An Examination of Innate Aggression within Human Nature
by Carlos Morales
The study of aggression as an aspect of human nature is complex; even though hunter-gatherers are now seen as “noble-savages” who were corrupted by social institutions which led to war, and media images of Guantanamo Bay and Darfur suggest that the human race is in demise and more violent than ever, violent acts globally have went down (deMause, 2009). Although one-hundred million people suffered war related deaths in the 20th century, by percentage over two billion people would have had to been killed in order to match up with the homicide rate of 10,000 years ago (Pinker, 2009) ). The majority of human culture began 100,000 years ago—about 5,000 generations—which is too short of time span for such large rates of aggression to change, therefore epigenetic evolution of the psyche—the change of architecture of the brain occurring during development in the womb and during early childhood—is most likely the source of change in aggression, rather than a change in genetic evolution (deMause 2002).
The view of human nature as innately violently has existed before psychology’s inception. In his book Leviathan, Hobbes stated that man’s life and nature is one that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes, 1651). Freud suggested that human beings have an "instinct for hatred and aggression" (Freud, 1964) and biologist Michael P. Ghiglieri stated in his book The Dark Side of Man that war and aggression is part of a “macho male sexual selection" that "accelerates cultural evolution" (Ghiglieri, 1979). These theories describe an instinct for war without neurological or genetic evidence; they assume instead that "the group's desire for war is caused by the individual's innate desire for war" (Ghilglieri, 1979) is axiomatic. The majority of time in a westernized society is not spent committing violence: on the contrary, modern individuals commit voluntaristic actions to meet most of their needs. As an example, in most westernized country, exchanges of goods are no longer done through the inflicting of violence unto another in order to gain resources; rather currency is exchanged between parties. According to psycho-historian Lloyd deMause, un-critical thinking leads to the assumption that human nature is violent because we use aggression. This same tautological reasoning though, would lead to the conclusion that humans are inherently peaceful, due to the lack of aggression in the majority of their lives (deMause, 2009). Neither of these are valid without data though, so the cause of aggression among humans must be examined from historic, biological, and psychiatric context using mixed methods—including surveys, secondary analysis, interviews, and content analysis—while also examining the trauma model (mental disorder as a result of early developmental issues) and its place in the psychological understanding of “human nature”.
Psychiatric studies, such as the Adverse Childhood Experience study (ACE), have demonstrated a causal correlation between childhood trauma and a host of medical issues (Vincent J. Felitti, 1998). These include sexual development issues, increased rate of STD’s, substance abuse, smoking, drug abuse (both legal and illegal), depression, physical inactivity, alcoholism, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, heart disease, and multiple types of cancer. Childhood trauma victims are also more likely to abuse their children/parents/siblings/spouses, and become aggressive in disputes (Vincent J. Felitti, 1998). The ACE study—which was a quantitative research study with surveys—set to find the relationship of unhealthy behavior and disease in adulthood with childhood exposure to physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse, as well as household dysfunction. The study was approved by Institutional Review Boards of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group (Kaiser Permanente), the Emory University School of Medicine, and the Office of Protection from Research Risks, National Institutes of Health. 26,000 adults were invited to the research, and 13,494 adults participated in the questionnaire. All 13,494 of the respondents who completed the standardized medical evaluations at the Health Appraisal Clinic between August–November of 1995 and January–March of 1996 were eligible to participate in the ACE Study. In addition to the questionnaire the respondents were requested to give demographic and biopsychosocial information, a review of organ systems, a list of past medical diagnoses, and a thorough family history of past medical history. The researcher’s also obtained information from the health care providers of the respondent’s medical history, and a physical examination was performed with a full review of laboratory tests on the patient. Most patients were middle class with an average age of 57. Eighty percent of the respondents were white, ten percent were black, and the other ten percent were Asian. Seventy four percent had attended college, and forty four percent graduated college. The sex of the respondents was split fifty/fifty.
. The creators of the study categorized seven different forms of adverse childhood experiences: psychological, physical/sexual abuse, witnessing violence against their mothers, living with household members who were substance abusers, mentally ill or suicidal, or and if they had ever been imprisoned. The number of these adverse childhood experiences was then compared to measure an adult’s risk of certain behaviors, their health status, and disease. For example, if an individual had been beaten and molested as a child, but hadn’t had any of the other forms of abuse, then that individual would have an ACE score of 2. They found a graded relationship between the number of ACE incidences and a number of adult health risk behavior and diseases that were studied. Thirty-three percent of the respondents had an ACE score of zero, twenty-six percent had an ACE score of one, sixteen percent had an ACE score of two, ten percent scored three, and sixteen scored four or more.
Those who had experienced four or more of the categories of childhood exposure, with a comparison to those who score zero on the ACE, had a four to twelve increase of alcoholism, depression, suicide attempts, drug abuse; a two to four fold increase in smoking tobacco and having over fifty sexual intercourse partners, and much higher prevalence for sexually transmitted diseases. There was also a graded relationship between ACE scores and chances of cancer, lung diseases, skeletal fractures (including an immature brain development in the frontal lobe), and liver disease. Also, exposure to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), physical abuse, and/or sexual abuse as a child resulted in men being 3.8 times more likely to perpetrate violence against a significant other in their life time. Adults who reported being abused as children were more likely to report using violence, committing theft, and being arrested. Consistently, the more ACE’s one has, the higher the chance of developing one of these diseases/behaviors. (Vincent J. Felitti, 1998).
Recent studies on the neuro-biology of abused children, like those done by Doctor Bruce D. Perry, have shown a correlation between a lack of brain development and traumatic events that occurred during childhood (Perry, 2000). In Dr. Perry’s neurobiological studies on children, he found that when children were threatened, a host of different physiological changes would occur within the neurological system. In cases where threats continued, a “user-dependent” change occurred within the area of the brain that responds to stress. One of these alterations occurs within the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. In studies done on animal models, the constant activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis degrades different areas of the body, including the hippocampus—which is responsible for cognitive abilities, long-term memory, spatial awareness, and is located in the limbic system; this also occurs within abused children.
Two other systems that become sensitized by constant stressful experiences are the dopaminergic and noradrenergic neurochemical systems. As a result of these neurochemical systems being augmented by stressful experiences, there can be changes in impulse control, sleep issues (including insomnia and narcolepsy), loss of ability in fine motor control, and issues in multiple functions mediated by the catecholamine. The catecholamines, also known as the fight or flight hormones, mediate different motor function, emotions, and cognitive thinking, and an increase in sensitization of the catecholamines by constant trauma can lead to the degradation and malfunction in many of these functions. According to Dr. Perry, there is a use-dependent change within the brain’s catecholamine systems following traumatic experiences in a child. 
Adapted from “Traumatized children: How childhood trauma influences brain development,” by B. Perry, 2000, Journal of the California Alliance for the Mentally Ill , pg. 48. Copywrited 2000 by the W.W. Norton & Company.
The orbito-frontal cortex (located in the area of the brain right behind the eyes) is responsible for merging emotional responses started in the limbic system, while higher reasoning, such as language and planning, are accomplished in the cerebral cortex’s prefrontal lobex. All of these parts must work together to form a healthy human being. Abused children have smaller corpus collosums and poorly integrated cerebral hemispheres in comparison to non-abused children. A poor integration of hemispheres along with a lack of development in the orbito-frontal cortex causes a lack of cause-effect thinking, inability to accurately recognize others emotions, an inability to understand one’s own emotions or have a coherent sense of self, and a lack of “conscience” which leads to sociopathic tendencies (Perry, 2000)..
Adapted from “Traumatized children: How childhood trauma influences brain development,” by B. Perry, 2000, Journal of the California Alliance for the Mentally Ill , pg. 51. Copyright 2000 by the W.W. Norton & Company.
Another study that tested the effects of corporal punishment on children was done by Doctor Murray Straus. His longitudinal study of two age groups revealed a greater probability of post-traumatic stress syndromes, as well as a lower IQ in individuals who have been spanked. Globally, countries where spanking occurs more often correlate with lower IQ rates.
Adapted from “Development of children’s cognitive ability: A longitudinal study of two nationally representative age cohorts”, by M. Straus, 2000, The Journal of aggression maltreatment and trauma, 172. Copyright 2009 by the Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Adapted from “Development of children’s cognitive ability: A longitudinal study of two nationally representative age cohorts”, by M. Straus, 2000, The Journal of aggression maltreatment and trauma, 172. Copyright 2009 by the Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
The correlation between a society’s use of coercion and its child care tactics lends itself to further research. For this correlation to be consistent, the violence in child rearing should have a positive relationship with violence in society. Lloyd deMause, in his book The Origins of War in Child Abuse, separated childrearing in Europe into six divisions: Tribal, Antiquity, Early Christian, The Middle Ages, Renaissance, Modern, and Post-Modern (deMause, 2009).
The Tribalism era experienced a large amount of infanticide, incest, and tight swaddling (wrapping a baby tightly in a cast that restricts their movement, causing mental and physical trauma and occasionally death of asphyxiation), abandonment, rape and habitual beatings. Within the Antiquity period there was increase in child sacrifice towards an altar (due to the acceptance and spread of organized religion), genital mutilation, torture as a form of mental/physical hardening, pederasty and/or rape of the young. During the Early Christian period, although pederasty was frowned upon, foundling still occurred, as well as children being abandoned in front of monasteries, masochistic tight swaddling, and beatings/torture for discipline. In the Middle Ages, infanticide was now seen as cruel, so education began to expand and rape became illegal. The Renaissance period proved to be a major step forward; incidents of infanticide went down, girls were educated, children had bed’s separate from their parents, and swaddling decreased (outside of Germany, which continued swaddling until the early 1900’s). The Modern era brought about “light spanking” rather than sadistic beatings to socialize, children were enjoyed rather than feared, and fathers began parenting. Today in the Post-modern era, parents are more likely to explain rather than punish children to reach common goals. A basic decline of human violence occurred throughout these eras (deMause, 2009).
Note. Percentage represents causes of death in death in Europe. Adapted from “The Psychology and Neurobiology of Violence”, by deMause, L., 2009, The Origins of War in Child Abuse, chpt. 3. Copyright 2009 by the Institute for Psychohistory.
Not every culture underwent this cultural change in regards to child rearing. New Guinea is an example of this, and the correlation between aggression as a result of child abuse is very apparent. The rates of infanticide within New Guinea are very high; the first missionaries to New Guinea estimated that two-thirds of the children were murdered by their own parents (deMause 2002). Margaret Mead, in Letters from the Field, stated that “they are always throwing away infants here”, even though the tribe had the resources to take care of their children (Mead, 2001). Mothers describe their children as being “too much trouble” and were “demon children” (deMause, 2002). Differential infanticide (the killing of daughters more often than sons) was a result of mothers worrying that the “husband would go to another woman” while the mother was at home taking care of their child (deMause, 2002). It wasn’t just simple infanticide though; mothers also ate their babies due to them being overcome with a need for “baby meat” (Langness, 1981). None of this infanticide was hidden from the children who were lucky enough to be spared; these children were exposed to the killing, eating, and raping of their siblings on a constant basis (deMause 2002). After being exposed to these events, children “suddenly avoided their parents, shrieked in their presence, or expressed unusual fear of them…recounting dreams about animal-man beings with the faces of parents smeared with blood” (Poole, 1983).
Infanticide and violence towards the children is just one aspect of the child rearing practices of many New Guinea tribes. Mothers of the children repeatedly masturbated their young boys, and fondle, scratch, tear or pull on the penises of their children if they misbehaved (Langness, 1981). Father’s routinely rape their sons—masturbating and sucking on their genitals, as well as anal insertion of the penis. The mothers fondled and molested their daughters as well (Langness,1981).
These tribal childrearing practices in New Guinea led to violently and sexually traumatized children (deMause 2002). Older children in the tribes often gang rape the youngest kids, some of them as young as three. Children are taught that domination is the ultimate virtue; the sons are encouraged to exchange sexual and physical insults to each other, and then violently fight in order to please the parents and general public (Langness, 1981).
Homicide rates in these New Guinea tribes are presently anywhere from sixty to a hundred times higher than homicide rates in the United States (Knauft, 1988). With adults who make it past the age of ten, homicide accounts for more than thirty-five percent of male deaths, and twenty-nine percent for women. Though the Marxist view of tribal warfare as a result of a fight over “scare resources” is commonly held, the majority of these wars were more emotionally based Many of the tribal leaders feeling that they were being insulted by the other tribes, or believing that the other tribe was filled with “unholy demons” (Ghilglieri, 1979). In a mixed methods study of the Gebusi tribe of Papua New Guinea, over sixty percent of the men admitted to committing homicide because they believed their “enemy” was a “sorcerer” (Knauft, 1988). This same form of “sorcerer” superstition was also projected unto the women of the society, with many of the women hung to death, beaten, and lit on fire for being “sorcerers”; many of the tribes believed that women are beings “who can kill simply by staring at a person” (Knauft, 1988).
Tribes which had less violent forms of child rearing had had extensive raids occurring once every two years. New Guinea tribes, on the other hand, had raids dozens of times a year. They practiced “headhunting”, where the most coveted trophy is the skull of an enemy in order to get its power (deMause, 2002). They also regularly practice cannibalism against their enemies to gain their power, and in the case of the Hua tribe, they would also eat the wives and children of their enemies (Knauft, 1988).
The violent practices of the New Guinea people didn’t only culminate into violence against one another, but also distrust in each other (Ghilglieri, 1979). In the book The Emotional Life of Nations, author Lloyd deMause states that, though there is a notion that many of these tribes were “egalitarian”, this was just a result of lack of trust between family members, “friends”, and other members of the group. He argues that the root of this distrust is due to insecure child attachments; projecting the actions of their parents onto society and its inhabitants as a whole. Because individuals see their mothers as a threat, men cannot form attachments with others as their peacekeeping representatives, except in symbolic rituals in which the men cut their veins and rub the blood unto each other to form “blood brotherhoods”. Leaders, or those who tried to become leaders, were executed constantly for disturbing an individual’s sense of domination. Ownership was also seen with much disfavor and skepticism, those who acquired more than enough to live were expected to destroy their surplus as a form of sacrifice, which prevented any investment in a future economic system (deMause, 2009).
One example of a westernized country that was slow to evolve in its childrearing practices was late nineteenth century Germany and Austria (deMause, 2009). Citizens treated their children as a “bowel movement” and were not yet human, so infanticide was not frowned upon in the same way as other westernized cultures of the same time (deMause, 2002). Infanticide was more than twice as high in Germany than England and France(Allen, 1991). Children in Bavarian countries were exposed to dead infants in sewers, on roads, and fields where they would “play” (Ende, 1980). There was a common practice of hiring wet-nurses—called “Engelmcherin” in German (angelmakers)—who would kill the child so the parent wouldn’t have to(Allen, 1991). During the first year of a child’s life physical movement rarely occurred. As Henry Mayhew, an author at the time, stated in German Life and Manners as Seen in Saxony at the Present Day “the wretched new-born little thing was wound up in ells of bandages, from the feet right, and tight, up to the neck; as if it were intended to be embalmed as a mummy…babies are loathsome, foetid things, offensive to the last degree” (Mayhew, 1864). The babies were tight swadled for days at a time, stuck in a cast while covered in feces, lice, and urine; the mothers would often take the swadled baby and hang them up on a tree while they would perform their chores. Psychohistorian (a branch of study that researches the psychological motivation behind historical events) Aurel Ende remarked that the notion of the pure race was integral to the German culture, not only the physical Aryan characteristics, but also a race of complete obedient and disciplined sheep men who were willing to kill for the “Mutterland”(motherland) (Ende, 1980): as Hitler put it “if a million children a year are born in Germany and 700-800,000 of the weakest are eliminated the end result might be an increase in strength” (deMause, 2002).
In propaganda against Jewish immigrants, the same terms and rationalizations to commit infanticide and torture of children was used to justify the deportation and eventual murder of Jewish immigrants (Ende, 1980). According to psychologist and noted Jewish historian Alice Miller “(Germans) were incapable of emotion in the face of misfortune, such feelings were alien to them. Their total emotional atrophy enabled the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes imaginable to function "normally" and to continue to impress their environment with their efficiency in the years after the war without the slightest remorse. Dr. Mengele could perform the most cruel experiments on Jewish children in Auschwitz and then live for 30 years like a "normal," well--adjusted man” (Miller, 1998).
In cases where former female guards at concentration camps—who were notorious for being just as violent and sadistic as their male counterparts—were investigated post-world war II, it was found that most of these women were former sales persons, maids, and had normal jobs with nothing unusual in their backgrounds. In the court cases though, these women unanimously conceded they were unaware that Jewish children were human beings (Miller, 1998). It was the child rearing practices, according to Miller, that caused this dissociation and cognitive dissonance to occur and allow them to rationalize such behavior (Miller, 1998).
Over the last 40 years though, violent child practices in Germany have dramatically declined (deMause, 2002). In part due to educational and legal reform, parenting practices in Germany are less corporal based than the United States. The disdain for child abuse within Germany led to a law against corporal punishment in child rearing passed in 2001, making it the twelfth country to pass a law against all forms of corporal punishment (Bussman, 2004).
Due to the relatively short amount of time in between the change in violent acts and overall violence used by society—as a society we are less violent than ever-- the production of variation and decline in these behaviors must be through psychogenesis rather than changes/mutations in DNA prior to inception (deMause, 2009). Aggression has declined, along with a rise in intelligence, among groups as child-rearing has gotten better, and done so quicker than mutations in DNA could have caused. The view of violence as being genetic (Rutigliano, 2008) ignores the impact on neural development from childhood trauma. Brain development changes depending on the trauma and experiences during early childhood (Miller, 1998). While violence and infanticide continue to drop in areas where the westernized non-violent form of child rearing is adapted, a more peaceful future is possible without the need for the totalitarian state.
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