There are different reasons why a person may act aggressively towardsother human beings. The person may act this way because of his cultureor the way he was brought up in society. The person does not, however,act this way based on instinct alone. Aggression is a molded, learnedbehavior. A human being must have both environmental and instinctualfactors in order to display aggression. Some of a person's naturalinstincts are to desire food, reject certain things, escape fromdanger, fight when challenged, sex desire, care for the young,dominate, and to accept inferior status. The combination of instinctsand environment determines a person's behavior. This is based on thetheory that everything human beings do would have to be learned fromother human beings. Aggression must be learned; it is not simply therefrom birth. Rather than being an uncontrollable instinct, a person'sbehavior is something that is taught to him. For example, a newbornbaby is breathing because it is an involuntary reflex. On the otherhand, a father may tell his young son to beat up the school bully whois picking on him. As a result, the boy is taught to deal with thesituation by using violence.In order for an individual to display aggression, it must be driven byan instinct interacting with that person's surroundings. McDougalldefines the word instinct as "an inherited or innate psycho-physicaldisposition which determines its possessor to perceive, and to payattention to, objects of a certain class, to experience an emotionalexcitement of a particular quality upon perceiving such an object, andto act in regard to its particular manner, or, at least, to experiencean impulse to such action." This definition basically explains thatpeople have different reactions for different stimuli. Therefore, anindividual is prone to act a certain way when he is stimulated to do sofrom his surrounding environment. For example, the Eskimo does not havean innate instinct that allows him to survive in his climate. He istaught to work with his people in order to survive when he is veryyoung.When people are brought up in a society, they learn certain customs andtraditions. These customs are usually taught to them because it's partof their society's way of life, even though some of the customs mayseem cruel and repulsive to others. For example, cannibalism isabhorrent to us, but in some primitive cultures, to eat an enemy is togain his or her strength. This aggressive behavior was taught to thepeople of this culture and is the reason for its existence. People needto have exposure to aggressiveness in society in order to actaggressive. For example, there was a tribe in New Guinea, the fentou,who were fierce warriors that were always fighting and killing. Thechildren of these people learned this hostility from their parents andthen acted in the same way. A parent's method of child rearing lays thefoundation for aggression. The child rearing practices themselves arethe overall design of a particular culture.When a group of people are isolated, their behavior does not changeunless they interact with other people. The Tasaday tribe is an exampleof a group of people who were completely isolated. They showed no signsof aggression due to the fact that they had no words for weapon,hostility, anger or war. The Tasaday were a food gathering tribe andhad no use for weapons. The tribe only used knives and other thingsthat might be classified as weapons as tools to gather food. They alsorejected the spear and the bow and arrow because they could not usethem to gather food. There could not have been anything in theirgenetic makeup that made them act in an aggressive or peaceful manner.This was their way of life that was taught from generation togeneration, and the tribe did what was needed to survive.The origin of human aggression lies in factors such as society andculture. Aggression is a learned emotion that is built on differentfactors in a person's environment. It is the combination ofenvironment, society and culture that creates aggressive behavior. Itis the person's natural instincts that are the foundation for thethree. The Tasaday tribe was a peaceful group of people, while theFentou were aggressive warriors. Both of the tribes had the ability foraggression and passivity but were driven to one by their environment,society and culture.
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