New study suggests humans are not naturally violent.

reply to post by moniesisfun


It would be interesting to see some follow up research on this.

I agree, there is a percentage of the population that is more aggressive than the rest. I would like to see what % of the population initiates the more selfish policies.

Originally posted by Cauliflower
Born into a world of privilege and of unlimited resources this is probably true for most people.

I think you've hit on a key point here:

Competition for resources.

If people are getting enough to eat and meet other basic needs, perhaps violence need not manifest as a trait. However, if there is competition for limited resources, whether you call it violence or want to give it some other name in a game of semantics, there will be competition for those limited resources if anyone thinks that violence can't be the result of such competition I'd like to know why you think that. We certainly see that in our related mammal cousins in the animal kingdom, in fighting to defend territories for example. We also see cooperation, as within a pack of wolves, but there can be violence between the packs to defend territories, so it can get complicated.

www.isleroyalewolf.org...

Being an alpha wolf requires aggression, control, and leadership. Perhaps not surprisingly, alpha wolves typically possess higher levels of stress hormones than do subordinate wolves, who may not eat as much, but have, apparently, far less stress.

Pack members are usually, but not always friendly and cooperative. Wolves from other packs are usually, but not always enemies.

Yes I know we aren't wolves, and I'm not trying to say we are. However I'm saying that wolves aren't as intelligent as humans and even for them, tendency toward violence is not simple and clear-cut. For more intelligent and more complicated creatures like humans, it's even less simple and clear-cut, so I don't think that we can say it "is" or "is not" in our nature to be violent.

So, I'd have to say "it depends", "it" referring to human tendency toward violence. The availability or scarcity of limited resources may be just one thing that it depends on, though that's probably the easiest to understand. Since we've historically seen violence related to differing ideologies (like in the crusades), competition for ideologies and other factors may also play roles in our tendencies toward violence, in addition to competition for resources.

reply to post by purplemer



What they have measured is the basic altruism seen in every living creature on the planet. That snake that bites you....is just doing what snakes do when scared. There isn't malevolence. Why? Because of the physical manifestation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in the behavior of creatures. "Universal law" means that it effects even living animals, taking calculated logic to work against. No animal does work that it doesnn't have need of doing (even if that need is just moving to keep the metabolism stoked)

But part of human nature is the results of our logical mind. No, it isn't part of the base behavior, but it is part of the natural behavior for a human to use abstract thought to identify scarcity as a real concern (or whatever else it is that would drive a person to kill). Greed is nothing more than behavioral habit created by fear of scarcity.

Scarcity is, in theory, a part and parcel of our planet. That would make the behavior derived from scarcity, greed, a natural behavior arising from our natural penchant for abstract thought.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


and you have just nailed the reason behind the worlds woes.

We are now technological beings, using technology to leverage a fleeting dragon: ease of life.

While the daily grind of life in the west has improved, there is no relief in scarcity. Why? Why would we find a more productive way to do literally everything, yet see no improvements in the final productivity?

ProtoplasmicTraveller used to touch on the concept of "false scarcity". While his take on it may have some holes, the overall concept is very sound, very true. Resources, on a global level, are doled out by those at the top. Depending on where you are geographically, as well as socially, determines what you will have the chance to get.

Everything in our system is designed to put more in the hands of those with enough already, while taking it away from the bottom. You cannot change that by voting Democrat, either. It is woven into the fabric of the system. Those with money have the chance to save more money by taking advantage of timing, etc. While those without money spend extreme amounts paying off payday loans just to get by. The system itself is rotten to the core.

But I have yet to see a better alternative. You can always get a loan and leverage the spending power of that dollar for returns, even if marginal, on your investment The housing bubble was full of folks doing this. PRoblem is, the bottom earners cannot afford a bank account. All the fees...imagine how much it would hurt to lose 10% of your paycheck just paying the fees for 1 single overdraft. The ripple effect of debt that a simple $35 fee can create keeps a large portion of the population from having access to a bank account. Which means that they get limited access to cfedit lines with reasonable rates. They end up paying for CapitalOne cards, payday loans, car title loans, and rent to own. Know why Warren Buffet doesn't do any of that? Because it is expensive, obviously.

And a lot of people have no other option, other than to suffer the social stigma of living within extremely limited means.

reply to post by purplemer

But in an uncontrolled game do people make quick decisions more often than slow decisions? I haven't clicked the link yet to know, but it seems this would be an important consideration.

If we make quick decisions more than we're naturally fair. If we make slow decisions more than the implication is we're naturally greedy or calculating (discriminating).

With men in the cross-hairs, this link says the opposite:
arstechnica.com - There are no truly good men, according to cooperation study...

A new study indicates that human generosity may have a limit, even when being generous would fulfill our selfish tendencies too. In an economic game where investing all available resources in cooperation with others gave the largest possible reward, players would still hold back from contributing everything they had, and continued to view their collaborators as potential competitors. Our ability to cooperate appears to have definite limits, just as our selfishness does.
..........

In the case of the above quote, I wonder if it's something hardwired into a man's brain? It would be in the form of an instinct. I'd be more convinced if I saw other examples using other methods. This is because our brain might be specifically hardwired in this particular case, but not in others.

reply to post by inverslyproportional


Its nice to see things like this. People often say that wars are a natural part of being human. I kinda question that when I see stuff like this.

reply to post by VonDoomen


I don't think it could be ascertained correctly as merely more or less, but rather as to what degree.

I think there is a "genetic load" for aggressiveness, and environmental triggers which activates these genetic programs.

I would guess that less than 5% have a high genetic load, the majority fall somewhere in the middle, and roughly 5% have a very low load towards aggressive behavior.

I think less than 1% would remain a pacifist in all situations, and less than 1% would remain egocentric regardless of environmental influences.

Basically that would be monk and psycho territory.

I think the more interesting thing would be to study how this

reply to post by purplemer


One of the most important books on this subject in my view is "On Killing" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.

The book is required reading at all major military academies, the CIA, FBI and many state and local law enforcement agencies.

The book basically teaches those who lead or send men into battle how to overcome the troops natural aversion to killing. How to break down their natural resistance and fight back. The book documents many proven techniques to turn people into killers, against their natural tendencies. The book documents many cases in wars and conflicts past where even under fire, men still refused to shoot back. It sounds crazy I know, most of us believe it a natural reaction to fight back, or to willingly go into battle against complete strangers, but men who send others into battle know this to not be the case, and that is why this book is required reading.

I highly recommend this book.


www.amazon.com...

reply to post by crawdad1914


I once read an article which states that a certain psychological profile exists which are natural killers, and this can be found out from administering the MBTI. The type is an ESTP. I'm not sure of the validity of this document, but found it to be interesting food for thought. It also said the military looks to recruit this type over the rest, because they basically don't require breaking down the psychological barriers that exist in most. I think they said it was 2-5% of the population comes out as ESTP. The problem they found with them, is these people are so focused on winning, that they can disobey commands from superiors and take charge of a pack. This may give them a title as a hero if they succeed, but also can get troops into danger if they lose. So you can only have a few spread out on the field, else the cohesion of the group breaks up.

reply to post by moniesisfun


That would make sense. Some people would likely be more dsposed than others to kill. The book I mentioned may have dealt with that, its been a couple years since I read it.

Originally posted by purplemer

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..

edit on 4-10-2012 by purplemer because: (no reason given)

Good to see studies confirming truth.

When we follow spontaneous action (from the heart/gut, bypassing the mind) it is IME always co-operative and constructive/creative. Creative can be violent, but in the Nature sense, just as Tigers are 'violent' to antelope when they are hungry!

'Real' violence (IMO) is from the mind and it is laced with judgement/opinion. Tigers, like spontaneously arising impulses to act (and babies/v. young children), don't judge

anybody can be violent anybody can be good its a choice.

and the end of the day it really is a choice.

but some people commit violent acts because it rewards them.

reply to post by jonnywhite



Ingo Swann has mentioned his well reasoned belief that "quick thinking" actions relate to the subconscious, or true mind. The conscious mind is a machine dictated by the processing grid that is imposed on it. It is distracted by the immense noise of the 5 major senses, and deaf to the more sublime senses (several of which he believes relate to the PSI stuff that he worked on for the CIA).

If this is true, it would support the finding of the scientists int he OP. The "correct" choices are embedded within us and take conscious effort to overcome and subdue.

Originally posted by generik
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.

Children do this because they are so overpowered and they don't have the language to express the nuanced points in their argument and they can't reason with themselves to bide their time and manipulate things to go their way because that time doesn't come for them. Just that you posted this and got stars shows what a wall of incomprehension and lack of empathy young children are up against.

Humans are not naturally violent in my opinion, they are however born with an ingrained sense of survival of the fittest. A lot of violence stems from that survival instinct, if a human feels they need (or deserve) something that survival part of their mind is prepared to be violent to obtain it at the expense of others. I do not think that is a human trait but something that resides within the environment itself, you learn the rules and if you dont play the game you might not eat tomorrow. The reason I say this is because if someone has everything they want, both physically and mentally it is easy to be peaceful. If you was living on a small island by yourself with plenty of food and no humans or animals would you ever be violent?

It has been known for a long time that Humans are naturally altruistic. We are social creatures, not solitary.

The tendency to violence can happen to any animal under the right conditions. When attacked, stressed, provoked, or have a mental health issue.

The problem is our society is constantly kept on edge, kept in fear, stressed, provoked, by the constant threat of violence portrayed by the MSM. When bombarded with news of violence all the time people start to think there is constant danger all around them.

It's all part of the control of people to make them easier to manipulate.

reply to post by crawdad1914


Thanks for that i did not know the military used techniques to overcome the troops natural aversion to killing. Just ignorance on my part I guess.

When not mating nor feeding we seek nothingness and null. We exist to be proxies to provide awareness of zero and nothing, for absorption by the Source that can not otherwise do so, being the All Things.

Originally posted by tkwasny
When not mating nor feeding we seek nothingness and null.

Speak for yourself. I seek something to puff, or drink.

We exist to be proxies to provide awareness of zero and nothing, for absorption by the Source that can not otherwise do so, being the All Things.

Awesome. Now that I know the secret of existence from some anonymous individual on the internet, I'm going to puff and drink.

What an enlightening transformation!

Originally posted by inverslyproportional
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.

I like to think that life is a balance of order and chaos. When there is an inappropriate action, there is chaos, and when all is as it should be, there is order. Life needs this balance so that it can stay on track- survive; as you said.

You seem to have an answer for what our emotions are about. But do you have an answer for, "What is the purpose of life"? Why is it so important to ensure the survival and propogation of life?