Why Do People Engage In Violence?

Violence is often driven by negative emotions such as anger or fear, but it can also be driven by psychological, biological, and social forces. People turn to violence for various reasons, including frustration, anger, or perceived humiliation. Violent groups can promote violent behavior among members by increasing motivation to engage in violence, particularly through group identification.

Violent displays enlist the meaning-making power of embodied actions, harnessing the human body’s capacity to stand for larger social bodies, categories, and concepts. This collective violent act expresses the desire for a preferred social order. Most young people do not engage in large-scale violence or participate in armed conflicts, but the spate of violent conflicts in Africa and global demographic patterns since the 1990s put Africa and its youth at the epicentre of the issue.

The violent group itself, and the identity it bestows on participating members, is an often overlooked and fundamental source of motivation for an individual’s participation in collective violence. Collective violence, whether spontaneous or organized, can occur at one extreme or another. Radicalization does not inevitably lead to violence and terrorism, but it can facilitate them.

Men commit violent and sexual offenses at far higher rates than women, and they are also the most likely victims of physical violence across different social and political turmoil. Ending violence is a global priority, and strategies to engage men and boys in preventing violence against women and girls have grown in recent decades.

Violence can be used as a medium to express feelings such as anger, frustration, or sadness, or as a form of manipulation for individuals to try and get what they want or need.

What is the root of violence?

Many things can cause violence, including bad parenting, genetics, mood disorders, medical problems, abuse, brain injury, substance abuse, peer pressure, and media overload. Violence can be passed down through generations. Abusive parents were often abused as children. A woman who is abused is more likely to abuse her child. Studies have found that many incarcerated and homeless women have been abused. Many causes of antisocial behavior can be prevented or treated. People who are violent, aggressive, or sadistic often have problems with their brain chemistry or hormones. This can be caused by head injuries, mood disorders, seizures, or substance abuse. These imbalances can be seen in scans of brain activity and may be treated. Parents who aren’t ready or supported are more likely to interact with their infants or children inappropriately, which can lead to attachment problems. These are linked to later antisocial behavior. If a baby doesn’t get enough food or care before it’s born, it can have problems learning. If these problems aren’t treated, they can cause problems at school.

What is the root of all violence?

Many things can cause violence, including bad parenting, genetics, mood disorders, medical problems, abuse, brain injury, substance abuse, peer pressure, and media overload. Violence can be passed down through generations. Abusive parents were often abused as children. A woman who is abused is more likely to abuse her child. Studies have found that many incarcerated and homeless women have been abused. Many causes of antisocial behavior can be prevented or treated. People who are violent, aggressive, or sadistic often have problems with their brain chemistry or hormones. This can be caused by head injuries, mood disorders, seizures, or substance abuse. These imbalances can be seen in scans of brain activity and may be treated. Parents who aren’t ready or supported are more likely to interact with their infants or children inappropriately, which can lead to attachment problems. These are linked to later antisocial behavior. If a baby doesn’t get enough food or care before it’s born, it can have problems learning. If these problems aren’t treated, they can cause problems at school.

Are violent beings born or made?

On Tuesday, scientists looked at the question from a new angle—that of evolutionary biology. They concluded that our violent nature was inherited from an ancient ancestor and shared with other primates. The researchers wrote in the science journal Nature that lethal violence is deeply rooted in the lineage of monkeys, apes, and humans. This suggests that some level of lethal violence in humans comes from being part of a violent group of mammals.

Do humans naturally crave violence?

Scientists have known that mice and other animals are drawn to fights. Until now, they didnt know how the brain was involved.

The new study, detailed online this week in the journal Psychopharmacology, reveals the same clusters of brain cells involved in other rewards are also behind the craving for violence.

Aggression occurs among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary to get and keep important resources such as mates, territory and food, said study team member Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. We have found that the reward pathway in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved.

Does violence create peace?

Some fear of punishment is necessary for law and order, but violence and war don’t work in the long run. To achieve peace, we must expand our consciousness. Q. Can violence and war ever achieve peace? War won’t make us peaceful. History shows us this is true. If we don’t change our minds, we’ll never be at peace. Only spiritual thinking and living will bring this transformation. We can’t fix a problem by fighting.

Peace and violence are opposites. Violence is a strong reaction, not a response. Reactions lead to more reactions. Amma heard that in England, thieves were punished in a strange way. They would publicly flog the thief to let everyone know what would happen to them if they committed a crime.

Is violence ever the answer?

The right answer is that violence is never the answer. But if that were true, there would be no wars, fights, or arguments. While violence is usually a bad solution, there are times when it’s the only option. These situations have consequences. They can affect you personally, your country, and the world.

Maybe there’s a way to know when violence will happen. A way to measure when a person or country is ready to fight. Aggression usually comes from attacks on loved ones. Insults or jokes about family members can cause violence. The death of innocent civilians can cause a country to send its armed forces. Pride also makes people fight, but less than attacks on loved ones. While physical confrontation is wrong, people understand those who fight back when insulted. When a country is attacked by another country, its citizens are more likely to support a military response. Does this mean violence is justified? No, it doesn’t. But if people are angry about something personal, they are more likely to support violence. Some people support violence for their country or their beliefs, but they don’t like other types of violence. Violence without a reason is wrong, especially when it hurts someone who didn’t do anything. People who are killed or injured in robberies, mass shootings, bombings, or random attacks are often seen as heroes. Meanwhile, the attacker is seen as horrible. The public doesn’t support unprovoked violence. If an event is prominent enough, it can lead to further violence. Of course, unprovoked violence seems illogical, which makes it hard to understand and accept. But that doesn’t mean that only unprovoked violence is frowned upon. People who attack others to protect their pride or reputation are also frowned upon. People don’t usually see it as heroic to attack someone or a country just because they were offended. This kind of violence is selfish, careless, and unhelpful because it makes things worse. Don’t let people destroy your honor, but don’t fight back if they’re just being passive-aggressive. Those who fight to save their dignity are not proud of what they fight for. Fighting for pride doesn’t mean you’re standing up for yourself. It’s more about ego. Words are better than violence. Violence is wrong. It will always happen, but it is not the right solution. They make things worse.

Are humans naturally warlike?

Humans are certainly capable of physical aggression, and this could be prevalent in simple hunter–gatherer societies. Yet, we are not inherently warlike. Group-level aggression is a feature of more complex societies. It only occurs if there is something worth fighting over, whether this is land, minerals, precious objects, or any other scarce and valuable resource that may be taken, and defended, through warfare.

1. Barber, N.. Evolution in the here and now: How adaptation and social learning explain humanity. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield/Prometheus Books.

2. Shostak, M.. Nisa: The life and words of a !Kung woman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

What is the desire for violence?

Abstract. Appetitive aggression describes a biologically-driven form of aggressive behaviour and violence characterized by positive affect. In contrast to reactive aggression, which has the function of resisting a threat, and reducing concomitant negative emotional arousal and anger, appetitive aggression underlies the pleasure of violence. A prototypical example is hunting, which can in turn transfer to the hunting of humans and can even result in bloodlust, and killing for its own sake. At the physiological level, this morally illicit pleasure is accompanied by an adrenalin surge, the release of cortisol and endorphins. In order to activate reward systems via appetitive aggression, their moral and cultural restraints need to be overridden. For example, armed groups work to dehumanize the enemy. Once initiated, a positive feedback loop is generated: As the individual commits more acts of violence with elements of positive affect, the tendency to commit them grows, and they begin to be perceived more positively. A latent passion for fighting and dominance can probably be evoked in almost all men and in some women. The cumulative outcome of whole groups, tribes, or communities enacting this aggression is war and destruction, to the point of trying to extinguish entire ethnic groups:”…and yes, human beings, hundreds of thousands of otherwise normal people, not professional killers, did it.” (from “The Killers in Rwanda Speak” by Jean Hatzfeld, 2005). Thus, appetitive aggression, the disposition towards a lust for violence, is by no means a psychopathological anomaly but an intrinsic part of the human behavioural repertoire. Morality, culture and the state monopoly on violence constitute the guards that regulate aggression potential and to channel it into socially useful forms. *Introduction. The genealogy of mankind displays a remarkable diversity. It is striking that wherever Homo sapiens appeared, other species disappeared. Were our ancestors so much fitter than for example Neanderthals, who were equipped with larger brains, or were they simply ruthless hunters, who were able to overcome constraints to kill their own kind more easily? We know only little about the encounters between groups in prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities. Surveying members of tribal cultures for example in the Amazon region, who had not come into contact with other societies at the time of investigation, suggests that there have always been cultures in which a considerable number of human beings have died primarily at the hands of other men (Chagnon, 1968). Discoveries that date back to the Pleistocene/early Holocene, have confirmed the possibility that our ancestors back in the Stone Age had a violent nature: Lahr and colleagues reported that ten out of twelve skeletons found at the bank of Lake Turkana in Kenya, showed signs of a violent death at the hands of other humans – thus people were massacring each other as early as the New Stone Age! It is not unreasonable to posit that such aggressive behaviour is governed by phylogenetic elements. Gómez et al. investigated the percentage of death caused by members of the same species in various mammals and concluded that phylogenetically the percentage of human deaths through interpersonal violence is 2%, a rate, which can also be observed in apes. But of course, the extent of lethal violence dramatically varies throughout the course of history, depending on the various socio-politic organisations of different societies. We nevertheless assert that humans can be put into a mode in which they can and do kill others; and this not strictly in self-defence or to obtain material gain, but rather for the pleasure of the act itself. *Aggression exists in two worlds of feeling. Two essentially different forms of aggression can be described (e.g. Fontaine, 2007; McEllistrem, 2004): Reactive aggression functions to resist a threat. This leads to high levels of arousal with negative affective valence, which is determined by emotions like fear, anger, rage or hostility. Once the threat is overcome, relief is increasingly felt and the physiological arousal diminishes (Fig. 1, left part). A different type of aggression is the one of a ‘predator. If executed it is often pro-active and intended. It seeks reward, which could be material (prey) or social, in the form of maintaining a reputation or establishing dominance (power). Perhaps anticipation of the expected prey can explain part of the motivation, so that besides fear of negative consequences of the fight there are also positive feelings – but in many cases this is not enough to explain the actual behaviour. Where, for example is the material gain of the first-person shooter game in comparison to more social computer games without any bloodshed? Alternately let us look at hunters in the Stone Age with their often arduous and exhausting endeavours to track an animal, hunt it down, and then finally execute it: The reward is too far away to motivate the hunting behaviour. Rather, the hunt itself must motivate and activate the reward system; deprivation and pain must be met with release of endorphins (Fig. 1, right side). When a cat chases a ball of wool, a football team runs after the ball, or a hunter goes deerstalking, then it is not actually about the wool, the ball or the prey but about the genuine enjoyment of pursuit; in some contexts this becomes the lust for fighting and hunting. However, the relevant culture and society sets the moral boundaries for that lust. Hooligans exceed the threshold of our societally accepted boundaries, although they obey their own set of rules (no tools, no weapons, once someone is on the ground that person is off limits). “Now, the passion to fight for your club and the adrenaline rush that comes with it was unbelievable. But I dont think that this addiction can be understood…” football hooligan Brown reports in his book Villians (Brown and Brittle, 2006). In his novel Hool Philip Winkler describes this special feeling of anticipation, which sets in prior to the exchange of blows: “as something would start to float in your stomach” (Winkler, 2016). Philosophers, natural scientists and psychologists traditionally characterise the practise of “violence only for the sake of lust” as psychopathological. Someone who is unable or unwilling to comply with this moral taboo is “sick” or “radicalised”. This propensity towards violence is seen as a base instinct, and shrouded in taboo. Although legally judged as particularly heinous, a latent desire is still there in the population and can be easily sparked with the right social and psychological circumstances. Data from diverse contexts show that lust to attack, fight and hunt, including extreme states of “bloodlust”, and “Combat High”, can be potentially awoken in nearly all people, at least when male. We describe this as ‘appetitive aggression (Elbert et al., 2010; Weierstall and Elbert, 2011; Elbert et al., 2017), a concept that can be developed from our studies of fighting in conflict regions, from surveys of gang members in townships and from child soldiers and street children. Fighters in every scenario report that after a phase of habituation and transition, in which fighting and killing is perceived as horrendous and accompanied with physical discomfort, repeated acts of violence are felt with an increasingly positive affect: “It has become an urge for me to throw bombs. It is arousing, it is a fine feeling. It is just as nice as shooting someone” (a soldier of the armed forces reports, cited after Neitzel and Welzer, 2011 our translation). Such statements are found with a high frequency in all war scenarios, such as in investigations into the genocide in Rwanda: “The more we killed, the more motivated we were to keep doing it. When you can act on your desires without consequence, then it never lets you go. You could recognize us by our dead eyes.…It was an unexpected collective pleasure.” (from Time of the machetes, conversations with perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda by Hatzfeld, 2005). During our representative interviews with fighters in East Congo, in North Uganda or in Columbia we keep hearing statements like the following: “We were sitting together, my uncle and me, we were talking about our glorious fights and then the need for fighting, the urge came up in us. It could be even at 7 oclock at night, when it was already dark, that we took the guns then and went to kill.” (Interview by Schauer; from Elbert et al., 2013). Reports of positive affect during hunting, fighting and killing, as well as during preparation for these acts can be found outside of the context of war. For example, appetitive aggression was ubiquitous in our clinical interviews with gang-affiliated youths in the townships of South Africa (Weierstall et al., 2013). The prevalence of appetitive aggression is not limited to a small fraction of persons, in fact the majority of boys join the gangs. Of course, in many cases this can be seen as a situational necessity, but the young men also speak of the thrill of the joint attack and the lust to chase the other gangs.

What are the causes of violent behavior?

• Previous aggressive or violent behavior
• Being the victim of physical abuse and/or sexual abuse
• Exposure to violence in the home and/or community
• Being the victim of bullying
• Genetic (family heredity) factors
• Exposure to violence in media (TV, movies, etc.)
• Use of drugs and/or alcohol
• Presence of firearms in home
• Combination of stressful family socioeconomic factors (poverty, severe deprivation, marital breakup, single parenting, unemployment, loss of support from extended family)
• Brain damage from head injury

What are the warning signs for violent behavior in children?

Children who have several risk factors and show the following behaviors should be carefully evaluated: