Question: Why do people engage in aggressive behaviour (some, as we know, rather more than others)?
Answer: Because they enjoy it.
There’s a bit of a flutter on the internet (see here and here) about research coming out of Vanderbilt University. Studying mice, Maria Couppis and Craig Kennedy have found that aggression can be as emotionally rewarding as food or sex.
The neurotransmitter dopamine has been implicated in nearly every experience we consider rewarding, such as love, drugs, eating, and sex. Indeed, the mesolimbic dopamine pathway is referred to as the reward system of the brain. Dopamine is necessary for reinforcement, e.g. the ex-smoker’s craving brought about by the whiff of cigarette smoke.
Now a direct connection has been drawn between dopamine and aggression. In the experiement the male home mouse continually pushed a button to let in an intruder mouse which it then aggressed. When treated with a dopamine antagonist (blocking the activity of the dopamine) the home mouse decreased its button-pushing. (For a discussion of the experiment see here.)
(Incidentally, it is important not to conflate aggression and violence. Aggression is dominating behaviour. For the mice aggressive behavior included tail rattle, an aggressive sideways stance, boxing and biting – two non-violent and two non-violent behaviours.)
“We learned from these experiments that an individual will intentionally seek out an aggressive encounter solely because they experience a rewarding sensation from it,” Kennedy said. “This shows for the first time that aggression, on its own, is motivating, and that the well-known positive reinforcer dopamine plays a critical role.”
Not that surprising?
I suspect that lovefraud/blog readers who have been on the receiving end of aggression won’t be surprised by these findings. Says Dr. Bliss at Maggies’ farm, “I cannot speak about mice, but every psychiatrist – and every person – knows that this is a fact for human beings.”
Any comments?
A query I have is runs something like this. Many commentators on this blog speak of increased assertiveness, anger, determination, etc. which has enabled them to get through relationships with psychopaths, to gain self-respect, and to make new lives. Would you say that you have learned to better access aggression? And if so, is there pleasure in it?
holywatersalt – I agree, aggressiveness is an attack. What the research tells us is that it is pleasureable (for the aggressor, that is).
gillian – I haven’t read the piece of research itself, only articles about it, but my impression is that the home mice which enjoyed being aggressive were male mice. I’ll have to read the piece itself to find out whether the finding applies to females too.
This thread makes me think about the difference between assertiveness and aggression. The difference can be in the eye of the beholder, especially if you’re being assertive with someone who is passive-aggressive.
I used to teach Southern women a seminar called “Power is Not a Four-letter Word.” I would tell them at the beginning that, by the time they left, they would be able to tell people what they want.
In every group, and sometimes it was a majority of the group, I’d hear: “But I can’t do that. It would be rude and selfish. What would people think?”
Well, then how do you communicate how you want things to come out? I’d ask. And they’d smile among themselves, and start talking about the effectiveness of “hints” and a little strategically placed guilt. But sooner or later in the seminar, it would also come out that they were afraid to openly saying what they wanted. Either because it was “not feminine” or because they would be punished in some way.
They were heavily socialized to be manipulative. It was expected, and if all went well and they had a good man who’d roll his eyes but bring them diamond earrings for Christmas, it was regard as successful femininity. I was a radical feminist at the time, and all I could see was the strong linkage between the gender dynamics of Victorian era and the 1950s when most of these women (and I) grew up.
What does this have to do with this discussion of aggression. I think that the question of empowerment plays into this. Being self-referenced, rather than depending on external approval for validation. Of course, it matters (as all of us with history of relationships with sociopaths know) if someone is constantly pushing denigrating and disdainful reflections of our worth in our face. It takes a lot of work to deal with that kind of toxin, and some of us (myself included) implode emotionally under this treatment.
At the same time, if you are simply healthily self-referenced, if you are motivated by what you believe is right for you, if you sense of your place in the world is based on your own choices about the kind of person you want to be, I think you’re going to look like a sociopath to someone who is experiencing life as a victim.
There’s an old saying that the way out of the drama triangle (victim, rescuer, perpetrator) is through the side marked “perpetrator.” Because if you refuse to be a victim or a rescuer, you’re going to look like a perpetrator to the ones who are still in that game.
Does that mean there are no real perpetrators? No. It doesn’t mean there isn’t true aggression either, which I define as the behavior of someone who has no respect for other people’s boundaries. There’s sort of oblivious aggression, like the way Mediterranean people can seem touchy-feely and loudly emotional to Scandinavian people. And then there’s deliberate aggression, where the aggressor intentionall violates other people’s boundaries for their own purposes.
That could be a dopamine rush — i.e., a relief from feelings of frustration or powerlessness by making yourself more powerful than someone you can scare or otherwise convince to be weaker than you. There are other means to get that same rush. I get it by solving tough problems in marketing, and then setting marketing programs in motion that make money for my clients. It makes me feel good about my own effectiveness, which is another word for power, the ability to get results from my investments of time and attention. It’s a good way for me to get over feeling, as I sometimes do, hopelessly inadequate.
I think there is reason to go back and look at the cause of the need for a dopamine rush. There is plenty of research linking dopamine issues to chemical addictions, which are a mechanism of disassociation. From what? From something that is so painful, so shame producing, that the addict flees to some sort of painkilling or distracting activity. If there’s research on which emotions are associated with dopamine irregularities, that would be interesting.
I feel like I may be being difficult here, but I also think it is one thing to be righteously angry about being aggressed upon by someone who intends to enrich themselves at your cost, and another thing to assume aggression is a bad thing. It has it’s place, as any business person will tell you. I can empathize with that mouse in the cage with nothing to do all day and its life passing without a single thing that resemble normal mouse life. No sex. No family. No social life. Exactly what other reward is this mouse getting in its day-to-day life? I can understand the temptation to get a little thrill from playing “who’s your daddy?” with another mouse.
And I know that’s a provocative way to put it. But don’t we already assume that males are hard-wired for aggression? And that women are also capable of it? We know the need to defend ourselves physically triggers a whole cascade of brain chemicals, including endorphins, which keep us from feeling pain, so we can fight when we’re injured? And the brain chemicals of sex often mirror the chemicals of dominance and defense. As do the brain chemicals of all kinds of everyday activities. When I win a contract in a competitive situation, it’s so much fun and so wildly stressful in a happy sort of way that I can understand why people go into sales and also why salespeople often drink.
I want to be treated with respect. I wanted to be appreciated for who I am. I want to be able to plan my finances and my life in a way that minimizes nasty surprises. I want to have a community of friends. I want to live a healthy life. I want to choose when and if I donate time and caring in someone or something other than myself. I want to be proud of who I am and what I’ve accomplished.
I was too emotionally ill after five years with the sociopath to say anything like this. But in recovering from the sociopath, I also got the hang of what I’d been teaching those Southern ladies so many years before. And saying them affected a number of other relationships that were based on my not having any boundaries. A relative said to me, “Who do you think you are to imagine you can get well? People in our family don’t get well,” and didn’t talk with me for a while because she thought, by investing in my own recovery, I was criticizing her. Another friend went into the hospital threatening suicide when I decided I didn’t have time anymore to listen to her problems for two or three hours a day.
Is this aggression? Oddly enough, they thought it was. And I might as well have been a sociopath, because I was more interested in my own objectives than how it affected their feelings. And when I won, they lost, at least in their view.
I apologize for being so long-winded. But to get back to my original point, the line between assertiveness and aggression may be in the eye of the beholder. Yes, the intent of the aggressor is clearly a piece of this, but no more than the response of the aggressed upon. I may be completely wrong here, but I see it in my own life.
Just curiosity, but was there anything in the research about the visiting mouse fighting back? And if not, why not?
khatalyst – You raise deep questions here – “the difference between assertiveness and aggression. The difference can be in the eye of the beholder, especially if you’re being assertive with someone who is passive-aggressive.”
I’ve also seen cases where a woman who decides to stop being a doormat and to have a say in how her life is going to be is then asked, “Why are you being so aggressive?” by a friend or family member.
Perhaps we just have to accept that what one person experiences as assertiveness another might experience as aggression – and both may be right in that these things come from the same energy source.’
Thanks for being so honest about the pleasure that can/does accompany aggression. That would very hard for the women in your course to admit to, right?
Finally, you say, “And I might as well have been a sociopath, because I was more interested in my own objectives than how it affected their feelings. And when I won, they lost, at least in their view.”
Is psychopathy in the eye of the beholder? A great question which deserves a post on its own. (My top-of-the-head response: it better not be otherwise, as you say, any assertive person might be called a psychopath is they happen to be around someone who’s been socialised to be unasssertive/passive-aggressive.)
Addicted to POWER!
What gives a person POWER? The ability to CONTROL.
Who has more POWER the empathic person or person with no conscience?
The person with no conscience.
Why do people lie? To CONTROL the situation.
Why do people want POWER? Because it makes them feel good.
If you are “addicted” to POWER, it means you “MUST have POWER”?. Everytime you get POWER it gives you a high (like a drug).
How do you get POWER? You choose someone who you think you can CONTROL, by lies, by rages, by gaslighting, exploitation, by manipulation, etc. Everytime you are successful at CONTROLLING the other (i.e., wielding your POWER), you’ve reinforced your addiction to POWER with another FIX.
You cannot love or feel empathy, because these two emotions inhibit of your ability wield POWER over others and CONTROL them . Love and empathy prevent you from getting the FIX you need. With love and empathy you would not be able to hurt others and that would reduce your POWER and CONTROL.
You lie, rage, gaslight, blame, manipulate etc. often “out of the blue”? when there is for no reason to do so. But there is a definite reason . . . you need a FIX “now”!. You need to CREATE a situation that gives you a fix, inorder to feel good. You have a need to exert your POWER immediately.. You are effecting other people . . . making them doubt their sanity, making them focus on “what the hell is going on”?, or “why would he/she do that”?. This is POWER! This is CONTROL! and this is what makes the Narcissist/Psychopath feel good again. “It is another fix”!
As an “addiction to power”. . . what the psychopath/narcissist/ASPD/sociopath does makes sense!
Sarah999
I’d like to use this post, Very well put
sarah999 – You’ve captured the essence of things!
Yes, you can use my post, if you give me credit. “A. Krengel”
Regarding Empathy: Empathy is the ability to know what someone else is feeling. We usually say someone has empathy, when he wouldn’t hurt someone else (because he knows how bad it would feel). But what if you have empathy (know what others are feeling), but don’t care, or even worse, what if you have empathy and “get off” on the power you have to make the other person feel bad. The most effective psychopaths/narcissists/ASPD’s/sociopaths have lots of empathy. They know you’ll feel bad when they rage, blame, exploit, gaslight, manipulate, lie, etc. which is exactly why they do it. They either don’t care, or worse, it makes them happy, because it gives them their feeling of power. The worse you feel (or doubt yourself) the more effective their power was. If they can reel you back in, (after an attack) with promises, more power to them. So yes, I believe the best of these demented individuals have lots of empathy.
Sarah666: I’m speaking from my personal experience only: I understand what empathy is, and I can conceptually put myself in someone else’s shoes and reason how they may “feel” by certain action, given conditions, et cetera, and in that I think it makes me more effective at what I do. I can conceptually understand what’s going on in the other persons head. It doesn’t mean I feel it the same way.
Maybe it’s because I’ve had years and years of interactions with people, that now there is a sort of predictive quality to it, I’m not sure.
Main Entry: em·pa·thy
Pronunciation: \ˈem-pə-thē\
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathēs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion more at pathos
Date: 1850
1: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it2: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this
The important aspect of the definition is bold. I’m aware, I’m even sensitive to it in the manner of I’m perceptive enough to figure it out (in a loose sense), but I sure as hell don’t vicariously experience the feelings.
But as you say, this could be a trait of the “best” of them. However THAT ranking system works out… I can tell you that the few real stinkers I’ve had the opportunity to interact with throughout my life weren’t very different from me, in that respect.
Just my 2 dinars.
SecretMonster
P.S. It does give me fulfillment. I hesitate to use the word “happy” because it’s likely a different experience for you and me.