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?
that’s exactly right sarah999, that is exactly how i see it. this is who they are.
i may be rattling some people here by saying i don’t think these S’s purposely sit down and develop a plan to intentionally hurt us. i know to us, it FEELS intentional.
but for us, who will never be able to experience our life without conscience, the only way we can try to process this is to say they sit down and do this on purpose, that it is a master plan they have to injure us.
in other words, i believe the only way WE could injure someone is to develop a master plan and hurt that person ON PURPOSE – because it is so outside of who WE are.
our S’s? in my experience, they are just doing what they do. the scorpion stings. the cat tortures a mouse. they are not setting out to sting or torture – it is PART of them. they find enjoyment out of stinging and torturing the same way we find enjoyment out of helping an old woman to her car with her groceries.
we don’t seek out the old woman, but if she is there, we will certainly help. it gives us a good feeling as well as the old woman. we get something out of it.
so do S’s. only they get something out of pain and torture.
many may disagree with me, and that’s okay. i think that’s what this is all about. we are still learning about it, and as aloha said – WE are the experts.
i find it funny when my son’s doctor tells me something about my son – i used to take her word for it, no matter what.
‘no he couldn’t have a sinus infection after just two days, there’s no need to bring him in for a look.’ – no doctor, i am the expert on my son, and i am the one who knows when he is sick – make an appointment for him today.
if i begin to believe that this S who i loved with all my heart did all this to me as part of a premediated master plan designed to hurt me, then i will go back to believing that he can change his behavior.
what i must hold on to – at all costs – is my reality that he is not in control of his behavior. he behaves this was because it is not a behavior – it is who he is.
it is quite the opposite of what i believed all my life. don’t the ‘experts’ say – ‘never criticize the person, only the behavior.’ i did that for years.
now i criticize the person.
Sarah, I agree in part with your “they are born that way” in that the person who is born with the gene or genes that SOMETIMES leads to alcoholism has a greater tendency to be an alcoholic than those that don’t have that gene or genes.
I come from a family with a genetic history of psychopaths that I know for a fact on one side leads back to before 1840. On the other side, I only know back to about 1860, but in these families that make up my ancestory I can definitely point to a direct line of psychopaths. Not all of thes epeople were raised by the psychopathic parent either because many times the psychopath sires a child and abandons it for the mother to raise (or the father as the case may be) and that happened inn several of my ancestor’s lives.
My biological father was a psychopath akin to Charlie Manson, and I know for a fact of several people he has killed, and all of his 7 wives were beaten severely. His mother was at least an N and maybe a P. She was the daughter of a man who was at least an N and possibly a P. I can’t get enough information to make a good guess, but at least a p. He was a bigamist who had at least 4 wives, and some at the same time.
My mother is, on the other hand, is an enabling narcissist, whose brother was an abusive monster that should have had life without parole if it had been known how he abused and tortured his x wife and children. On her mother’s side of the family, the direct line of abusive men can be traced to one of her ancestors who tied up a slave woman by the toes and beat her, this same man, born about 1800 and who died in 1860 was also a “nasty and mean drunk” which I got from court records. Several of his sons were as well.
However, just as a person being born with the gene for acoholism can NOT DRINK, a person born with the genes that predispose toward the psychopathic behavior can still function on a fairly normal (if not totally normal) way in society. He does not have to choose to be a mean SOB and abuse others.
I think at some point they get “pleasure” out of their mean behavior and like it….just like the person with the alcoholic genetics takes that first drink and gets pleasure out of it. He then continues to drink because of the “feel good” chemicals the alocohol releases in his brain.
We know for a fact from various studies that various thoughts, including thoughts of revenge, stimulate the “pleasure” centers of the brain and actually give a “high” to the person thinking those thoughts.
I agree that there is some genetic predisopsition to psychopathic thought and behavior, but I do not think that they are born WITHOUT ANY CHOICE any more than the person who is born with the tendency for alcoholism has NO choice but to become an alcoholic.
My youngest son is a carbon copy of my psychopathic father, though the two have nevr met, and I was never around my bio father until I became an adult and was victimized and brutalized by this man.
Being in the medical profession, and is psychiatry as well, I have a great interest in the genetic predisposition to a lot of various physical and mentalo illnesses and have researched the literature looking for evidence of the inheritability vs the environmental aspects of psychopathic thought and behavior.
I have NO doubt that there are some strong genetic predispositions in people toward that behavior. I only have to look at my own family to see that. Some of them though “pass for normal” people in society, only showing their REAL selves to a chosen few victims, others, like my psychopathic son who is in prison for cold blooded murder, and recently even tried from his prison cell to have me murdered by a friend of his.
When my son went to prison he was more the “charlie manson” type of raging anger, now that he has spent almost 19 of the last 20 years in prison, however, he has learned to be an excellent con man, spouting paramoral platitudes in hopes of getting his con in on me and others. the fact that I saw through his lies FINALLY and realized that he had NO remorse, but was in fact actually proud of the brutality of his crime…that it was actually worse than the cops knew…that when I cut him off from contact, commissary money, and feed back that he plotted to have me killed.
It is only by the grace of God that I was able to figure out that was his plan, and the fact that his minion screwed up and I realized that he was involved, did I finally realize that my life was in danger. My enabling mother and one of my sons were hoodwinked and if the police had not believed me I might very well be dead by “suicide” at this point.
My thoughts are that the genetics may be there, but environment can also trigger chemical releases that change the brain, and also addict them to those chemicals as a “high” that they get from POWER and control and other things. LIke the cat playing with the mouse and torturing it before killing it, they ENJOY the chase and the kill and want to prolong that pleasure as long as possible. They also like looking back on previous kills and savoring the feelings again.
They love provoking fear in their vicgtims and savor the pain the victim endures as part of their own “high”–their own power trip.
But I think at some point in their lives they have a CHOICE to proceed as a monster or not.
I think we are in agreement. I do believe POWER ADDICTS have a choice, and they choose pleasure (i.e., A FIX). To a psychopath, pleasure (or a FIX) may mean abusing someone, putting-someone down, duping someone, seeing the power they can wield over another person. .
To us (non-psychopaths), pleasure may mean helping an old lady cross the street, helping someone achieve a dream, or appreciating the joy when someone else has accomplished something etc.
We are both seeking pleasure (a FIX). We both have a choice, and they both choose pleasure (i.e., a FIX)
The reason why POWER ADDICTS smear & slander their victims.
A POWER ADDICT chooses a victim (i.e, mark), that will give him a POWER FIX.
After he has hurt the victim (i.e., raged at, demeaned, gas-lighted, exploited, duped & deceived etc.) to make himself feel POWERFUL . .
He must then (since he knows it’s not nice or acceptable to do this) create a story about how the victim DESERVED it . .
He does this by smearing the victim, blaming the victim for something, fabricating a story as to why the victim actually deserved what the POWER ADDICT did.
It’s SOOOOOOOOO sick!
Sarah999,
The “smear campaign” is so true–when the P is “injured” because the chosen victim rebels and leaves or fights back, I think the P is so enraged by this rebellion that they MUST punish the victim in any way that they can. They smear the victim’s reputation, blame the victim, or seek revenge. (which I think also gives them another “fix” to use your term.) Studies have shown that thoughts of revenge actually light up the pleasure centers of the brain.
I do think your reason that “he knows its not nice or acceptable to do this (hurt another person)” is not the reason for the smear campaign, while I do agree that they KNOW the difference in right and wrong and consciously choose to do what they know that “society” thinks is wrong, the smear campaign, the blaming the victim, etc. is a continuation of the victimization of the victim–just another step that is induced by the victim either escaping or fighting back. I don’t’ guess that “hair splitting” difference in “why” they do the smear campaign is really important, but it just seems to be to be another step in denigrating the victim. Kicking them when they are down, so to speak. No mercy!
I say that because the N/P (POWER ADDICT) must justify his abuse of the victim, and does this by and further smearing and demeaning the victim, even when the victim does not fight back, and is totally out of the picture, as when they enforce NO CONTACT. The Power ADDICT does this to justificy to himself (and everyone else), that their abuse was NOT abuse but rational.
Sarah999,
This is a wonderful way to explain them! Whether it be through sex, business, gaslighting, money, or whatever, they need to control and have power over other people. I think that is seriously THE driving force behind their manipulations, although it may manifest itself in many different ways.
The smear campaign is just an extension of that so that even after you enforce NC, they can find other ways to screw up your life from a distance. That is a way of saying, “Look, you thought you could cut me out of your life, but here I am indirectly controling it!”
A point that LilOrphan brought up is sometimes they conduct their intrigues without the victim knowing, and sometimes they never find out. But this reminds me of one of Secretmonster’s posts from another thread awhile back. He said that even though many of his victims dont know theyre being victimized, he gets a kick out of hanging humiliation over their heads. He has the power to drop it at any time and destroy them emotionally. So even if they never find out about it, he knows he is in control and that’s enough for him.
Can somebody please explain to me why “Secretmonster” (who I presume is one of THEM, not one of US) – is allowed to post on this website? (Or have I got it wrong?) Is it because there are professionals on here who are conducting scientific research? I don’t understand the engagement with someone who claims to enjoy conning and/or hurting others… I thought this was supposed to be a safe place?
Aussie girl – in case Donna (the blog owner) doesn’t see your question, you can email her at: donna@LoveFraud.com
and ask her that question.
you need to know that they show up here at times – some like secretmonster, some who are trolls and come and spew crap in their first posts, and some who pretend to be victims, and are not. Even if they are not posting , they are reading. This reality is always in my mind when i post.
what i understand about some who have posted a bit is that their posts are tolerated as field research. Personally, i have all the field research subjects i need.
When they show up, it is best to not engage with them, but post such banal banter that they leave. If you see a conversation come up about ‘potted plants’ or EB starts posting long posts of gibberish and tons of smiley faces to bump the thread out of the que – well, then you’ll know we have identified a spath or troll in the house. Lots of us have experience with getting the acute trolls off the blog. it is best not to post anything important during those periods. takes a few hours to a few days – one thing we have going for us is that most of them have a fairly short attn span if they are not getting fed emotionally. nc on our part and they get bored.
Dear onestepatatime
Thanks for the explanation – I was a bit rattled when I saw people reply directly to that person.
Funny you should use the term “troll” – that’s my pet name for the revolting next-door neighbour I had for a year, who has only recently moved to another house. The neighbour from hell – drug-f****d in the head and I suspect a sociopath to begin with (even before the nice drugs came and ate his brain up).
Anyhow – the only other thing I have to say about this thread is gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, potted plant and gibberish.