When people explode into anger, we want to help them and get them
treatment, but more than that, we want to protect ourselves. Medicine and
psychology are less helpful in teaching us how to do this than is ethology,
the scientific study of animal instincts.
Ethology is a new science. Konrad Lorenz, Nikolaas Tinbergen, and
Karl von Frisch won a Nobel Prize in 1973 for pretty much inventing it.
Their studies of birds and bees demonstrated that animals are capable of
performing very complicated tasks without ever having witnessed them,
and, given the correct situation, they are sometimes incapable ofnotper-
forming them. These tasks are usually necessary for survival. They include
finding food, courtship, and nest building, as well as how, when, and
whom to fight or flee. We primates also engage in unlearned, ritualistic
behaviors, especially with regard to sex and aggression. Our instincts are
far more influenced by learning, and thus more controllable.
Instincts are hard-wired into the nervous system. Neurophysiologist
Paul McLean suggested that the human brain is made up of three separate
neural systems that evolved sequentially. The reptile brainis oldest. It’s
Chapter 11
The Instinct for Anger
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