https://youtu.be/RBK5KLA5Jjg?list=PLPNW_gerXa4Pc8S2qoUQc5e8Ir97RLuVW

Goals

• Different types of aggressions: reactive (being aggressive because one feels threatened or those one loves feels threatened) vs proactive (deliberately trying to harm others) vs indirect (not directly involving physical violence, e.g. shaming people).

• Different biological mechanisms underlying different types of aggression (hormones, peptides, neurotransmitters involved).

• Tools (psychological and biological) to better control aggression. To be able to engage with people in a more adaptive way.

• Any discussion of aggression must involve context. People spend an enormous amount of money, time and energy watching other people engage in aggressive sports and watching one’s team winning over the other team causes the release of neurochemicals in the body that make us feel good as well as more aggressive. Most governments invest billions of dollars in infra, tech and humans to engage in aggression if needed (military welfare).

• Discussion on aggression in a pathological sense (explosive aggression disorder - not much heard of but very common), relationship between ADHD and aggression (through the relationship between impulsivity and aggression), verbal, physical, proactive and reactive aggression.

• Many people are put off by aggression whereas others are drawn to it (both in themselves and in others).

• The context of aggression really matters.

  • In some cases, the aggression is adaptive. E.g. in the case of a mother protecting a child if it is being threatened, the maternal aggression in this context is a great thing. Protecting our young is one of the adaptive drives of our species.
  • Unprovoked, proactive aggression: Someone being aggressive to someone else even when unprovoked. Most of us cringe when we see that and seeing it can even evoke aggression.

• By understanding the biology and psychology of aggression, we’ll be in a much better place to understand how all emotional states come to be, both in ourselves and in others.

  • From pop psychology: Aggression is just sadness and sadness shows up as aggression.
  • Research: Nothing seems further from the truth as we have distinct circuits in the brain for aggression vs grief and mourning, non-overlapping. You could still be sad and aggressive but the fact that they are the same thing is not true.
  • By understanding this idea and the fact that irritability and aggression are not the same thing, we’ll be in a much better place to apply the tools mentioned in the episode to reduce, eliminate and modulate aggression.

People

Konrad Lorenz

• Studied imprinting behaviours and fixed action pattern behaviours.
• Most famous for getting geese to believe he was their parent.
• Received a nobel prize. Discovered fixed action patterns - patterns of behaviour that could be evoked by a single stimulus [e.g. swimming behind a parent, looking to somebody for comfort and only them] - the idea that you can get different behaviours in different contexts triggered just by the presence of (say) a person.

Walter Hess