Page 273 - The Social Animal

Human Aggression 255

its goal or not, it is still aggression. Thus, if an angry acquaintance
throws a beer bottle at your head and you duck, so that the bottle
misses its mark, it is still an aggressive act. The important thing is
the intention. By the same token, if a drunk driver unintentionally
runs you down while you’re attempting to cross the street, it is not an
act of aggression, even though the damage is far greater than that
caused by the beer bottle that missed.
It is also useful to distinguish between hostile aggression and in-
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strumental aggression. Hostile aggression is an act of aggression
stemming from a feeling of anger and aimed at inflicting pain or in-
jury. In instrumental aggression there is an intention to hurt the
other person, but the hurting takes place as a means to some goal
other than causing pain. For example, in a professional football game,
a defensive lineman will usually do whatever it takes to thwart his
opponent (the blocker) and tackle the ball carrier. This typically in-
cludes intentionally inflicting pain on his opponent if doing so is use-
ful in helping him get the blocker out of the way so that he can get
to the ball carrier. This is instrumental aggression. On the other
hand, if he believes his opponent has been playing dirty, he might be-
come angry and go out of his way to hurt his opponent, even if doing
so does not increase his opportunity to tackle the ball carrier. This is
hostile aggression.

Is Aggression Instinctive?

Scientists, philosophers, and other serious thinkers are not in com-
plete agreement about whether aggression is an inborn, instinctive
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phenomenon or whether such behavior must be learned. This con-
troversy is not new; it has been raging for centuries. For example,
Thomas Hobbes, in his classic work Leviathan (first published in
1651), took the view that we human beings, in our natural state, are
brutes and that only by enforcing the law and order of society can we
curb what to Hobbes was a natural instinct toward aggression. On
the other hand, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage
(a theory he developed in 1762) suggested that we human beings, in
our natural state, are gentle creatures and that it is a restrictive soci-
ety that forces us to become hostile and aggressive. 4
Hobbes’s more pessimistic view was elaborated in the 20th cen-
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tury by Sigmund Freud, who theorized that human beings are born
with an instinct toward life, which he called Eros, and an equally