Understanding and Preventing Violence, Volume 2: Biobehavioral Influences (1994)
Chapter: EXPERIENCE-INDUCED CHANGES IN HORMONAL STATUS OF THE RECEIVER
the mechanisms involved in the elaboration and execution of a behavioral "project."
Perception is frequently assessed in routine clinical examinations. This is not because of an identified need to collect specific information on this important area of human performance, but is due rather to the clinically outmoded notion that the perceptual apparatus is particularly liable to brain damage (reviewed by Thomas et al., 1981). Hormones also alter perception in humans, possibly accounting for some behavioral changes. An animal's hormonal status certainly may affect its perception of stimuli that might act as social signals. Hormones can be regarded as acting on situational factors by altering the perception of signaling between conspecifics (Brain, 1983). Evidence for hormonal involvement in perception has been obtained for all the major sensory systems.
EFFECTS OF HORMONES ON SIGNAL GENERATION
Hormones may also alter the production of signals that serve social functions. The most frequently modified signals are somatosensory, olfactory, visual, or auditory. In many species, such signals have a profound effect on aggression (e.g., anosmic rodents do not fight, and conflict depends on the receiving of appropriate olfactory cues). Since it is certainly true that hormones modify both the perception of cues and the generation of potential signals in humans, it seems well worth examining the possibility that hormones can exert such indirect effects on aggression in our species also. It is worth adding that there is evidence that certain drug actions certainly are expressed in this manner. One of the ways in which alcohol influences human aggression is by interfering with rational social communication, leading to effects such as the "battered alcoholic syndrome." There have been virtually no attempts in clinical studies involving aggression to assess the impact of hormones in this way. This seems to be a rather obvious omission.
EXPERIENCE-INDUCED CHANGES IN HORMONAL STATUS OF THE RECEIVER
There is good evidence that signals expressed by the behavior of conspecifics can alter the functioning of their recipient's endocrine system. Workers (e.g., Lehrman, 1965; Silver, 1983) have found that behavior produces endocrine changes in a variety of
