full text - Caspar Bgsu - Bowling Green State University

1. Aggression 5
destruction, humans are at the same time also capable of the most remarkable
instances of compassion, understanding, and peaceful negotiation. The direction
depends on each individual’s ethical codes and moral norms driven by the
societal expectations, good parenting, or social contexts. A clear vision has
emerged where “natural” tendencies for aggression appear to be ubiquitous, but
so too are a plethora of sophisticated mechanisms that keep conflicts in check,
channel aggression, negotiate fighting signals, resolve conflicts, and ultimately
govern social group structure.
Tuvblad and Baker (Chapter 8) demonstrate that genetic influences
serve as powerful predictors of human aggression and violence. The relative
influence of genetics depends upon developmental age, type of aggression, and
the environmental context faced by the individual. LaPrairie and colleagues
(Chapter 9) review research linking perinatal factors and aggression and conclude
in a similar fashion that perinatal and neurodevelopmental factors
influence the expression of aggressive behaviors. Nordstrom and colleagues
(Chapter 10) further detail the importance of recognizing the role of brain
functioning deficits in the risk for aggressive outcomes. Recent advances in
imaging technology have enabled a far greater understanding of these influences
on human behavior and the risks of criminal outcomes. Importantly, the chapters
on human aggression also emphasize the fact that biology is not destiny and that,
in the case of human aggression and violence, there is much that can and should
be done in terms of early intervention and prevention.
The list of significant challenges in aggression research remains daunting
and the need to harness the full power of interdisciplinary approaches now
appears more urgent than ever. Aside from our need to reconcile simple questions
over terminology, a number of more serious impediments remain to be
acknowledged. Concepts seem so intimately connected that we are tempted to
view them as essentially overlapping, or to even use them synonymously (e.g.,
measures of an inherent tendency to fight, effectiveness in a contest, or the
ability to socially dominate others). A common fallacy views these simply as
separate perspectives onto the same, unitary phenomenon of aggression. For a
synthesis to emerge we must accept aggression’s multidimensional nature and
recognize that the term “aggression” simply serves as an overarching label for an
entangled complex of multiple, distinct components, causes, and functions. This
volume comes at a critical juncture for defining a broader view of aggression and
with it we hope to help define the structural elements that comprise the behavior
in its full complexity.
The time is now right to bridge theoretical frameworks, combine
experimental approaches, and relate significant findings across the many individual
disciplines that are instrumental in the analysis of aggression. Center
initiatives can serve as intellectual hubs for the comprehensive study of social
conflict, violence, and related phenomena. Bringing together individual