Understanding and Preventing Violence, Volume 2: Biobehavioral Influences (1994)
Chapter: HORMONES AND AGGRESSION
Similar critiques could be advanced for homicide, assault, etc., before adding the complications introduced by procedures such as plea bargaining. Other studies involve investigations of persons resisting attack on themselves or on property, analysis of individuals with a variety of psychiatric and clinical disorders, and comparisons of male and female individuals (e.g., variations in "rough-and-tumble play" and correlating premenstrual tension with crime).
The focus of this review is human violence. Violence is used almost interchangeably with aggression in most reviews. One might add that violence is a term often applied to aggressive actions that attract greater than normal social disapproval. In this respect, the term clearly fulfills Felson's role of being used to label behavior that transgresses normative values. Obviously, since judgments of sections of society may be involved in determining which behaviors receive the labels aggression and violence, relating hormones to such human activities is not easy. It is doubtful whether one can always differentiate adaptive forms of aggression from maladaptive violent and aggressive acts, because this implies a very accurate knowledge of the motivations of all participants at all times. The definition of the Panel on the Understanding and Control of Violent Behavior of violent human behavior as "threatened, attempted, or completed intentional infliction of physical harm by persons against persons" is eminently reasonable and is broadly the type of behavior referred to throughout this account. One must note, however, that even within such a framework, "appropriate" vigor grades into violence. Obviously, areas of contention include physical punishment of children and activities in a range of contact sports.
HORMONES AND AGGRESSION
It is necessary to note initially that what we call aggression is (like any other behavioral concept) influenced by diverse factors that are difficult (impossible?) to disentangle. These include
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biological factors (i.e., genes, neural systems, neurotransmitters, and hormones);
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situational determinants (i.e., the environmental or social context); and
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the accumulated experiences of individuals.
Figure 1 is a schema of the relationship between biology and behavior. If one looks at interindividual forms of aggression, one is
