Aggression

Aggression may be defined as

• The act of initiating hostilities or invasion.
• The practice or habit of launching attacks.
• Hostile or destructive behavior or actions.

Aggression is one of the most important and most controversial kinds of motivation. Its use as a category in the psychology of motivation has often been criticised, because it is clear that it encompasses a vast range of phenomena, from modern war to squabbles between individuals, and it is far from clear that these have anything in common other than the risk that someone gets hurt. There is a constant danger that concepts and explanations that are useful in the study of one kind of aggression will be misapplied in a different field. However, it remains one of the most important topics in many areas of psychology and other social sciences, including:

• motivation
• ethology and comparative psychology
• social psychology
• psychoanalysis and other kinds of depth psychology
• game theory
• social anthropology
• criminology
• international relations

External link

• causes of and remedies for aggression [in Dutch]