic forces; he and his wife, Lila, have been known to go for months without food, as have their young children. The gamut of their sustained, vicious attacks spread on to Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhists, Mormons, Christian Scientists, scientology, evolutionists, transcendental meditation, even the Roman Catholic Church, which is described as ‘Mother of Harlots and Abomination of the Earth.’ Even the books their children read have images of owls, unicorns and frogs obliterated as these are described as ‘satanic.’ The Abrahamic religions have often been accused of their aggression in controlling its members’ thoughts. Even simple, seemingly innocuous acts such as praying before a meal attribute the fundamentality of a physiological response such as hunger, to a tenet of the religion followed. Several of such sects also advocate much aggression of any activities of ‘outsiders’ who might harm it; in several countries with such highly ideological cults, it is appropriate for these powerful groups to figuratively trample over all others, while the same from its opponents will not be tolerated. Given, therefore, the complex interplay of cognitions, situations, and personal characteristics that regulate the eliciting of an aggressive response, the controversial topic of a possible prevention and control of aggression now arises. Several techniques have been put to use regarding the regulation of violent, hostile tendencies, and have been highly effective in reducing the frequency and intensity of human aggression. Some of these include punishment, or the delivery of aversive consequences, self-regulation, or the use of internal mechanisms for controlling aggression, and the inculcation of forgiveness, compassion and tolerance, for which the culture one operates within plays a major role. Punishment is one of the most widely used, and least understood methods of reinforcing, or reducing the likelihood of a behavior, when an individual engages in particular activities. The legal system itself is a system of rewards and punishments, with punishment being the individual being held accountable for his acts. Large fines, imprisonments, solitary confinements and physical, emotional and mental torment are some examples of the kind of punishment individuals have often to face, upon being held accountable for aggressive acts. Capital punishment itself too arose as a response to aggressive acts of high magnitude, such as mass murder. The ethical issues regarding such a matter are great, but it has been often speculated as to the efficacy of such methods for reinforcing the idea that engaging in aggressive acts will only lead to a downward spiral in terms of negative consequences for the individual himself. Such methods therefore, are said to arise due to an underlying belief within the society, that individuals engaging in such antisocial acts deserve to be punished, and should suffer amends for the harm they have caused to society. The Semitic culture advocated ‘An eye for an eye,’ in which the magnitude of a crime was to be met by an equal reaction, of the same proportions—killing a man would thus result in a loss of one’s own life. At the same time, however, extenuating circumstances too are often not taken into account, such as such acts precipitating from a motivation towards self-defence, or protecting another, weaker individual. Such methods also hold the vast degree of support they do due to supposed belief that they will deter future aspirants to the same deeds from actually engaging in such acts. In this line of thought, only strong punishments will deter strong aggression. Also, in cultures where public shame and humiliation are viewed as highly stigmatized phenomena, publicly degrading one for their crimes seems to be a supposedly effective way of mitigating the possibility of it occurring again. At the same time, however, statistics indicate that upon committing violent acts, individuals are likely to commit them once more; despite the seemingly fair intentions of the first view, merely removing incriminating individuals from public view so as to protect the ‘innocents’ seems to have more of an analgesic effect than anything. Punishment tends to suppress hostile behavior, not eradicate it. For effectiveness, punishment must be prompt, certain in terms of occurrence, equal to the level of the action committed, and perceived by both parties as justified and deserved. In the legal systems that operate in this day and age, with court cases stretching on for several years, the use of punishments seems to be highly ineffective—particularly in India, where the inequal distribution of wealth can cause one to take much advantage of the bureaucracy that reigns otherwise. Also, as seen in several court cases before, where power and prestige can lead to mitigation or lessening of the given ‘punishment’ due to influence and bribes, the possibility of necessary punishment being meted out is often highly uncertain. In other cases, the level of punishment exerted is unequal to the crime committed in the first place. In ancient China, where people functioned less as individuals and more on a group-based identity, an individual’s entire group (such as his family, business, or military unit) was held accountable for his crimes alone, and would all be sentenced to execution. Also, in several Middle Eastern countries, even young children must suffer losing an arm upon being caught stealing. In several of these cases, when such punishment is viewed as uncalled for and unjustified, individuals tend to view such actions as direct provocations against them (particularly within cultures of honor), and aggressive actions often result. Collectively, the threat of future punishment—given the highly idealistic view of the efficacy of such a method is often seen by—is found to be less effective in terms of reducing aggression. Given, however, the evolutionarily beneficial adaptation aggressive actions can often pose, the conflict between functioning harmoniously within society and individual competition for limited resources can pose a maladaptive, and often socially disruptive phenomenon. Self-regulating internal mechanisms (such as self-control) require a great deal of cognitive effort, and can often give way to fundamental aggressive responses due to the internal build-up of tension. In a study conducted by DeWall, Baumeister, Stillman and Gailliot (2007), participants within a highly provocative situation (in which they were meant to exercise self-control) were far more likely to give way to their aggressive tendencies, while those in a low provocative situation were more likely to exercise consideration for another’s feelings, even when receiving negative feedback. Aggression, being diffuse in nature, is often displaced due to the affective nature of our cognitions, and the depletion of cognitive resources within self-control led to an (indirect) outburst of aggression against a provocative stimulus. Using up cognitive resources thus led to an enhanced likelihood of people losing their temper, and aggressing. In a culture which encourages the outward expression of negative emotions (to a supposed cathartic effect), the suppression of emotions is found to not only have negative effects upon one’s health (as seen in Type-C personalities), but to also increase aggression, rather than mitigate it. At the same time, however, individuals with positive implicit attitudes towards their control of emotions are found to accomplish such tasks far easily (Mauss, Evers, Wilhelm and Gross, 2006.) Upon introducing the idea of regulating one’s emotions positively, individuals self-regulate their behaviors to avoid aggressive confrontations, such as engaging in prosocial cognitions. The more readily such thoughts are brought to mind, even when in provocative situations, the less likely people are to aggress (Meier, Robinson and Wilkowski, 2006.) In this vein, such behaviors can be inculcated through an exposure of individuals to others exhibiting such self-restraint in the face of provocative stimuli, and even cultural influences that might encourage such behaviors. Yogic techniques such as MBSR, or mindfulness-based stress-reduction therapy, teach its initiates to step back from situations and respond to them in ways independent of their present emotional and affective state, so that they do not react instantaneously, and thus negatively. This introduces the concept of inculcating values such as forgiveness, love, peace and compassion, as all religions encourage, and which deeply religious individuals advocate as their reasons for a comparatively higher level of contentment, involvement, and fulfillment within their lives. Old, ancestral values such as ‘an eye for an eye’ encourage vengeance-fueled motives, which only aggravate the tendency to engage in progressively more and more aggressive acts, even despite the temporary respite afforded. In this way, encouraging values such as forgiveness and ‘turning the other cheek’, seem to accomplish a great deal in terms of reducing subsequent aggression (McCullough, Bellah, Kilpatrick, and Johnson, 2001.) Recent findings indicate that to relinquish the desire for revenge might precede forgiveness and engaging in prosocial, rather than aggressive behaviors, towards another, in terms of relative ease of application. This has been found to benefit one’s psychological well-being as well, with studies corroborating the fact that the closer the relationships between people, the more important it is to cultivate an attitude of care, respect and responsibility towards them (Karremans, Van Lange, Ouwerkerk, and Kluwer, 2003.) One way of instilling such values involves an increased emphasis on empathy. Upon the relinquishing revenge, investing attention upon truly understanding the emotions, thoughts and circumstances that led to another’s behavior can help strengthen one’s own positive perceptions of themselves. Despite everything, aggression, even with its negative attributes, is no more than a mere illustration of our existence as humans. To forgive is thus a benchmark of divinity it would greatly benefit us, as humans, to aspire towards.