New study suggests humans are not naturally violent.

A new study published last month in Nature Journalsuggests that humans are naturally good. This study adds to the mounting evidence against the popular misconception that corruption is a trait of human nature.

In ten experiments using economic games, scientists observed that faster decisions result in more cooperation and generosity, while slower, calculated decisions show a decrease in cooperation and generosity. The conclusion is that the automatic reaction is to be friendly, generous and cooperative, and only upon further consideration do humans become greedy or violent.

www.trueactivist.com...

This kind of goes against what we are taught to believe. That it is natural for human beings to be negative to each other. Children know positive facial recognition from birth. Negative recognition is taught. I wonder how much society and government teach us to be negative..

Why would an original sin transfer to the son anyway? Always thought genesis was a crock of #ocki mushrooms

reply to post by purplemer


I don't know what you were taught, but I was taught that the very basis of the word "society" necessatates cooperation and team work.

Also "violence" is a made up concept, as all predators are violent, humans being predators by nature, means "violence" is natural.

So I really don't see the point of the study, as all that it shows in reality, is that people are predispossed too working together when it is in their best interest, and working for their own gain when it is not.

reply to post by purplemer


Excellent thread, and I agree, and have always believed all humans are inherently non-violent. From every situation where violence occurs, you normally can draw it back to some kind of injustice or abuse mentally or physically that took place in some shape or form and wasn't address to cause a boiling point, where enough was enough and self preservation kicks in.

I've always felt we had a general friendly disposition, but it was the over all quality of life that determines that more and more, the less stress involved the more likely someone is to show a non hostile friendly nature to another. Of course this isn't 100%, and deviations in this model are subjected to not follow suite.

So naturally instinctually we are good, but the mind moulded by education and society, which itself is moulded, makes us greedy, competitive, and self centered. Makes perfect sence IMHO.

This is how we are manipulated and controlled, from the earliest oppertunity. What would we be if it was not for this system. Would we have all this technology? Or would we have gone a different way, I doubt we would have stayed primitive. It's evolution baby. Our path has been directed I feel, keeping us from what our true potentials may be, in order to gain technology. We have it now. Now what?

Our nature is largely social conditioning, so this doesn't really mean anything. We can see we're naturally violent in human history, from recent all the way back to early tool use, we HAVE to be violent in order to protect ourselves and hunt for meat. Not in this day and age of course. Violent is not a good word though, like the above poster said, violence is a human concept.

reply to post by SpearMint


We don't have to be violent to survive, we just have to be smarter than our enemies or prey. Violence is completely different, and suggest a lack of intelligence, in my honest opinion.

To be violent, is to be completely driven by emotion, and that suggests some growing to still be done, as with using our free speech to not call others fat in emails symbolizes more learning to be had with that as well.

It's all relative to the action / reaction, and really doesn't define us as a whole anymore. Maybe a fraction of us, but even the majority of military members aren't in the military to fight a war, they are in there to honestly get skills, college money, job security, and some even a lack of better options.

There is always a fraction who strives for violence and I am sure in high school, you've seen them, but as we are talking about this subject via an internet forum, and not bashing the concept into each others heads, I believe we are evolving, slowly, but surely.

i don't think i agree with the findings. from what i have seen of young children and it doesn't seem to matter how they were raised seem to have a violent tendency. whether it be kicking, biting, scratching, pulling hair, throwing tantrums. they ALL seem to do it. pretty much as soon as they are really mobile this trait seems to come out to varying degrees. all it can take to trigger it is something they want, and you will not give it, or something they don't want like eating their dinner and they start. even the best behaved children seem to go through this especially if they are tired. that to me seems to state that it is inherent behavior and not trained behavior. in fact i have NEVER HEARD OF a child who didn't do this. especially at the age of about 2 or 3 years old. even to the point that one of the first learned and most often used words is NO or linguistically similar words for that or DO NOT LIKE. i see this behavior from pretty much all kids, doesn't mater if they are disciplined or not disciplined or even just let run wild.it also dosn't seem to matter if those around them constantly fight or never fight, or even if the only other person is a single parent. as such i can't swallow that it is LEARNED behavior.

Born into a world of privilege and of unlimited resources this is probably true for most people.
Do you suppose it was conflict over diminishing resources that ended the Russian Czarist rule in 1917?
Certainly capitalism and the war machine stimulated the US economy during its civil war.
This is a deep question that can't be answered quickly IMHO. There appears to be some periodic reassignment of control at play over time.

reply to post by generik


Very well stated, star for you.

I am tired of all of this peace and love hippy crap, competition breeds excellence, the very nature of competition requires that one try to excell at the cost of another. This is the state of the natural world, look around, all animals participate in this activity.

Human nature is most easily seen by looking at history, history teaches a much different lesson than any of this new age crap. People are predatory, preying on all that provides them with a benefit.

If you make more money than the poorest segment of society, yet don't donate every dime more than that to helping the down trodden than you are succeeding at the cost of another. If you eat, you are sustaining your own life at the cost of another, if you reproduce you are simply adding another mouth that needs fed at the expense of anothers life etc.

Every single person that has ever lived, is equally responsible for death, and violence, either directly, being the killer yourself, or indirectly by buying food from the market.

The purpose of life is to die, so that other life may raise from your fall, it is only natural, thinking anything else is illogical. Look around you, "violence" does now and always has existed in nature, it is natural, not evil. Evil is a concept made up by man, to teach everyone to be sheeple, instead of the lions we were born to be. Thus perpetuating the cycle, of those on top staying on top, as they are more than willing to be "violent" and steal or cheat to get by, just like a animal will steal the food of another less observant animal, without remorse, or regret.

Nature people, it is all nature, and we are not exempt. This has been known for thousands of years, even back when we were pure, ruled only by the elements, and our drive to survive. Making kings and laws, has not changed anything, it has just allowed widespread cooperation to happen in the first place. Not restricted or hampered it in any way.

Originally posted by Moneyisgodlifeisrented
reply to post by SpearMint

 

We don't have to be violent to survive, we just have to be smarter than our enemies or prey. Violence is completely different, and suggest a lack of intelligence, in my honest opinion.

To be violent, is to be completely driven by emotion, and that suggests some growing to still be done, as with using our free speech to not call others fat in emails symbolizes more learning to be had with that as well.

It's all relative to the action / reaction, and really doesn't define us as a whole anymore. Maybe a fraction of us, but even the majority of military members aren't in the military to fight a war, they are in there to honestly get skills, college money, job security, and some even a lack of better options.

There is always a fraction who strives for violence and I am sure in high school, you've seen them, but as we are talking about this subject via an internet forum, and not bashing the concept into each others heads, I believe we are evolving, slowly, but surely.

I'd like to see you outwit a wild animal when it tries to eat you 200k years ago.

reply to post by inverslyproportional


I dunno about you, but the purpose of my life is to experience it. Dying is part of the cycle, not the purpose, a car's purpose isn't to wreck or break down ( some could argue ) but that's it's end result. And the purpose of sex is to make babies, yet 98% of the world is guilty of having sex with the sole purpose of experience and feeling attached.

So I think we can safely say death is our result of living, and experience is our purpose.

With that said, unless you want nothing but chaos and pain, violence isn't the route to go, when you 1st meet someone new, do you want to punch them? It's normally that they say something you don't agree with that leads to the feelings of violence. Thus making violence more of a emotional action and not one of sound thought.

You fight for lack of another alternative. Doesn't mean it's the only way, and if you aren't able to see that other way, then we aren't looking hard enough, I'm not new agey, I am a realist, and realistically, we cannot keep violence as our means of communication an still say we are evolving.

Originally posted by inverslyproportional
reply to post by purplemer

 

Also "violence" is a made up concept, as all predators are violent, humans being predators by nature, means "violence" is natural.

Perhaps you'ld like to rephrase this sentence so it makes sense?

Originally posted by inverslyproportional
Also "violence" is a made up concept, as all predators are violent, humans being predators by nature, means "violence" is natural.

So I really don't see the point of the study, as all that it shows in reality, is that people are predispossed too working together when it is in their best interest, and working for their own gain when it is not.

I agree that violence is our natural state. After all, man did start as hunter-gatherers, at least in this go-round. The presence of projectile points and blunt force trauma in human skeletons from antiquity shows us that man has never had a problem with unleashing violence.

Also agreed on the point of the study. Sounds like a bunch of shrinks got together with too much time and money on their hands.

Exactly

for decades...perhaps centuries...weve been discussing 'human nature' without using a single pure demographic - that is, each culture has inherited from and enforced upon its people the misgivings of generations; in effect reducing to absurdity the claims of sinful nature as weve been educated by the uneducated throughout known history!

further...anyone who has given birth will testify the the inborn goodness of humans before the indoctrination metamorphosis begins!!!

∞LOVE

mayallsoulsbefree∞

Originally posted by jcarpenter

Originally posted by inverslyproportional
Also "violence" is a made up concept, as all predators are violent, humans being predators by nature, means "violence" is natural.

So I really don't see the point of the study, as all that it shows in reality, is that people are predispossed too working together when it is in their best interest, and working for their own gain when it is not.

I agree that violence is our natural state. After all, man did start as hunter-gatherers, at least in this go-round. The presence of projectile points and blunt force trauma in human skeletons from antiquity shows us that man has never had a problem with unleashing violence.

Also agreed on the point of the study. Sounds like a bunch of shrinks got together with too much time and money on their hands.

However we evolved and it is now part of our nature. It has been for a LONG time, which is evident in our teeth and digestive system.

I think humans don't really know what they are anymore. Modern people lack that natural connection to nature and sustaining themselves. They are programmed through education, TV and their "leaders" which further twists and perverts that link. The major wars in the recent past have been the result of manipulation of the masses into tools for the benefit of the elite.

reply to post by Moneyisgodlifeisrented


So then an animals life, let's say a dogs life, is brought about to experience life? What about a butterfly? What about a fruit fly that only lives a couple of days? How about grass, what experiences does it get? Or even single celled life?

Your opppinion is of a religious " man is different, seperate from all other life" view point. If life was about experiencing "life" than things would be different, life wouldn't rrquire the death of other life to survive.

Instead, for life to continue, it requires the death of other life. When life ends, many many many new lives spring forth from that single death.

Life is simply a natural function of entropy. All states of all things always seek out a more chaotic state.

Order, therby peace, is not the nature of the universe, chaos, therby death and destruction is however.

I am not stating phylosophical beliefs here, I am stating known facts. You are using emotions to guide your responses, I am using cold hard logic.

Emotions are simply natures way of forcing desired responses to stimuli on the subject in question. We don't love because we are divine, we love because it is the best way to force most members of the species to work together to protect and guarantee the survival of their family unit. Fear only exists to force a flight or fight response, to guarantee the survival of the subject in question to guarantee a longer life, thus more time to breed more life. Joy and happiness only exist to force the desired effect of rewarding behavior that is productive to maintaining and ensuring the survival of the family unit, jonking around, pride etc.

The point is, life is designed at every level to ensure more life is born, so that it can die and give life to more life. There is no phylosophical answer as phylosophy was a construct of mans intuitive mind. It isn't a natural state, it is a end result of evveolutionary developement, that has given rise to the most dominant form of life known at present to have ever existed on this planet, nothing more.

One cannot think to apply man made consepts to natural evolution, it isn't the same thing, one simply is, the other was created out of want of an answer, as to what the reason for such an intuitive mind on such a hostile and violent existant, that is at the same time, finite, and huge beyond measure.

There is no way in hell I can accept a black and white statement like, "human beings are not naturally violent"...does not compute.

We made it to the top of the food chain by being violent and by cooperating. We were primal and killed other species for survival, and intra-species cooperated when it was best, and were violent when best.

Our "nature" isn't set in stone, and it isn't so evenly distributed from person to person. It's basically a baloney concept from the get go. Some people are more prone to being violent to other human beings (psychopaths), while others are naturally more passive and non-aggressive. It depends on not only one's genetic makeup, but life experiences.

Our "nature" was mostly peaceful for a long time before the end of the last ice age. As the climate shifted, resources dwindled and we started warring with each other non-stop. It doesn't mean either was our "nature"...it means we adapted to the terrain, else perished.

This study has a horrible conclusion. It's as if they don't believe thinking logically is in our "nature".

Poor science.

reply to post by purplemer


great find, This is interesting research! I hope they do some follow up studies as well.

This resonates with my own personal experiences and I have often wondered about group dynamics concerning this.