Why people are aggressive. Why do people become so aggressive

And other negative emotions. When they reach the limit, they translate into aggressiveness and aggressive behavior. That is why these phenomena deserve comprehensive consideration from the point of view of psychology.

In this article I will tell you about what it is, how this behavior is explained by the most eminent experts, the causes of appearance and even the basic methods of correction. Briefly and at the same time capacious.

Let's start?

Origin

The word "aggression" comes from the Latin "attack". It manifests itself at the moment when a person subconsciously or consciously seeks.

In fact, this word is not negative in itself. Aggression helps. However, if someone uses aggression, then his ultimate goal is not just to “disarm” the enemy, but still to show his superiority over him.

Aggressive behavior is not approved by religion and, but is not something forbidden. It does not necessarily manifest itself in the form of violence, and sometimes can act as a defensive mechanism, a way of getting rid of any pressure.

This word and, as a result, the phenomenon, many, even eminent psychologists and philosophers, interpret in their own way. For example, Charles Darwin believed that - it is a natural mechanism inherent in every person. It is conditioned by instincts and bestowed upon us by nature.

Why do people show aggression

For what, in the opinion of famous scientists, is aggression necessary? What are the causes of its manifestation? Sigmund Freud believed that in this way a person realizes his death drive. Richard Lazarus believed that thanks to aggression we are faster. This is a kind of discharge. Alfred Adler argued that this behavior helps a person to fulfill their need for power and domination.

I think that each of these judgments is relevant in different situations. When in professional activities you encounter difficulties that have a lasting impact, you become subject to stress. A person reaches the boiling point and gets rid of the negative through aggressive behavior.

Some psychologists are convinced that men and women treat this phenomenon differently. when they need to defuse. For them, this is just a stress relief method, an expression of accumulated anger.

Methods of struggle

Correct and "treat" aggressive manifestations should not be in all cases. Even in relation to the child. She forms him as a person, helps to socialize. A practicing psychologist book will help you learn more about you. Tatiana Avdulova "Aggressive Teen". Here you will find all the information that parents need to know.

There are critical levels of aggression when it goes beyond what is permitted.

In some cases, the best way to suppress this manner of communication is the absence of provocations from one of the interlocutors.

When the situation is heating up, people begin to defend themselves more actively and each new word makes them behave more and more stupidly and aggressively. None in this case does not work. Arguments cannot be perceived adequately. Protection and domination become the most significant goals for humans.

I can offer you a book Carrie Patterson "Conflict Management", in which all the main techniques are collected, allowing to relieve the tension during a conversation and achieve their goals, communicating with aggressive people.

I have it all. Until new meetings and do not forget to subscribe to the newsletter.

All children are born good and kind. friendly, so why do people show aggression? The nature of human aggression remains a mystery to experts in the field of psychology. The cause of any aggression is the instinct of self-preservation and self-affirmation of a person. For example, lack of livelihood can push a person to rob.

Man strives to live all his life comfortably  and get the most pleasure out of life, and if he lacks something to meet his needs, he feels aggression towards the one who is guilty of it or envy of those who managed to achieve it. Aggression is manifested in this case along with the thought: "Why am I worse?" and is a stimulus for self-affirmation. This type of aggression is a manifestation of the primitive animal instinct, when the problem of achieving material benefits was solved in a fight between rivals. The winner got the best food, shelter, female, and so on.

If the child's parents brought up since childhood in a hostile atmosphere and for every complaint about an insult by peers, they taught him to beat him with fists and give change to the offender, then such a child in adulthood perceives relations between people unfriendly. Every offensive word or critic makes him want to take revenge or physically punish the offender. So parents "program" aggression since childhood. In addition, the cause of the manifestation of aggression can be a mismatch of views on religious grounds, a clarification of relations between football fans, between representatives of different party organizations and others.

Doctors - Psychiatrists  they cannot answer unequivocally whether it is worth overcoming the manifestation of negative emotions in themselves, what role aggression plays in a person's life: positive or negative. After all, aggression, as well as joy, is a manifestation of human feelings. The only difference is that if joy helps to improve well-being and the expression of positive emotions, then anger, on the contrary, can destroy a person from the inside. As it is known, in order to not accumulate negative emotions inside, it is necessary to “let off steam” from time to time and thereby save oneself from the negative through aggression or tears. Otherwise, the gradual accumulation of negative emotions can lead to stress and illness.

However, today the manifestation aggression  It can be dangerous not only for some person, but it can also become a threat to all mankind. In modern society, it is not particularly difficult to acquire firearms, and it is sometimes difficult to shorten human aggression and make it stop with conciliatory words. Weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons pose a special danger to the world. Based on this, one can agree with the opinion of some psychologists who argue that any aggressive manifestations of emotions must be suppressed.

In order to release steam on the physical level  You can beat a pear, a pillow, yell at an inanimate object, or break something unnecessary. If you are offended by someone, do not try, silently endure an insult. Claim to your abuser that you don’t like his words. If the abuser is your boss and you cannot give an insult, then do it at home, uttering your insult out loud and at the end of your statement mentally forgive your abuser.

According to psychologists, without aggressive Behavior of a person is doomed to death in childhood. Without useful aggression, a person is not able to achieve the goal and will not have the strength of character. Useful aggression helps a person to survive in critical life situations. For example, without manifestation of aggression, it is impossible to defend itself when a robber attacks.

Especially dangerous manifestations aggression  There are situations related to mental illness. For example, auditory hallucinations and delusional pathologies, with the result that patients are able to kill a person or cripple due to delirium or persecution mania.

To avoid manifestation aggression, you need to learn to rethink yourself and your behavior. You can reset negative thoughts by learning to look positively at the world and clearing the mind of anger and envy. To do this, it is necessary to direct aggressive energy in a positive direction, and this is to make plans for the future and strive for their realization, to set life priorities correctly. Well help to dump the negative energy of sports and favorite hobby. There is a whole set of meditation exercises to overcome aggression, including yoga and wushu. In the case of complex depressions and stresses, before you show aggression, contact psychologists for help.

With all the differences of characters and temperaments, most of our people have the same facial expression with which they move in space. An attempt to answer the question “Why are we so angry?” In the material of the psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya.

Almost everyone who had to return home from other parts felt this effect on themselves. As soon as you set foot on your native land, you seemed to enter into some special aura. Nobody has trampled your feet in the subway yet, has not done anything wrong, and the body reacts. Something seems to shrink in the solar plexus, shoulders, hands and jaws are hardly noticeably tense. We feel that we are in an aggressive environment. Psychologist Lyudmila PETRANOVSKAYA shares her opinion on the reasons for this.

Fighting stance

Our mirror neurons, counting something by their faces, voices, looks, smell, instantly, bypassing consciousness, bring the body into a state of readiness for aggression. You yourself can be arbitrarily peaceful and good-natured person, but the brain and body instantly assess the environment as unsafe and lead an armored train on the siding to a working position. And vice versa, many people say that they relax abroad, even if they are at work there, despite the language barrier and the unusual situation.

I will not forget how on a business trip to share experience in England, we traveled with an English colleague through the narrow streets of the town, we hurried, we were late for the next meeting. And then an old woman appeared out of the front of the car, a doddle of God, with a wand. And in a completely wrong place, angrily waving a cane in our direction, she began to cross the road. Brakes squealed, belts tightened, the car got up, a colleague, a rather emotional man, leaned out of the window. Well, I think, now I will advance in colloquial English, find out how there will be "Where are you going, old hag!". But he jokingly shook his fingers at her and said thoughtfully: “Careful!”. The point is not that he was polite and restrained. I sat next to him and saw that he was not at all angry. A little stress, but since everything was okay, that's fine. Following the old woman, he shook his head, as a loving parent shakes, looking at the restless baby.

What prevents us from reacting in the same way to unpleasant surprises in life, minor inconveniences, someone's stupidity and carelessness, a clash of interests - not because of something very important, but on trifles? Why is the Russian Internet full of texts on the subject of "No, well, just think what all the idiots (bastards, cattle, boors)", several of these texts always hang on the tops of ratings. Anything could be the reason: the children were noisy in the cafe, but their parents did not plug them, girls with not beautiful enough, in the author’s opinion, figures, wear open clothes, people who, in the author’s opinion, park (cross the street) incorrectly, like the wrong in the opinion of the author, music, etc. Each such post receives hundreds of comments of the same content: “yes, as these monsters enrage me too!”, In response to which the answers come: “yes, you are a freak”, and they went. It's not about bad manners, not a low culture, as they often think, but feelings. After all, really infuriates.

Rage flares inside easily, like a match. As if noisy children or someone's bare, imperfect knees, or a provincial in the subway, stunned and frozen on the aisle, looking around for signs, these are not just people who have prevented or disagree with something - they are aggressors. And they need to give immediate tough resistance.

Causes of rage

There are many reasons for this rage, and they are intertwined in such a tight pattern that it is not always clear where the action of one factor ends and another begins.

To begin with about the aggression itself. Although sometimes this concept itself is perceived negatively, and the words “anger” and “evil” are single-root in Russian, in nature aggression is a property of living beings that is very useful for survival. It is designed for self-defense, for the protection of its territory and its offspring, for the extraction of food (from predators), to compete for the female (from males). That is, aggression, although it can sometimes kill, is in itself in the service of life, procreation. At the same time, natural aggression is always very functional and economical, if life is not at stake, its ritual forms are used primarily: threatening sounds and poses, power struggle without causing serious injuries, marking the territory with signs and. etc. The less fertile and the more dangerous this or that species is naturally armed, the less it can afford to play with aggression. City cats can pass the evening for a bloody fight, tigers in the taiga - never.

The man himself, by nature, the animal is weak. No teeth, no claws. Therefore, it has very little sewn-up, instinctive programs for replacing fights with rituals, tea is not tiger. Therefore, people had to invent their own ways of replacing direct aggression: from courtesy rituals to football championships, from subtle irony to court procedures, from state borders and diplomacy to demonstrations and trade unions. We are aggressive, and we have learned to live with it, and we learn further, because when we lose control over our aggression, it is scary, there are many examples in history.

But the spilled aggression, about which we started the conversation, does not look like aggression on the guardian of life. This is spilled "aggression in general", nowhere and for no particular purpose, and therefore, everywhere, always and for any reason, aggression of neurosis, one of the definitions of which is: "regular inadequate emotional reaction to circumstances caused by psychotrauma or distress stress) ". That is literally what we have: a reaction, obviously inadequate to the cause, a storm in a glass of water, rabies because of trivialities.

What kind of psychotrauma, what kind of distress is behind this phenomenon?

What lies on the surface are permanent minor and not very restrictive rights. A simple example: at all stations we now have metal detectors at the entrance. OK, the country lives with the constant threat of terrorism, so be it. In Israel, for example, are also everywhere. But. There at the same time everything is really checked carefully. And if you “ring”, you will not go anywhere until the police officers understand that. At the same time, the frames are set up as much as they fit, they work on the inspection of bags, they do their best, they try very hard to make it faster. The queue waits patiently: because it is clear that this is all serious and makes sense.

What do we have. Wide entrance to the station. There is one frame in the middle. The rest of the space is simply blocked by tables or barriers. At the frame three policemen are dozing or chattering. People, ringing and thundering, without removing their bags from the shoulder, pass inside. No one is looking at them, you can even carry a bazooka. But if suddenly you realized that you were mistaken by the entrance, you came to the wrong place, and you want to go back - you will not be released. Because the exit is there. Where exactly? And there, two hundred meters. Which you have to, with their children with suitcases, overcome first there - until the permitted exit, and then back - to the point where you need to return. Perhaps, being late for this on your train. Why? Because that is all.

Restrictions that do not have any reasonable basis, of course, angered. The overlap of roads and traffic jams during the passage of the first persons, the closure of central metro stations on weekends to prevent opposition actions, the requirement to bring boot covers to the hospital and school, even tracks that for some reason always do not where people are comfortable walking - all this it creates a constant background of distress, as if every minute you are “put in place”, they make it clear that you cannot call anyone. This is a feature of society, built from top to bottom, vertically: here the rights and opportunities do not belong to people by definition, they are lowered from above. How much and what is considered necessary. Here, a person does not have “his own territory” in principle, which means that there are no borders that could be protected. Documents may be demanded from him at any time, dictated to him where he can and where he cannot be, they may try to enter the house to check on how he is raising children - he does not belong to himself. Borders are not exactly broken - they are broken and erased for a very long time.

Imagine that a person decided to use natural healthy aggression to defend his borders when someone breaks them. Rebel, refuse to fulfill stupid requirements, write a complaint, sue, finally. It turns out that in a vertical society it is almost impossible. The procedures for asserting their rights, if there are any, are very vague and cumbersome. Suppose I want, controlling my aggression, that is, using civilized methods, to defend my right to leave the subway in my own city on a day off where I feel comfortable. Who should I sue? On the metro administration? To the police? At the mayor's office? Who makes the decisions and who can cancel them? It is always quite difficult to find out. But even if I do submit, an unpredictable time consuming red tape awaits me: meetings can endlessly be postponed and canceled. And if the trial takes place, what are my chances of winning it? With our justice?

Well, let's try another way. I want, without any doubt, peacefully and non-violently, to exercise my right. That is still going, though not ordered. Politely, without offending anyone. It's just more convenient for me here, here is a special place to get out, I paid for the metro services and I want to get them in full, when I get to where I need, not where it is allowed. What will end? Most likely, the detention and the court, the outcome of which is also predetermined. And even my own friends and colleagues can condemn me: why climb, if it is not supposed to? The cleverest?

That is, what happens: almost all the peaceful methods developed by mankind for upholding their borders and rights are blocked in a vertical society. We cannot change the power, we cannot achieve the removal from office of the officer guilty of violating our rights, we are not able to prevent the adoption of laws and decisions that violate our rights. Attempts to exercise their rights without prior arrangement are automatically considered a crime, and there will always be some “law” by which we find ourselves guilty.

But the boundaries are broken! We are hurt. We feel stress. Aggression has arisen, it will not evaporate to nowhere. Not being able to be worked out "on the merits of the question," she, like steam, pressed against the top by a lid, requires an outlet.

Evil is passed in a circle

Exit different people find different.

One of the most frequent - the transfer of aggression down. That is, having received a boorish scolding from the authorities, insult the subordinate. After hearing the attacks of the teacher, spank the child. My son, for the first time alone making a long trip, made a transfer at Frankfurt Airport, as huge as a whole city. “But I,” he said, “quickly found my plane to Moscow. You just have to go where parents shout at children. ” The habit of any stress (and air travel is always stress) to pour down the hierarchy, on the weaker, on children, instead of taking care and reducing stress for them - the typical, unfortunately, behavior of our compatriots.

There are entire systems where aggression is a constant flow from top to bottom: the authorities yell at the school principal, she is at the teacher, the teacher for an eighth-grader, who weighs a kick in a first-grader. Is it possible to expect that, for example, a guardian employee, whom the authorities have just covered with a mat (reality, alas), on the phone, will quickly do something with the received portion of aggression and will meet the visitor with a smile on his face?

The following method is also very frequent: redirect the aggression horizontally. That is, simply put, angry at everyone around. Anyone and anyone who willingly or unwittingly gets across. But this choice is also fraught with: if you get angry constantly and at anyone, you will quickly gain the reputation of a foolish person with a bad temper. And you yourself will not like. Therefore, there is a good option: to be angry not at everyone, but at others. No matter, than others: manners, behavior, religion, nationality, gender, features of a figure or speech, having (not having) children, residents of the capital (province), educated (uneducated), watching TV (not watching TV), going to rallies (not go to rallies). Arguments are used, long and well-structured systems of evidence are built, why to experience and show aggression towards them well and correctly. Like-minded people are found, and now you can “be friends against”, at the same time they will satisfy their sense of belonging. It is not surprising that this game of “friend or foe” as a way of redirecting aggression is very popular.

Finally, it is possible to redirect aggression also upwards, but not upwards, where the impulse that struck you came from, this, as we have said, is either impossible or dangerous, but somewhere upwards. As they say, shoot in the air. For example, to hate "the authorities in general." Scold the authorities without making any attempt to defend their rights. It’s still good to hate the government of another country. It is simple, safe and very breathable. As in the old Soviet joke: we have freedom of speech, anyone can go to Red Square and curse the US president.

The most approved and “intelligent” (as well as “Christian”) option is an attempt to quench the aggressive impulse on yourself. Lie on the grenade of aggression, covering it with you. One thing is bad - nobody can do it for a long time. Let not at one time, like a pomegranate, but in a few years aggression, swallowed up by an effort of will, destroys the body, turns into diseases and burnout. A person either gives in to the requirements of the environment and starts, like everyone else, to be a conductor of aggression from above in all directions, or learns not to feel, learns the very artificial “kindness” that often irritates people so much, emphasized “cultural” (or stressed believers).

One must be holy to absorbing aggression, not to collapse and not to pass on, and, as we know, the saints do not sow the field.

Helpless aggressor

However, this is not the end of the matter. You can redirect aggression. But at the same time you know: you have not solved the problem. Broken borders have not gone away. You did not protect yourself, your child, your territory, your rights. Suffer, swallowed. And for that you hate and despise yourself. So, every seemingly trivial act of violating your borders (teenagers yelling at the window at night) is not just a nuisance and disgrace for you (they don’t give sleep), this is a question that sounds in the head with mockingly mocking intonation: “Well, what will you do? You who are not capable of anything? You, insignificance?

There is no experience in solving such situations, there are almost no proven technologies for protecting borders, there are almost no borders themselves. Fearfully. Complicated. It is not clear how. And dozens of people toss and turn around in their beds, swearing and cursing "these freaks", but not one will go down to ask them to behave more quietly and not one will call the police to call the duty officer. Because: what if they are aggressive? And if they do not listen? Do the police come? And in general, what I need most of all, others suffer.

The paradox is that in fact we are dealing not with an excess, but with a lack of aggression, healthy aggression, able to protect. The long-term habit to let this energy into the side channels leads to the fact that in the most obvious, obvious situation, when we need to defend our borders, protect our peace and our loved ones, we are powerless to get angry and do nothing. Deciding in advance that this is impossible, although the teenagers under the window are not a police state and, in general, could be tried.

I remember a case: in the summer at night someone regularly rode under the windows on a loudly mumbling moped. We were tossing and turning, looking angry, looking out the window, did not dare to go down for a long time. There were fantasies in my head about how the brazen owner of a moped, a moral monster, specifically drives it at night, revels in his power over the whole neighborhood, which he does not allow to sleep and no one can do anything to him. Finally went to the yard - I wanted to sleep unbearably. Already quite evil, my husband just got in the way of a moped and when he braked, he grabbed our tormentor by the collar. And here we heard a frightened voice: "Uncle, do not beat me, please!"

“Moral freak” turned out to be a puny boy of 13 years old, who confusedly explained that he was riding at night simply because he had no rights, but he simply did not think about the fact that he was heard in the apartments: on the contrary, he was sure that , everyone is asleep and no one will know. Well, it is clear that there are parents who are not worried about where the child is at two in the morning.

Grabbed his moped and went to ride the wasteland. We shouted after him to drive carefully. It was both funny and embarrassing for themselves and their fantasies about someone abrupt and malicious.

Here lies a deeper and more serious reason: the disbelief in one's own strength, the consciousness of one’s own cowardice, contempt and self-defense hatred makes each case a hundred times more painful. To get out of the state of nothingness, people again use aggression - as a way to feel for a while their strength, their existence. Any aggression from above is always willing to join and loudly “support” (sometimes louder and more active than even the aggressor itself), as if this symbolic fusion with the “strong” gives them indulgence from nothingness. And the flows of redirected aggression do not dry out and run around impetuously.
And we descend from the ramp at the airport and enter this familiar aura, and our shoulders, fingers and jaws are slightly compressed ...

What to do

What to do? First of all, be aware of all this. To realize that the position of the eternal sacrifice is not at all the position of peacefulness and “kindness”. This is the position of passive, impotent aggression, which destroys both ourselves and the fabric of society, because when everything is “freaks” around - what kind of social fabric can there be?

To realize that we occupy this position not only because we have been driven into it, but also by our own choice. It is beneficial, with all the disadvantages, does not provide for any action and no responsibility. Sitting and getting accustomed to everything and everyone is simple and comfortable.

But if we ever want to stop hearing the question “Why is everyone so angry in Russia?” And stop “enjoying” the impotent rage everywhere spilled, we need to regain our aggression, our healthy anger, our ability to stand up for ourselves.

To recollect or re-create technologies for upholding one’s own borders, learn not to be afraid to say: “I do not agree, it doesn’t suit me”, not to be afraid to “stick out”, learn to unite with others in order to defend my rights. Not by chance, for example, many say that the crowd of people at protest rallies, oddly enough, turns out to be much more friendly, polite and cheerful than the crowd in the metro at rush hour. When people master a civilized way of expressing their aggression right at the address, they have nothing to be angry at around them.

Ultimately, the task is to rebuild the borders at all levels from bottom to top, to transform a vertical society into a society of some more interesting and complex configuration. And then it will surely turn out that we are not evil at all, but quite the opposite.

brenik

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Hello dear readers.

I often meet with the question " i / my friend / boyfriend / husband - show / show aggression. Why it happens? Where does all this aggression come from in it / in me? ”

Now I invite you to meet different theories  about becoming aggressive behavior.

The tendency of a person to aggressive actions tried to explain in different ways. One of the first to emerge was the point of view according to which in animals and in man there is a congenital "Instinct of aggressiveness». Freud he pointed to the instinctive basis of the human desire for destruction, considering fruitless attempts to suspend this process.

Another look at the origins of aggressive behavior is presented in social learning theory L. Berkowitz . In order for aggressive behavior to emerge and spread to a certain object, it is necessary that two conditions exist: first, letthat has arisen on the path of purposeful activity, caused a person’s reaction anger  and second, in order to the causes of the obstruction was perceived by another person.

One of the most discussed issues can be considered the influence of the media on the aggressive behavior of the individual. Supporters of the negative impact of the media  come from the fact that people learn to behave aggressively, primarily watching someone else's aggression. M.Hyusmann  with a group of researchers tracked the correlation between watching television and aggressiveness for 20 years.

They found that the gravity of the crimes committed at the age of 30 years corresponds to the preferences on television at the age of 8 years.

The mechanism of formation of aggressive behavior through television may be as follows: overuse of TV shows - aggressive fantasies - identifying oneself with a character - learning how to solve problems and influence people TV shows - and so on.

Aggressive actions  can be like arbitraryso and unintended. Unacceptable unintended aggressive behavior can be either accidental or poorly understood..

So, in a state of physiological affect consciousness narrows self-control is sharply reducedand personalitycan make dangerous aggressive actionswithout realizing full report on what is happening.  Separately, mention should be made of pathological aggression, which may be a consequence of the psychotic state and requires medical intervention. Irrational beliefs, inner voices, paranoid suspicion, ideas about divine messages, megalomania — all this can act as a pathological stimulus to aggression. It can act as a subjectively perceived means of self-defense., the embodiment of the ideas of messianism, manifestations of heroism, etc. However, the presence of a diagnosed mental abnormality is not yet a reliable prediction of the commission of destructive acts.

Aggressive behavior - quite an extensive topic for coverage - and I will definitely continue to talk about it in the next blogs.

Sincerely, Svetlana Leontyeva.