An interesting article on aggression in last week's Chronicle of Higher Education Review. The article cited results of behavioral studies done on rats. If a rat is placed alone in a cage and receives electric shocks from the floor, it will at first jump, throw itself against the walls of the cage, do everything in its power to escape the painful stimulus. Eventually, however, it will no longer attempt to evade the shock, will just sit there and take it. When an autopsy is done on these subjects, it is found that during the experiment they experience an abnormal growth of the adrenal glands and develop gastric ulcers.
Scientists found, however, that if two rats are placed in the same cage and shocked, they will respond by attacking each other and continue doing so as long as they are in the cage and being shocked. When these rats' bodies are later examined, it is found that they do not experience adrenal gland growth or develop gastric ulcers. The conclusion to be drawn? Having someone there to take it out on -- as it were -- helps keep the rat healthy, whereas just sitting there and taking it will, over time, make the rat sick. (Not unlike Freud's view that being civilized -- that is, sublimating aggressive instincts -- makes man neurotic).
An interesting analogy can be drawn here between those unfortunate rats in the shock cage and our soldiers currently serving in Iraq. The soldiers regularly experience "shocks" from the insurgency, but, because they find it impossible in many cases to distinguish the insurgents from the general populace, they have to just sit there and take it rather than strike back. One wonders if soldiers in this predicament have a higher incidence of adrenal and gastric disease -- or perhaps a higher incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment