The majority of the experts who write on gender differences and aggressiveness tend to
oppose the theory proposed by Maccoby and Jacklin that males are biologically
predisposed toward aggressive behavior when compared to females. The most
commonly accepted view is that the gender differences toward violence and aggression
are influenced by the environment in which people are brought up. Johnson (1972: 108)
writes that it is true that hormones influence behavior, but at the same time “masculine”
and “feminine” behavior is also influenced by the outside environment and “the long
socialization process through which children learn society’s values.”
“All human behavior is regulated and formed by cultural factors,” write Lagerspetz and
Bjorkqvist (1994: 132). “Accordingly, the difference in aggressiveness between the
sexes has been attributed to their social roles, in addition to or instead of biological
factors.” Berkowitz (1993: 395) writes that the majority of social scientists find the
causes of aggression in the traditional social roles that have been assigned to men and
women.
In an article titled
On the Biological Basis of Sex Differences in Aggression, Todd Tieger
(1980: 956) notes that, “males are encouraged to cultivate aggressive ‘talents’ in a
competition-oriented economic system, while females are discouraged from similar goals
at the price of losing their ‘femininity.’” Buss (1961: 283) writes that males in their
youth are pressured by the environment to be active, dominant, and competitive, with
an emphasis on physical aggressiveness. At the same time, females are taught to be
non-aggressive, with fighting strictly taboo. These stereotypes influence and maintain
male aggressiveness and female passivity all over the world.
Writing about the important issues at stake when scientists from the two opposing sides
discuss human aggression and its causes, Morton Hunt (1973: 22) gives his opinion:
If people are largely controlled by their instincts and if their behavior is encoded
in their genes, they and their future can only be regarded with pessimism; people
must then be viewed as innately dangerous and brutal and dealt with accordingly.
If the poor, the indolent, the criminal, the greedy and the sadistic are acting
according to their hereditary inclinations, there is little point in trying to change
them. But if people are not instinct-controlled, but have a highly educable and
modifiable nature, then it is possible to be hopeful for the future, despite the
wretched history of humankind.
The Seville Statement from 1989, drafted by an international group of scientists from the
fields of genetics, anthropology, psychology, biochemistry, and others have concluded
that aggressive behavior and violence are not “genetically programmed into human
nature” (Kriesberg, 1998: 35). In his book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness,
Erich Fromm (1973: 22) says that those who are unable or afraid to change destruction
around them are the people who support the theory of inborn violence and aggression in
humans. “This theory of an innate aggressiveness easily becomes an ideology that helps
to soothe the fear of what is to happen and to rationalize the sense of impotence,” writes
Fromm.
This part of the paper has contrasted the two opposing views on aggression in humans.
The evidence presented suggests that there is not enough credible proof that aggression
is caused by an instinct or primarily by biological and genetic factors. This author’s
opinion is that the theorists and experts who support the notion that human aggression
is learned and influenced by the external environment make a well supported case for
their claims
