Understanding Anger

Is It the Nature of the Organism?

Freud came to believe in a death or aggressive instinct because he saw so much violence, sadism, war, and suicide. Others believe that species, both animal and human, survived by having an aggressive instinct which protected their territory and young, and insured only the strongest individuals survived.

The sociobiologists, noting the frequency we go to war, also suggest that we have inherited an aggressive nature, a tendency to lash out at anything that gets in our way, a need to dominate and control.

Aggression may also have a chemical, hormonal, or genetic basis too.

There is so much we do not know yet. In all of these possibilities--instinct, heredity, hormones, or brain dysfunction--the aggression occurs without apparent provocation from the environment (although there is almost always a "target"). According to some of these theories, the need or urge to be aggressive is boiling within each of us and seeks opportunities to express itself.

There is also clear evidence that alcohol consumption and hotter temperatures release aggression, but no one thinks there is something in alcohol or heat that generates meanness. The socialization process, that is, becoming a mature person, involves taming these destructive, savage, self-serving urges that probably helped us humans survive one million years ago but threatens our survival today.