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?
LL,
I posted that link as it has credible studies mentioned in it about change and psychopathy.
And for the victim/survivor it hopefully would not be about if they (the abuser) can or can’t. I really do not care as much what someone says they can do (change), rather I place the importance (and judgement) on what they actually do.
Anyone in an abusive relationship (whether the abuser has a personality disorder or not) can fall into the trap of telling themselves( and other times the abused is conned into believing it by the abuser) into staying “because they can change”. Yes but can does not mean will (which is the other side of the coin of dont/wont does not mean cant).
So look at the presentation on that link from Dr. Skeem and it might answer your question about proof.
(edited for clarity)
I’m following my gut instinct.
Blogger T.
I read the link and I thank you for providing it. It’s interesting for sure, but it leads to more questions than answers on that end of the scale.
I think you make a very important and valid point, T. This idea of change is EXACTLY what kept me in my relationshit as long as I was. I think for many abused women, particularly those whose abusers have “moved on rapidly”, fear this. My ex is in therapy. Has been for over a year. There was NO change in his behavior, in fact it was WORSE insofar as manipulation goes. I think it’s important to point out that while reading your link, that progress for those who “change” is VERY slow. Just as it is for the victims of the abuser. Mine claims to have “changed” due to the love of a “Good” woman now. Well, that’s pretty swift given that it’s only been two months since I saw him last.
But when a victim is trying to recover and move out of the fog, those VERY machinations can be quite devastating as well as invalidating.
LL
LL, I just lost a long post! UGH so will try to recreate my thoughts.
Your comments about your “debating” with your therapist had sort of disquieted me in the past, but I sort of “Zinged” on them today.
Let me give you an idea of what I mean. Back when I was on the school debate team we would try to prove our point and convince the audience that our side was right (even if we didn’t believe it was, or if the teacher gave us some thing that was totally wrong) once I had to help prove that the “law of gravity was wrong.”
Recently when I went to see my doctor because my feet had started to swell to the point I couldn’t get my shoes on, she suggested it might be the amount of salt I was eating. I DID NOT WANT THAT TO BE THE REASON, so I “debated” with her about it, telling her that I had eaten a huge amount of salt all my life, and I have. If I were walking by the table I would pour some salt into my hand, eat it and keep on walking. The American heart Association recommends a maximum of 1,500 mg of sodium (salt) per person per day, and estimates that the AVERAGE actually eaten is between 3,000 and 5,000. I estimate that I was eating from 8,000 to 15,000 per day.
My doctor listened to me “debate” her and give her all the reasons I could think of that she was wrong and that I could still eat all the sodium I wanted and then she said in her quiet little way, with a smile, “Yea, that may be true, but YOU’VE NEVER BEEN THIS OLD BEFORE.”
SHE WAS RIGHT OF COURSE.
While she is open to listening to my “debating” her, the bottom line is that my DEBATE stance is not teaching me a thing, and the therapy or physician role is to be a supporter and a TEACHER and you can’t be a good student/learner if you are continually challenging the teacher.
I may have “proven” the law of gravity was wrong on the debate team, but that didn’t CHANGE THE FACTS. I may have given my doctor a lot of great arguments why the sodium I was eating (huge amounts) wasn’t what was causing my feet and legs to swell, but the point is that I needed to listen to HER and focus on making the changes in MY LIFE that were causing MY problems. Since SHE was in the teacher role and I was in the student/learner role, I wasn’t gaining anything by using my time with her to “debate” her assessments.
BloggerT and I have discussed and even argued and debated various aspects of psychopathy and philosophy and he has changed my mind on quite a few things that I had “opinions” on that were based on prejudice or bad information.
I have stated here that “psychopaths can’t change.” But what I actually MEANT TO SAY was that “psychopaths essentially are not motivated to change.” Most people aren’t.
However, I have known people who were psychopaths and alcoholics, and they went to AA and stopped drinking, and became DRY PSYCHOPATHS or as AA says “dry drunks.” That is CHANGE in a psychopath. Maybe not total change, but None the less it is SOME CHANGE. Why did they stop drinking? Why not change the other abusive self-defeating behaviors? I don’t know.
But for some reason, some psychopaths who are drunks will dry out and CHANGE that portion of their dysfunction.
I also learned that if you shock it enough times, even a flat worm (which is NOT smart) can be motivated to change it’s path and go around an electrode. So maybe there was something that “shocked” the drunk psychopath enough times that they were motivated to change that aspect of themselves.
I think many times most of us are in the “pre-contemplative” stage of “change.” In other words, we have NOT EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT THE NEEDED CHANGE YET. (I just love that “pre-contemplative” stage! Who ever named that had a sense of humor!) LOL Before I went to the doctor I was in the PRE-CONTEMPLATIVE stage of changing my behavior with sodium intake. I hadn’t even thought about it. LOL
When the doctor made me think about it. The contemplative stage. I resisted the CHANGE—until I realized I NEEDED TO CHANGE for my own good and made the DECISION to do so.
I did the same thing with smoking. Only I had stayed in the contemplative stage for decades, but I finally decided to DO it. Why now? (well actually a year or two ago) I don’t know, but something made me decide to ACT on my thinking and I did.
So I think, psychopaths (like other living things) CAN change it is just a matter of contemplation and motivation, and as a general rule, I haven’t observed much of either in the ones I have known….or in lots of normal folks either for that matter.
Thanks BloggerT! As always, you make me THINK!
Ox,
Very insightful and oddly comforting post!
ROFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Precontemplative, contemplative, yep! Have been around the block a time or two with THAT one….
I may be forever “precontemplative” about quitting smoking too.
Wow.
I do see what you’re saying and it makes a lot of sense. I think my therapist was making a valid point to me that I now recognize. Sure, if you want to debate this, we will…..take as much time as you need, because we WILL eventually get down to YOU. LOL!!!
I see now where he was going with it. Petitie also pointed me to some of the archived articles by Steve Becker.
I think part of this for me, is trying to understand the nature of what I experienced, how it was done (sort of like the O for Umbrella), and WHY I participated in that. What was it that allowed me to PARTICIPATE in it? To believe it? To overlook?
I have some answers but not completely yet. But what I have come to understand, is how VIOLATING the experience was on every level. And as the fog clears I’m seeing more and more of it. I had to be DEEPLY involved and completley ERASE my reality to encompass his.
It was truly one of the most frightening experiences I’ve ever known and there are a lot of N’s, S’s in my fam of origin…not even that held the scope and depth of violating behaviors this last relationshit did.
I’m staying with this therapist. And I am because he makes me THINK. It might take a day or two…..but he’s damned good.
LL
Yes thanks, BloggerT. Always interested in learning something new.
My reaction to the idea that a psychopath may be able to change is one of ambivalance. One the one hand it feels better (in a spiritual way) to believe no one is beyond help…that no one should be forclosed upon and seen as hopeless. I am also glad to see that there is at least an interest in the idea of rehabilition in the feild of corrections. I never would have thought so.
While I like others here have often expessed my contempt for psychopaths, I’m actually glad to see a little humane treatment, and some compassion.
On the other hand, as LL mentionedabove, for those of us who were mired in the misery of loving one, believing there is hope for change is probably the worst thing that could happen. That one thought could keep us stuck in hell, forever.
Maybe the idea that they can change is best left for the professionals. Even if they can change, it’s most likely they won’t, and if they do, it sure won’t be on my account.
But, thanks again, Blogger.
I just read the article at top. It asks if we have learned to better access our aggression, and if we find pleasure in it.
In my seven year on and off again relationship with spath who was totally irresponsible, unreliable, mind f—-ing, game playing, not working, entitled, selfish and controlling, I became very aggressive. It kind of bothers me now, because I justify my behavior by telling myself he drove me to it, and that is classic abuser speak….but I still feel that way, in a sense. Did I find pleasure in it? I suppose, in a way I did. It made me feel like I was standing up for myself, and demanding better treatment…but I know now that it is a false sense of empowerment, because I never had the power to change him in any way, and no matter what I did, he was gonna do what he was gonna do. The only real pleasure I experienced as empowement was when I gave up, and moved on. When I went NC, and eventually was able NOT TO REACT to him…now that felt good. Really good.
LL, your “obsessive” need to “understand the psychopath” I think is sort of a normal phase we all get in, especially at first when we start to realize what we are dealing with in terms of dysfunction. Then we seem (generally) to have this need to make sure “our Psychopath” REALLY is a psychopath. The article Steve Becker wrote about “When he’s just a bad dude” is a great example of how it DOES NOT MATTER A TINKER’S DAM if they are a REAL psychopath or just a bad-arse-dude, they are TOXIC FOR US.
Somehow I think being able to “label” them as a psychopath and have someone else validate that makes us feel better about our own part in putting up with their crap!
Actually I remember a feeling of validation and “AH HA!!!!!!” when as I was getting my presentation ready for the parole board and was reading my P-son’s medical records (about 500 pages of very boring clinical visits) and came across the Visit where the nurse practitioner had labeled him as “High in ASPD traits” and “cluster B” and then listed all the character traits and the manipulative behavior, the lies, the grandiosity etc. IT WAS VALIDATION.
Not that I had doubted the diagnosis, but it was just great that someone on the INSIDE, a medical professional who dealt with psychopaths every day in her clinic in the prison, and MY LITTLE DARLING STOOD OUT FROM AMONG THE CROWD OF OTHER PSYCHOPATHS! LOL I used to have a bumper sticker that said “My son is an honor student at the state pen.” HOW validating to know that there was another person who realized my son is a true psychopath!!!!!
What does that validation mean? Well, it means that I wasn’t the cause of his problems, by being a bad mommy—though I did pass on the genes, so I guess that means I did unwittingly contribute to his psychopathy. But I don’t have to take the BLAME my kid is a rotten human being.
Actually, that validation doesn’t really mean anything in terms of myself—I hope it means something to the parole board though because it is all I have to take to them next time, that ASSESSMENT by that nurse practitioner and whatever literature I can come up with that shows that PSYCHOPATHS DON’T CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. So even if there was evidence that he MIGHT CHANGE FOR THE BETTER, I’ve got to get my debate shoes out and “prove” otherwise to the parole board.
While having someone else “validate” my opinions or my thoughts or my judgments might be soothing, in reality, I have to validate MYSELF for it to be truly meaningful. Unfortunately, I can’t validate that my son’s psychopathy, or any one else’s psychopathy or bad choices is the REASON for MY BAD CHOICES or my bad behavior.
I have to “man up” to the bar and take responsibility for my own choices, my own bad decisions and figure out a way to 1) quit making more bad decisions and 2) to substitute some good decisions that have a positive impact on my life.
I can’t go back and change those past bad decisions, and in many cases I can’t change the results of those past bad decisions. There are good relationships that have been broken because of my own past bad decisions or actions, there are opportunities lost that I can’t recover because of my bad decisions or bad behavior. I can’t undo those things. All I can do is to make better decisions today and hopefully in the future.
Hi all. Thanks for your responses. Having trouble getting onto some of the blogs. Dunno why. Can’t even get onto You Tube!
Ox,
Actually, your story is very validating LOL! Love the bumper sticker!
I think what’s most validating is that the struggle I’m dealing with has been a similar struggle here for other posters too.
I think the confusion for me lies BOTH in his behavior, what, why and where for’s as well as mine and having PUT UP with it for so long. Not only is my reality very skewed right now, but it’s also tied up into HIS reality, if that makes sense. It’s like untying a HUGE mess of string in a big huge ball. I”m still trying to extricate myself from HIS reality. The more I do, the more frightening MY reality becomes in my reasons for having put up with the bad behavior in the first place.
I’m lost between was it me or was it HIM. What is mine to own and what is not? I think I’m struggling with owning my participation. I’m also struggling as a result of the CIRCUMSTANCES of my participation. I”m very angry at myself and very angry at him too.
I was so steeped in my fantasies of what I wanted him to be, and had lost touch with what was healthy versus what was not. This is also something I think about a lot. I was working to extricate from the relationshit already. I brought this up in therapy yesterday. Why am I SO upset by all of this NOW, when I was HELLBENT on getting out and HATED the bastard at that point? Therapist to me: “Because you’re tired. Simple as that.”
I think, to a great extent that is very true. I spent ten years in absolute fear and hypervigilance as to what he was going to do to me next. Absolutely terrified.
My choices have also caused a lot of grief, Ox. To my family, to my friends. There is a level of sadness about that now and I can’t take it back. My focus was so much on making him happy that I neglected my emotional responsibilities.
IN order to maintain my NC right now, as I’m still in the early part of recovery, I’m keeping in mind, battling the thoughts that infiltrate me with regards to my fantasy, versus what he was. His actual underlying character. Intellectually, I know all of this will come to me in time. Unfortunately, it’s only time that is going to heal the wounds and I understand that it will be an uphill climb for sure. But for right now, I’m still feeling pretty wounded………..and stooooooooooooooopid lol!
LL