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?
Dear Dr. Steve,
I believe that these people are actually ADDICTED to POWER just like and alchoholic, drug addict, anorexic, gambler, overeater, etc is addicted. In each of those cases however, the addicts hurt mainly themselves. It is extremely difficult (or impossible) for those addicts to be cured. They must first ADMIT their ADDICTION. They do that only when their life had become unmanagible. Well anyway . . for the psychopath/narcissist/ASPD/sociopath . . . . they hurt “mainly” others. They hardly ever (or never) get to the 1st STEP of admitting their ADDICTION to POWER. Their lives have not become unmanagable (usually). It’s their relatives, friends, associates lives etc. that have become unmanagable. Well anyway . . My point is that I believe a Power Addict doesn’t doesn’t get better . . because 1) like any other addiction . . it’s almost impossible to cure . . . and 2) in most cases . . . they aren’t even acknowledging they have a problem (becuase they don’t -their friends, relatives etc do), and therefore have no need to take even take the 1st step to help themselves.
sarah999 – You may be on to something here. You’re suggesting there’s a kind of closed circle at work: one is addicted to being in power and never losing power; to change one must admit one has a problem; to admit one has a problem is to lose power. It’s not going to happen.
I think you said it best!
Additionally, there is no incentive for the POWER ADDICT (i.e., psychopath/narcissist/Aspd/sociopath) to change . . . since (usually) the POWER ADDICT is not suffering. It is the people he is controlling, that are suffering.
Once I understood POWER ADDICTS thru the lense of “an ADDICTION to POWER & CONTROL”. . . Everything fell into place and made sense. Addicts i.e. “HOLICS”, (alchoholics, compulsive gamblers, anorexics, drug addicts etc). are almost impossible to cure . . . although they are destroying themselves (mostly) and would seemingly be motived to stop . . Imagine how hard it is to cure when you are not destroying yourself (most destroying others). I think we must name it . . i.e., call the group of narcissists/psychopaths/sociopaths/ASPD’s “POWERHOLICS”, which will give victims & others a frame of reference of what they are dealing with, and not just words (whose definition even experts don’t agree upon even now).
One thing I don’t understand in the sense of power addicts versus sociopaths is that people who are addicted to power would seem to want that power reflected back at them….so they would have to make very certain the others who they see as “under their power” are well-aware of that fact on a daily basis.
However, S and P people LIE constantly and have secretive lives, often many at once. Their victims aren’t aware of being under anyone’s “power” until it’s nearly too late, or certainly at the end of contact.
So how does the P translate into a Power Addict when the victim is not really aware of being under anyone else’s power and the P lies, pretending it is not so?
I’ve been trying to come up with some verbiage (rather than/narcissistic/psychopathic/Anti-social Personality/Sociopath) that describes these POWEER ADDICTED people. Usually victims will say “I’m not sure if he’s a narcissist/psychopath/ASPD/Sociopath” because he hasn’t been professionally diagnosed, or he’s not old enough, or I’m not a psychologist. But the victims are SURE that these demented individuals are always putting them down, falsely blaming them, raging uncontrollably, lying a lot, exploitative, gaslighting, abusive (physically and/or verbally), don’t take responsibility, are controlling, predatory, and have no conscience, and are sometimes very charming etc. With all that, victims are still often reluctant to LABEL them . . I read it again and again . . . It’s remarkable to me!!!!!! It seems that victims are so frightened to make a diagnostic mistake. And of course, in many instances the psychologist, who is not scared to make a mistake, only sees the charming side and hears the lies & excuses, and erroneously, again blames the victim (or as I was told – “It takes 2”.) Yes, In a murder it also takes 2, a victim and a murderer. But no one would dare say . . “It takes 2”. My point is that we need to give this addiction a name that victims won’t be scared to use (without trampling on professionals toes). I suggested POWER ADDICTS or POWER-HOLICS/CONTROL ADDICTS or CONTROLAHOLICS. I think we need to place the blame precisely where it belongs, and not be scared to do so, just because we are not “the professionals”. Sometimes (when so many professionals “just don’t get it” . . You’ve got to take it into your own hands. We lived it . . . they didn’t!!!! With apologies to those few professionals that DO GET IT!
Sarah999,
I think you are one perceptive and articulate woman!! I totally agree with you that it is the POWER and CONTROL that they are addicted to. the risk-taking behavior and the “getting away with” IT (whatever it is).
I also think it doesn’t matter if the person wins or loses, gets away with it or not, it is the RISK TAKING that is the “high”–compulsive gamblers don’t seem to really care if they win or lose, it is the GAMBLE that is the “high”—I think the Ps are somewhat that way as well.
The planing and execution of the “plan” for power and control seems in itself to be a “high”—
My P-son, who is incarcerated for murder, had a plan to have me killed because I finally unmasked his “remorse” and “repentence” as totally false, and he didn’t like being cut out of the will…his very complex plan failed, and his “assistants” are now in prison or out on parole for the attempt. But I think he got as much of a “high”out of it as if he had succeeded.
Since age 17 he has not spent a total of one year out of prison or jail (he is 37) but has committed crime after crime, and even while incarcerated he has continually “tried to pull one over” on other convicts and the guards. He has 19 convictions for rules infractions, some pretty serious, while he has been incarcerated.
In fact, I read (can’t remembr who wrote it) that prison is the perfect environment for them, as they are constantly on guard and always have some sort of scheme going to keep their adreniline up. I agree with that!
My son is control-addicted, rage fueled, and anger inspired. If he had 10 million dollars and were released today, he would rob or cheat someone, not for the money but for the “fun” and risk involved. My biiological father, who is also a raging P, but who was wealthy enough to never go to prison for his crimes, was totally fixated on CONTROL and inspriing fear in his victims.
In my career as a registerd nurse practitioner working with patients, I saw many women who were both the victims of abuse and violence and also the perpetrators of abuse and violence. They seemed to flop from one chair in the musical triangle to another with the rapidity of a bouncing ball.
If they per chance left a man or he left them, they would seek out another man who would beat them, and they would then respond back with violence. It was a way of life, and they seemed to enjoy the victim role as lmuch as the perpetrator one. “He may have blacked my eye, but I cut him with the knife” I am not “victim blaming” here, because no one deserves to be hit, but responding repeatedly with violence in return on a prolonged basis says that they are getting something that is pleasureable to them out of the situation. No matter how “dysfunctional” it is, somehow it triggers something that makes them “want to do it again”
Sarah999,
I love your thoughts above. I think that we ARE the experts. I just started therapy and I told me counselor, “Please do not explain to me what a Sociopath is. I KNOW.”
Also, I read something somewhere about Borderline PD and that it’s not curable due to the fact that the cure is to not have it… kind of like the cure for cancer is to not have cancer. It can be hard to get one’s head around that. These disorders seem impenetrable because to be cured would be to admit flaw and give up power. Anyway, I am just restating what you said.
By the way, I am 100% satisifed with my non-professional diagnosis of the Bad Man. He is a Sociopath.
I believe that these POWER ADDICTS are born that way. It is genetic just as hair color, height, body type. This is a personality type. And just as genetic characteristics manifest at predetermined ages. i.e., one persons’ hair may turn grey at 35 another at 65. That age, (35 or 65) was determined at the instant of conception. Personality types are also inherited (think of animals (golden retreivers vs pit bulls – sharks vs dolphins). Well some people are born POWER addicts, and the age and ferocity with which it manifests, is variable (but it was there at the moments of conception). The reason (I believe) that it is so hard to “CURE” . . is because there in fact is nothing wrong with them (in nature). They “feel right”, just as a shark, pit-bull or lion feels right. This is WHO THEY ARE. In our society, it interferes with those of us who want to get along, and cooperate, and love. So we call it a disorder. But IT’S NATURE (and I, as well as other victims, are shocked because they are so different – predatory, and what we call EVIL. My only suggestion for us (which is not nearly enough) is to learn about the NATURE of the BEAST (POWER ADDICTS), learn how to recognize them, and protect yourself. If more people did that, they would (through years of evolution) become fewer and fewer. But for sure we, (and perhaps nobody) will be around to see that day.