From Robert Sapolsky's Behave, I learnt about the notion of "displacement aggression". We know what it is intuitively, but in short: depressingly enough, the reason stress encourages aggression is that it reduces stress. And we don't yet know the underlying biology of it.
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Excuse the wall of text, but it's entirely worth reading Sapolsky's description of this:
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Shock a rat and its glucocorticoid levels [a key stress-signaller] and blood pressure rise; with enough shocks, it’s at risk for a “stress” ulcer. Various things can buffer the rat during shocks—running on a running wheel, eating, gnawing on wood in frustration. But a particularly effective buffer is for the rat to bite another rat. Stress-induced (aka frustration-induced) displacement aggression is ubiquitous in various species.
Among baboons, for example, nearly half of aggression is this type—a high-ranking male loses a fight and chases a subadult male, who promptly bites a female, who then lunges at an infant. My research shows that within the same dominance rank, the more a baboon tends to displace aggression after losing a fight, the lower his glucocorticoid levels.
Humans excel at stress-induced displacement aggression—consider how economic downturns increase rates of spousal and child abuse. Or consider a study of family violence and pro football. If the local team unexpectedly loses, spousal/partner violence by men increases 10 percent soon afterward (with no increase when the team won or was expected to lose). [...]
Little is known concerning the neurobiology of displacement aggression blunting the stress response. I’d guess that lashing out activates dopaminergic reward pathways, a surefire way to inhibit CRH release [a hormone involved in the stress response]. Far too often, giving an ulcer helps avoid getting one.
A couple people have mentioned Sapolsky and he came to my mind also. Here's a comment I made a while back along the same lines on an article about why swearing (as a form of venting) does work (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12229422). Sapolsky again on rats and baboons (from Why Zebra’s Don’t Get Ulcers):
A variant of Weiss's experiment uncovers a special feature of the outlet-for-frustration reaction. This time, when the rat gets the identical series of electric shocks and is upset, it can run across the cage, sit next to another rat and... bite the hell out of it. Stress-induced displacement of aggression: the practice works wonders at minimizing the stressfulness of a stressor. It's a real primate specialty as well. A male baboon loses a fight. Frustrated, he spins around and attacks a subordinate male who was minding his own business. An extremely high percentage of primate aggression represent frustration displaced onto innocent bystanders.
I recently left a job and boss where this dynamic was very much in play (more blaming than biting but obvious displacement aggression all the same).
My conclusion: swearing (venting) might be seen as a more civilized form of displacing stress-induced aggression.
You, in combination with the article, are describing an is/ought situation here.
Displacing aggression---biting another rat---reduces your stress. (This is an is statement.)
Therefore, to reduce your stress, you should bite one of the other rats. (This is an ought statement.)
But biting another rat leads to a stack of bad downstream consequences, which may include things that raise your stress. Therefore, not displacing aggression is the better option; certainly, telling other people to do so is probably not a good idea. Even if you are displacing aggression in a safe manner, by chewing on a piece of wood or yelling at a tree, you train yourself to respond that way to stress and will eventually end up biting an innocent rat.
Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply any "ought" here at all. I should've been more explicit. I thought my opening remark of "depressingly enough" was sufficient to note that I was lamenting the "is"ness of the situation, and don't "recommend" it (yikes!).
[quote]
Shock a rat and its glucocorticoid levels [a key stress-signaller] and blood pressure rise; with enough shocks, it’s at risk for a “stress” ulcer. Various things can buffer the rat during shocks—running on a running wheel, eating, gnawing on wood in frustration. But a particularly effective buffer is for the rat to bite another rat. Stress-induced (aka frustration-induced) displacement aggression is ubiquitous in various species.
Among baboons, for example, nearly half of aggression is this type—a high-ranking male loses a fight and chases a subadult male, who promptly bites a female, who then lunges at an infant. My research shows that within the same dominance rank, the more a baboon tends to displace aggression after losing a fight, the lower his glucocorticoid levels.
Humans excel at stress-induced displacement aggression—consider how economic downturns increase rates of spousal and child abuse. Or consider a study of family violence and pro football. If the local team unexpectedly loses, spousal/partner violence by men increases 10 percent soon afterward (with no increase when the team won or was expected to lose). [...]
Little is known concerning the neurobiology of displacement aggression blunting the stress response. I’d guess that lashing out activates dopaminergic reward pathways, a surefire way to inhibit CRH release [a hormone involved in the stress response]. Far too often, giving an ulcer helps avoid getting one.
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