Will Smith and endogenous violence in Homo sapiens

Cinema lovers or not, and detractors or not of the galas of the seventh art, we were all stunned by the slap of expanded fingers that Will Smith gave to Chris Rock’s cheek at the last Oscar gala. When we had not yet finished assimilating the violence of the act, the acoustic component was added to the visual component and an audio with a phrase (repeated and shouted) was added to the video scene in the purest style of a thug movie.

I am not going to assess the origin of the act, nor the justification for the reaction. Nor will I weigh whether or not it is appropriate to defend a loved one who is attacked in this way, not even nature, presumably macaroni or not of the fact.

Continuing with the meticulous task of avoiding slippery fields, it has not crossed my mind to get into the garden of asking if the media repercussions would have been the same if the slap had been given by Jada Pinkett instead of her husband.

To continue being cautious, I will not go into assessing alternative scenarios either. And I will not reflect on the consequences that this act could have had if it had been carried out by a presenter instead of a presenter, or if the skin colors of the aggressor and attacked had been different from what they have been.

And I won’t do all of this, not because I don’t feel like it, which I feel like doing a lot, but because I want to focus exclusively on the scientific part of the event.

I will therefore analyze what is strictly biological, the concept of aggressiveness in the Homo sapiens.

Aggressiveness, aggression and violence

The first thing that should be clarified is that these terms, which are normally used as synonyms, are not at all.

1. According to Sanmartin Esplugues, aggressiveness It can be defined as “a behavior that occurs automatically in the face of certain stimuli, and, therefore, is inhibited in the face of other stimuli”.

2. For its part, The agression it would be something intentional, a behavior aimed at knowingly harming another individual. However, if we look at the aspects considered by Anderson and Bushman, in addition to the intention to harm, the aggression must include two precise pieces of knowledge on the part of the aggressor:

   -Knowledge that harm is being inflicted. Thus, circumstances in which the subject may be unaware of the harmful effect that his actions may have on the other would be excluded from aggression.

   -The knowledge that the recipient would want, in a position to do so, to avoid that damage. With this clarification, the damage that can be generated in a painful medical intervention or those complicated sadomasochistic relationships in which some get involved is ruled out.

3. Finally, the violence it would seek to harm others for purposes other than survival. According to the WHO, the causes that trigger violent behavior would be related to revenge, domination, sadistic pleasure or, to a lesser extent, ambition. This damage, furthermore, would not necessarily be physical, but would also be considered from verbal, sexual or economic perspectives.

What is and what is not human?

According to what we have just defined, human aggressiveness would not be a specific behavioral characteristic of the Homo sapiens but something shared by many other species. Let us remember that animals have a basic instinct: to survive. We develop this instinct from the point of view of both the individual and the species (that is, by reproducing ourselves).

Therefore, aggressiveness, in this context, would be a manifestation of the natural tendency that all animals, faced with certain dangerous stimuli for the maintenance of our physical integrity, present innately to ensure our survival.

The reason why this universal instinct has been selected for in all kinds of animals is absolutely Darwinian: it increases the biological effectiveness of the species and is therefore clearly adaptive. As animals that we are, and coinciding with the statements of Anderson and Bushman, the effects of our aggressiveness could be controlled and channeled, but at no time suppressed.

On the contrary, and if we continue adjusting to the previous definitions, aggression, in its first meaning, would be a behaviour, if not exclusively human, then it would be restricted to the sphere of primates. And, if I’m in a hurry, that of the pongids (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, as well as ourselves).

However, the field would be much narrower with Anderson and Bushman’s remarks. With very little margin for error, and at the expense of future research surprising us with chimpanzees wearing masks and whips, we could say that aggression, as such, is something exclusively human.

Aggression does not imply aggression

In short, the difference between aggressiveness and aggression is that the former is an inner impulse only perceived by the aggressor, a psychological signal to act in a hostile way that can be repressed or released. While the second is an external action that reaches the victim: it is the result of the release of the aggressive impulse. This implies that aggression is a consequence of aggressiveness in all cases, but aggressiveness is not always followed by aggression.

Lastly, there seems to be little doubt when it comes to violent behaviour. Violence should be understood as an aggressiveness altered and modified by sociocultural agents related to learning and, therefore, influenced by the nature of the place, the moment and the worldview of the context in which that individual has developed.

Violence, unlike aggressiveness and aggression, is always unnecessary, morbid and does not respond to biological reasons of the species or taxon. Even assuming that forms of culture exist in some non-human pongid societies, these are so rudimentary compared to ours that it would make no sense to speak of violence in them.

Strictly speaking, then, violence would be an exclusive characteristic of the human species.

Now it’s up to you, readers, to decide if Will Smith’s act should be considered aggression, aggression or violence.

In any case… wow cracker!

A. Victoria de Andrés Fernández, Full Professor in the Department of Animal Biology, Malaga University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.