fines aggression as "action, i.e. attacking someone or a group. It is intended to harm someone. It can be verbalàphysical" or restrictive. Rage, he says, occurs when "aggression becomes so extreme that we lose self-control." Hostility, as he distinguishes it from anger, is a "chronic state of anger."
In a positive vein, assertiveness, Tucker-Ladd (1996) maintains, should be differentiated from aggressiveness. He defines it as "tactfully and rationally standing up for your own rightsà assertiveness is designed not to hurt others."
The origins and nature of anger, particularly the old nature-nurture conundrum, easily finds its way into the discussion of anger. Konrad Lorenz (1966) maintained that all human and animal species survived due to their aggressive instinct to protect territory and progeny. Clearly, this is a version of the survival of the fittest theory of evolution. There are, of course, those scientists who note that war seems unavoidable and conclude that humans must have an aggressive nature expressed by a need to dominate and control.
Charles Spielberger, Ph.D., a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger, maintains that anger is accompanied by "physiological and biological changes; when you get angry, your heart rate and blood pressure go up, as does the level of your energy hormones, adrenalin and noradrenalin" (APA, 2000). Physiological factors could influence one's propensity for anger or aggression and it has been argued that aggression may have a chemical, hormonal, or a genetic cause.
There are a number of theories on the origin of anger advanced by the different theoretical perspectives that comprise modern psychology. The psychodynamic perspective believes in an unconscious motive: the death instinct, or put another way, an aggressive instinct. Freud came to espouse such a theory due to the wars, violence, and inflicted suffering he witnessed. Neo-Freudians, such as Karen Horney, b...