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Are Humans Naturally Violent?

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Submitted By vortex
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While generations of scientists have debated whether human aggression and violence is learned or innate, Brain (pp. 9, 1985) most likely summarizes the best and shortest answer to this question by stating that Human violence is too complicated to be interpreted in simple terms”. Empirical data and theories from both sides will be presented in this essay which will illustrate that while humans are genetically equipped to be violent and in some cases even have a genetic predisposition towards violence, social factors play key role in facilitating and enhancing aggressive behavior or suppressing and inhibiting it.

Cesar Lombroso in the 20th century claimed that long arms, jutting chins and sloping foreheads were signs of born criminals, while Sigmund Freud (1930) later claimed that the drive to aggress is rooted deep in the psyche, independent of circumstances and as a result people have an innate need to inflict harm which must be satisfied periodically. A similar catharsis view was held by Lorenz (1963) who suggested that aggression being a natural instinct that accumulates over time especially in response to environmental stress, needs to be periodically released much like the periodic orgasm that helps diminish sex drive. In the 1960’s some scientists proposed that men who carried an XYY chromosome pattern were predisposed to become criminals (Ramirez, 1996). These were some of the early views on the innate nature of aggression and violence. Recent studies conducted on rats that focus on chromosome alterations and mutations do indeed show that mice can be bred for high or low levels of aggression (Sandnabba, 1995; Sandnabba et al., 1994; Sandnabba & Korpela, 1994) supporting this innate notion. In addition, Sluyter, Meijeringh, Van Oortmerssen & Koolhaas (1995) concluded that both parts of the Y chromosome (autosomal & non-recombining part) contribute to changes

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