Nature of Aggression

Nature of Aggression

Aggression is the quintessential basis for all sociopathic behavior, and a primary concern in the fields of behavioral, developmental, social, and clinical psychology, and is covered to some extent in nearly every other field of psychology. Yet aggression is also necessary for human beings as a way to protect one's individuality, to enhance one's social standing, and often to protect oneself from bodily harm—all purposes very important to the maintenance of one's mental health also. It is therefore a complex phenomenon and, depending on the context, the term aggression can be made to carry positive or negative connotations. It can manifest itself in the form of a behavior that may be self-protective and self-assertive, become more active with the result being injury to others, or passively wrought to the infliction of harm unto oneself. Whether or not aggression is biologically determined, the product of environmental influences, or simply a learned behavior is a slippery-slope argument that can neither be debunked nor proved at the current stage of psychological and medical research. These considerations go beyond the scope of this paper, and therefore will not be discussed. On the other hand, the application, through comparison and contrast, of the psychodynamic theories to issues of human aggression can provide some moderately satisfactory models of this phenomenon, in spite of the uncertainty as to the scientific origins of aggression. In particular, the psychoanalytic model of Freud and the analytical psychology of Jung are an excellent basis by which to elucidate some origins of human aggression.

The Psychodynamic Theories

The constructs devised by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are the ...

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...to have an off day and all of a sudden butcher fifty innocent people. Accordingly, it is not uncommon for a hardened, aggressive individual to have his off day and decide to react more diplomatically to a situation in which he would have formerly used aggression as his way out. The trends of aggression are hardly consistent among even these two extremes of individuals. We thus find an explanation for at least some, if not all, aggressive episodes and epiphenomenona through the application of Jungian and Freudian constructs.

Summary

The above dissection of the anatomy of human aggression serves to elucidate the fact that Freudian and Jungian theories, though very similar in their respective ideologies, are two entirely different, yet complimentary constructs which provide some very resonant answers to the questions of the seeming excessiveness of human aggression.