Page 272 - The Social Animal

254 The Social Animal

horrifying as these events are, mass killings of this kind are certainly
not peculiar to the present era. Many years ago, a friend showed me
a very thin book—only 10 or 15 pages long—that purported to be a
capsule history of the world. It was a chronological list of the impor-
tant events in recorded history. Can you guess how it read? Of
course—one war after another, interrupted every now and then by a
few nonviolent events, such as the birth of Jesus and the invention of
the printing press. What kind of species are we if the most impor-
tant events in the brief history of humankind are situations in which
people kill one another en masse?
Moreover, we Americans display a chilling acceptance of vio-
lence that at times seems utterly absurd and mindless. Let me give
you one rather poignant example. In 1986, U.S. warplanes bombed
Libya in retaliation for an upsurge in that country’s acts of terrorism.
When our citizens were later asked whether they approved of this
military action, a whopping 71 percent responded “yes,” even though
only 31 percent believed the raid would actually be effective in curb-
1
ing future terrorism. What else can we conclude but that a substan-
tial number of U.S. citizens find acts of pure vengeance an acceptable
part of U.S. foreign policy?
On a broader scale, we humans have shown ourselves to be a par-
ticularly aggressive species. No other vertebrates so consistently and
wantonly kill and torture members of their own kind. This prompts
me to raise the following questions: Is aggression inborn—is it part
of our very nature as human beings? Can it be modified? What are
the social and situational factors that increase or decrease aggression?

Aggression Defined

Social psychologists define aggressive action as intentional behavior
aimed at causing either physical or psychological pain. It is not to be
confused with assertiveness—even though most people often loosely
refer to others as “aggressive” if they stand up for their rights, write
letters to the editor complaining about real or imagined injustices,
work extra hard, display a great deal of ambition, or are real go-get-
ters. Similarly, in a sexist society, a woman who simply speaks her
mind or makes the first move by inviting a male acquaintance to din-
ner might be called aggressive by some. My definition is clear: Ag-
gression is an intentional action aimed at doing harm or causing
pain. The action might be physical or verbal. Whether it succeeds in