ggression can fall under a number of forms. Due to its relative nature, aggression is extremely hard to isolate and study. A major distinction made in animal studies of aggression, and one that may well have profound implications for human aggression, is the difference between offensive and defensive aggression (Feshbach, Zagrodzka 1997). Much research has already been done indicating that different brain sites mediate predation and defensive aggression. Aggression can take many different paths. The act of hitting a wall to release aggression has some of the same roots as playing football and enjoying hitting the quarterback. A child yelling at their parents could be equated in its aggressiveness with someone honking their horn when they get cut off driving. Psychologist Arlene Stillwell performed an experiment where she assigned ordinary college students at random to play the role of a victim or a perpetrator in a small incident. Then she asked the students to describe the situation that had just happened. What she found was that both victims and perpetrators deformed the truth equally to present their sides in a better light. Victims would dwell on their lasting traumas from the incident while the perpetrator might make the act seem like a one-time action provoked by insurmountable circumstances. The resulting implication is that aggression is in the eye of the beholder (Baumeister 1997). Some acts are very easy to categorize as aggressive, while others are not.As we know, aggression can take on many different routes. Here are two opposing views of aggression: (1) aggression in animals and humans is an inherited, spontaneous tendency much the same as the motivation to eat, drink and make love; (2) there is nothing inevitable about the expression of aggression, it depends as much upon experience and external factors as the internal state of the animal (Home Edition 2000). These two differing viewpoints are very importan...
