AGGRESSION: CAUSES, THEORIES, TYPES, DISORDERS - PSYCHOLOGY - 2024

The aggressiveness is the desire or tendency to act violently, so that physical or mental harm is caused to another person. When an individual is aggressive, he may decide to attack others even when there is no provocation or reasonable motive for it. These attacks can be both direct and covert, depending on the situation and the personality of the aggressor.

There are many different theories that try to explain individual differences in aggressiveness. While some people tend to act violently very easily, others rarely do so, even in the face of serious provocation. However, there is still no consensus regarding the causes of these differences.

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Attacks carried out by aggressive people can be both direct and indirect. The former have to do with physical and verbal aggressions that try to harm the other individual. Indirect ones, on the contrary, are characterized by the intention to harm the social relations of a subject or group.

Aggression is an inherent trait of the human species, but its expression varies greatly depending on the culture, education, and experiences of each individual. In addition, the purpose of the aggressions can also vary, distinguishing in this sense between those that are carried out to achieve a goal, and those that are carried out in response to an emotional impulse.

Causes

Aggression is a common trait in many species of animals, both among the simplest and in the case of the most complex, such as mammals. In this sense, the vast majority of experts agree that the tendency to act violently is present in us innately.

However, despite the fact that aggressiveness is probably one of our most basic instincts, it cannot be denied that there are large individual differences in the levels of violence displayed by different people. Furthermore, the ways in which aggressiveness is expressed can also be very different.

Therefore, the official consensus today is to consider aggressiveness as a complex phenomenon, which is caused by a multitude of causes that interact with each other. Here we will see some of the most important.

Temperament and personality

One of the factors that seems to most influence individual differences in aggressiveness is simply temperament; that is, to the personality tendencies that each subject shows from the moment of their birth. Thus, studies show that some children tend to be more aggressive and dominant from the first hours of life.

Over the years, the innate temperament modulates according to life experiences and epigenetics. In this way the personality arises, much more complex. However, here too marked differences can be found in terms of aggressiveness, without exactly knowing the causes for it.

On the other hand, there are some personality traits that are not directly related to aggressiveness, but that seem to enhance its appearance. Some of them are narcissism, low emotional control, need for attention, and neuroticism.

Presence of inappropriate models

Despite the fact that aggressiveness is present in our lives from the moment we are born, today we also know that our tendency to resort to it to solve problems depends to a large extent on the learnings we have made throughout life.

Thus, for example, children who live in families in which the use of violence is widespread will tend to be more aggressive than their peers from more peaceful environments. The same occurs with those people who have suffered continuous harassment, abuse or aggression.

Aggression can also be enhanced even if the models are not real people from the individual's environment. For example, it has been discovered that the normalization of violence through movies and series can increase the frequency with which an individual uses it to face different situations in their life.

Lack of alternative resources

When studies have been carried out on instrumental violence (that which is applied to achieve a certain result), one of the most surprising findings is that those who use it generally show a lower level of social skills and emotional intelligence than those who do not resort to it.

Thus, many times, the inability to deal with a problem constructively leads individuals to become more aggressive, because it is the only way in which they know how to act. This can be aggravated in cases where the person has some type of psychological problem, such as an autism spectrum disorder or ADHD.

Troubled attachment relationships

We have already seen that families are one of the main role models for children, who can learn from their parents and other loved ones to use violence to get what they want. However, direct imitation is not the only way that reference figures can increase a person's aggressiveness.

Research on attachment (the relationship that individuals establish with the most important people in their lives) showed that those who felt abandoned or did not have enough support tended to react more aggressively to all kinds of situations.

Thus, children who come from problem families, people with very serious relationship problems, or those who have not received all the affection they need usually have much higher levels of aggressiveness than those who have not suffered these situations.

Theories of aggressiveness

Because aggression is a complex problem and has only recently begun to be studied, there is still no consensus on why it exists.

However, there are some quite accepted theories within the scientific community that try to explain this phenomenon. Next we will see three of the most important.

Instinctive aggression theory

The theory of instinctive aggression was first proposed by Sigmund Freud. According to this famous psychoanalyst, aggressiveness arises as a consequence of blocking the basic vital instincts, what he called "Eros." Thus, at first it was considered that violence was neither inevitable nor innate, but came from poor emotional management.

However, later on, psychoanalytic theories continued to develop; and Freud ended up developing the concept of "Tánathos," or death. This series of impulses would be contrary to those of life, and among them the most important would be that of aggressiveness.

From this point on, Freud argued that all human behaviors arise from the clash between Eros and Tánathos. Aggression, therefore, would be inevitable according to this theory; But for psychoanalysts, there are some ways of working with this instinctual drive that do not necessarily involve violence.

In this sense, Freud spoke of some mechanisms such as sublimation or displacement, which can be used to transform innate aggressiveness into constructive or beneficial behaviors for other people.

Frustration aggression hypothesis

Another of the most widely accepted hypotheses about the nature of aggressiveness argues that this tendency does not have to be innate, but is related to frustration. Thus, when a person is unable to achieve their goals, suffers a setback in their self-esteem or is unable to satisfy their desires, they can end up resorting to aggression.

According to this theory, a large part of the differences that exist in terms of the levels of aggressiveness shown by different people are due to what are the situations or elements that cause frustration to each one. Depending on the previous learning, the personality and the models that have been had, each individual will feel more or less frustrated at a certain moment.

But what good would aggressiveness be in this context? The frustration-aggression hypothesis explains that the use of direct or indirect violence against the object or person that caused the frustration would serve to reduce the intensity of the desire that has not been achieved.

In this way, aggressiveness would be a way to reduce frustration without having to change external circumstances, which in many cases are uncontrollable.

However, we also know that not all people who feel frustrated decide to resort to violence, and not all aggressions are due to frustration, so this theory cannot explain by itself the existence of this phenomenon.

Social learning theory

One of the most accepted theories today about aggressiveness is the one that defends that this reaction arises to a large extent when observing a reference model making use of violent behaviors. Children, from their first years of life, would begin to observe their parents and other adults to try to figure out what is right to do and what is not.

In this way, someone who lived their childhood in a home where violence was in common use would tend to engage in aggressive behaviors more frequently and easily than a person from a more peaceful environment.

However, according to social learning theory, parents are not the only people who can make a child learn to use violence regularly to get what he wants or to express his frustration. Also other figures of reference, such as teachers, can serve as models; and the observation of aggressiveness in the media also makes its appearance more likely.

Thus, according to the theory of social learning, the entire environment in which a person moves throughout his life works together to make it more or less likely that he uses violence or shows aggressive behaviors in different situations.

Types of aggressiveness

Not all forms of aggression are the same. Although, as we have already seen, there are many theories about this phenomenon, most of them agree on distinguishing between two main types: instrumental aggressiveness, and emotional aggressiveness.

On the one hand, emotional aggressiveness would imply all those acts of direct or indirect violence that are carried out to achieve a specific objective. It would be a more rational form of aggressiveness, with a conscious purpose, and often more controlled. Its use is often correlated with certain personality traits such as Machiavellianism and psychoticism.

For example, a person would be using instrumental aggressiveness if he decides to yell at a store employee to get a discount on the price of the product he wants to buy; or if he threatens a teacher to try to raise his exam grade.

The other type, emotional aggressiveness, differs in many ways from this first. Contrary to what happens with the instrumental, it usually occurs due to an altered sentimental state, such as the presence of frustration, sadness or anger. In addition, it is not usually so controlled, and it does not have a specific purpose beyond releasing the emotions that the person is feeling.

For example, a man who yells at his wife when he gets home because he has had a bad day at work would be using emotional aggression.

Aggression disorders

On some occasions, the presence of aggression may be due to the existence of an underlying psychological disorder. When this occurs, outbreaks of violence tend to be much more frequent and more intense, although in certain cases the difference is very subtle and can only be detected by an expert.

There are many mental disorders that can be indirectly related to aggressiveness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or some anxiety conditions. However, certain syndromes are directly related to the tendency to act violently.

Among these, the most common are oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. In both cases, the affected person will carry out acts penalized by society, such as attacking other individuals, stealing or mistreating animals; And it will do it repeatedly and increasingly intense.

In the event that a person suffers from one of these two disorders (which are especially common in children), it is essential to apply specialized psychological treatment to try to solve it as soon as possible.

Other disorders related to aggression include antisocial personality disorder and intermittent explosive disorder.

References

1. "The roots of human aggression" in: Scientific American. Retrieved on: October 07, 2019 from Scientific American: scientificamerican.com.
2. "Top 3 Theories of Aggression" in: Psychology Discussion. Retrieved on: October 07, 2019 from Psychology Discussion: psychologydiscussion.net.
3. "Causes of Aggression: A Psychological Perspective" in: OwlCation. Retrieved on: October 07, 2019 from OwlCation: owlcation.com.
4. "Aggressive behavior disorders" in: Healthy Children. Retrieved on: October 07, 2019 from Healthy Children: healthychildren.org.
5. "Aggression" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: October 07, 2019 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.