Aggression in Human Beings
Aggression in Human Beings
Aggression is something that all animals have. There are many different levels of aggression and people, as well as other animals, act on their feelings of aggression in many different ways. Aggression comes in many forms including physical violence, sexual abuse, yelling and mental abuse. There are many factors that contribute to the amount of aggressiveness that people have and the ways that they act on them. Males generally have more aggression than women and act out with aggressive behaviors more often. Aggression and anger can be controlled and treated in several different ways. Aggression can not be completely destroyed, as it is a basic animal instinct.
Everyone human on earth has aggression already in his or her biology. Some people have more than others do and some act on theirs more, but everyone has it. Studies have shown that males generally tend to have more aggression than woman. This has been shown through studies done about the link between testosterone and aggressive behavior. In a study done of 4,462 men showed that higher testosterone levels showed increases in delinquency in adolescence and substance abuse. It also showed that as children they often had trouble with teachers and later in life had more sexual partners and used hard drugs. The study also revealed that among inmates the ones with higher testosterone levels committed violent crimes, more likely to be rejected for release by the parole board, and had more prison rule violations(Dabbs Jr., 1995).
There are two other biological factors that may play a role in the prevalence of aggressive behavior. One of these is a brain chemical called seratonin. Seratonin sometimes acts as a behavioral inhibitor. People that have a lower level of seratonin often show increased levels of impulsivity and aggressiveness. They are not as self conscious about their behaviors so they act on pure instinct more than others. Two other chemicals in the brain, dopamine and norepinephrine, are also believed to contribute to aggressive behavior (Retzinger, 1991).
Another cause of aggressive behavior is believed to come in early childhood. If a child is abused or sees abuse occur, they are more likely to be abusive in their adulthood. Not only does it cause the child to become abusive later in life, abuse has an adverse affect on them immediately. They are often very fearful, have nightmares, feel powerless, have poor school performance, are more...