This essay shall explore how "a number of important biological, learning, emotional and environmental factors combine in various ways to produce aggression in various situations." (Bernstein et al., 2003). Aggression is commonly defined as physical or verbal behaviour intended to physically or psychologically hurt someone. Psychologists through the ages have been baffled by the various factors which contribute to aggression. Psychologists such as Sigmund Freud believed that aggression is a natural impulse that every human being possesses and that in time of pent-up emotion a kind of self destruct mechanism releases these emotions in the form of aggressive behaviour. Charles Darwin agued that aggression like so many other forms of behaviour is associated with the instinctual drive for survival. Konrad Lorenz, a psychologist who studied animal behaviour, saw aggression as adaptive rather than self-destructive, but agreed with Darwin in saying that aggression is instinctual. Many psychologists have different views on aggression but it is true however, that the factors that contribute to aggression are those of biological, learning, emotional and environmental.
Statue of Sigmund Freud in London, with the Tavist...
Aggression
Third Tunnel of Aggression"In all of nature, there is nothing so threatening to humanity as humanity itself." (Thomas, Lewis, 1981). Human aggression dates back to our primate ancestors. There is nothing new about aggression. "The Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible bludgeoned his own son to death and destroyed the second largest city in his empire, Novgorod in the sixteenth century. In the 1970s, 4 million Cambodians were killed by their fellow Cambodians." (Santrock J. W., 2003). These are just two of many examples of how "there is nothing more threatening to humanity as humanity itself" (Thomas, Lewis, 1981). Examples such as this illustrate that aggression has existed back through the ages. Humans through the ages have committed acts of aggression towards others of their own kind. Freud believed that aggression is...