Aggression

Definition

In sports and in business, the term aggressive is frequently used when the term assertive, enthusiastic, or confident would be more accurate. For example, an aggressive salesperson is one who tries really hard to sell you something. Within psychology, the term aggression means something different. Most social psychologists define human aggression as any behavior that is intended to harm another person who wants to avoid the harm. This definition includes three important features. First, aggression is a behavior. You can see it. For example, you can see a person shoot, stab, hit, slap, or curse someone. Aggression is not an emotion that occurs inside a person, such as feeling angry. Aggression is not a thought that occurs inside someone's brain, such as mentally rehearsing a murder one is about to commit. Aggression is a behavior you can see. Second, aggression is intentional. Aggression is not accidental, such as when a drunk driver accidentally runs over a child on a tricycle. In addition, not all intentional behaviors that hurt others are aggressive behaviors. For example, a dentist might intentionally give a patient a shot of novocaine (and the shot hurts!), but the goal is to help rather than hurt the patient. Third, the victim wants to avoid the harm. Thus, again, the dental patient is excluded, because the patient is not seeking to avoid the harm (in fact, the patient probably booked the appointment weeks in advance and paid to have it done!). Suicide would also be excluded, because the person who commits suicide does not want to avoid the harm. Sadomasochism would likewise be excluded, because the masochist enjoys being harmed by the sadist.

The motives for aggression might differ. Consider two examples. In the first example, a husband finds his wife and her lover together in bed. He takes his hunting rifle from a closet and shoots and kills both individuals. In the second example, a “hitman” uses a rifle to kill another person for money. The motives appear quite different in these two examples. In the first example, the man appears to be motivated by anger. He is enraged when he finds his wife making love to another man, so he shoots both of them. In the second example, the hitman appears to be motivated by money. The hitman probably does not hate his victim. He might not even know his victim, but he kills that person anyway for the money. To capture different types of aggression based on different motives, psychologists have made a distinction between hostile aggression (also called affective, angry, impulsive, reactive, or retaliatory aggression) and instrumental aggression (also called proactive aggression). Hostile aggression is “hot,” impulsive, angry behavior that is motivated by a desire to harm someone. Instrumental aggression is “cold,” premeditated, calculated behavior that is motivated by some other goal (e.g., obtain money, restore one's image, restore justice).

One difficulty with the distinction between hostile and instrumental aggression is that the motives for aggression are often mixed. Consider the following example. On April 20, 1999, the 110th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their high school in Littleton, Colorado (United States), with weapons and ammunition. They murdered 13 students and wounded 23 others before turning the guns on themselves. Harris and Klebold were repeatedly angered and provoked by the athletes in their school. However, they planned the massacre more than a year in advance, did research on weapons and explosives, made drawings of their plans, and conducted rehearsals. Was this an act of hostile or instrumental aggression? It is hard to say. That is why some social psychologists have argued that it is time to get rid of the distinction between hostile and instrumental aggression.

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