Evaluation of ethological approach to aggression: match the paragraphs to the appropriate heading in your booklet
There is research evidence to suggest that the ethological explanation may not be a valid theory of aggression. Fromm (1973) believed human aggression could be either benign or malignant. Lorenz, in his application of animal behaviour to humans, could offer no explanation for the malignant aggression that undeniably occurs across the world. His disregard of malignant, pointless acts of aggression is interesting for a person who was a signed up member of the Nazi Party, and whose work has been said to support Nazi ideas of “racial hygiene”.
Tinbergen (1951) undertook an experiment with male sticklebacks. This species of fish is very territorial and aggressive. In the mating season they develop a red spot on their underside. Tinbergen observed that at this time male sticklebacks will attack another male stickleback that enters their territory. He theorised that the red spot on their underside was acting as an innate releasing mechanism and when one stickleback observed another stickleback with this red spot they would initiate the aggressive attack behaviour which is an example of a fixed action pattern. To test this out he presented male sticklebacks with a wooden model; if the wooden model had a red spot, then the male stickleback would attack. However, without the red spot the male stickleback would not react, and there was no aggression displayed.
A problem with applying ethological research to the behaviour of humans is that it may not be appropriate to generalise the behaviour of jackdaws, for instance, onto humans, because of such obvious dissimilarities in aggression between the two species. Human aggression is often not at all ritualised and violent acts are committed for no good reason at all. It appears that here is a major behavioural difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom, and Lorenz’s ethological cannot hope to give us a full picture of why this is. Tinbergen (1968) stated that humans are the only species in which aggression is not part of an elaborate system of ritual, but instead a desire to harm one another. Nelson (1974) believed that the process of learning, structural causes, and psychological causes influences aggression and that these factors go much deeper into the complex cognitive processes behind aggression than the ethological explanation.
The ethological approach to aggression that clearly outlines a biological mechanism for aggression and believes that this behaviour is innate, is supported by other approaches. For example, the biological explanation of aggression also states that aggression is an innate behaviour (MAOA gene) and that there may be an innate releasing mechanism for aggression in the brain (limbic system) both in humans and other animals. This adds validity to the ethological explanation of aggression as it suggests that it is innate, heritable and genetically determined.