'Exploring the Roots of Violence:' Professor believes pain may evolve into violence

Kellen Jenkins / The Bulletin

David Barash speaks on Monday evening in Albert Taylor Hall on the biological and sociological responses to aggression in both humans and animals.

David Barash explained redirected anger this way:

While rappelling one day down a canyon wall, he came within a few feet of an eagle’s nest filled with eggs. The eagle became agitated and flew at him to try to protect the nest. But when the attack failed to drive Barash away, the eagle turned abruptly to chase some harmless canyon wrens instead.

The eagle, Barash said, was unable to use aggression on a creature it interpreted to be dominant, so it found another outlet for the anger. Much the same thing, he said, can also happen in human society.

“Just because something is natural does not make it good,” Barash said. “We reflect our humanity sometimes in the most meaningful ways when we deny our biological responses.”

The story was part of a lecture that Barash, a professor of psychology and zoology at the University of Washington at Seattle, gave Monday night in the Memorial Union. The title of the presentation was, “Passing the Pain Along: Exploring the Roots of Violence.”

According to Barash’s biography on the University of Washington website, Barash subscribes to a theory of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology focuses on underlying factors based in evolution evident in human behavior.

Barash prefaced his lecture by saying that the speech would be a narrow view of the concept of violence. He said that there are many issues associated with the topic and the challenge of addressing them all is nearly impossible. He focused instead on examples of redirected aggression found in the animal world as evidence of the natural state of violence.

Violence and redirected anger were also discussed as cathartic issues. Barash noted the biological evidence of the effect of stress on the body. Rats were given random mild electrical shocks over a period of time. One such rat was left alone in the cage with no other objects. When the creature died, an autopsy performed on the rat showed oversized adrenal glands, a high number of stomach ulcers and diminished testosterone levels.

Another rat was subjected to shocks but testers included a stick in the cage. When the rat received a shock, it would bite the stick. An autopsy performed on the animal showed some of the same negative effects seen in the rat that had not had an object to attack, though the effects were considerably lower.

A final rat was subjected to the tests but testers placed a second rat in the cage after shocks were administered. The shocked rat bit the other rat in an act of redirected anger. The shocked rat in that instance showed no signs of biological distress during an autopsy.

“What happens at physiological level is it has been subjected to pain,” Barash said. “By virtue of that pain, it administers to its own distress by acting out. The immediate cause of the behaviors is to reduce the stress.”

The cause of the rat retaliating, on either the stick or another rat, is what Barash calls proximate causation. By virtue of being near the injured party, a usually innocent bystander is drawn into the cycle of violence.

Violence can also erupt from disputes in the animal world. Barash noted how animals typically have more to lose in disputes. In an argument over a resource, losing a fight would mean not only being denied the given resource but also the possibility of losing status in a group. If the losing party does not either retaliate or redirect anger toward a lower member of the group, the loser will be in a vulnerable state.

The topic of revenge as an outlet for redirected aggression was also addressed. Barash cited victims of crimes who are frequently noted as wanting “justice” as opposed to “revenge” for the crime. Many times in instances where an individual accused of the crime is found to be innocent due to substantial evidence of their innocence, victims or victims’ families feel anger.

The feeling of being cheated out of the satisfaction of seeing justice done is often experienced. Barash believes this is due in part to society’s shaping of what is acceptable behavior.

“We are carefully bound to the word ‘justice’,” Barash said. “However the word is becoming increasingly more indistinct. Much of what people want to see is someone suffering as punishment.”

Barash gave another example of redirected aggression in the case of an 1858 slaughter of a group of Apache women, children and elderly by a Mexican calvary. A year later, a group of male Apache, lead by Geronimo encountered a group of Mexican soldiers. Geronimo’s parents, wife and children were all killed in the previous year in the slaughter.

Although the chance that the Mexican group they encountered were the same that perpetrated the act was very slim, the Apaches attacked them anyway. Barash quoted a passage from a biography of Geronimo in which Geronimo speaks of rejoicing in what they had done. The act of vengeance, even though it was misplaced on a seemingly innocent group, was an overwhelming desire for the wronged group. The aggression was cathartic.

A classic study from the mid-1930s also illustrated the point of misplaced aggression. Lynchings in the south were frequent between the years of 1882 and 1930 and researchers were able to correlate the price of cotton with the number of lynchings in a given year. If the price of cotton were to go up, the number of lynchings went down. If the prices went down, the number of lynchings rose. The frustrated cotton farmers used redirected aggression in an attempt to relieve stress.

Overall, the impulse to pass pain along was cited by Barash as a powerful force that drives many actions in humans and animals.

“This is not to suggest any violence in the human species is a biological phenomenon,” Barash said. “We do not see it as clearly as we ought to.”