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John Horgan at the Scientific American has written a follow-up to Nicholas Wade’s recent article on chimp violence. Horgan reviews the evidence for and against the theory that chimp violence is widespread and that our hominid ancestors inherited the tendency toward violence from our common ancestor with the chimps. Specifically, he explains why he has [...]
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that’s responsible for the warm rewarding glow we get from food, sex, and certain drugs. An experiment that looked at aggressive behavior in mice indicates that dopamine is also important in aggression. The setup involved a pair of mice “at home” in one cage and various intruder mice that were introduced [...]
This news story is related to some comments in response to the review of the Richard Dawkins book that I posted the other day. The comments have turned to the question of the relationship between religion and aggression, and this press release describes some recent research into that very thing. A psychologist at the University [...]
No, I’m not taking a turn into the political, except obliquely. This article from the New Scientist describes some research into psychological factors in the decision to wage war. Volunteers played a computer game that put them in the role of leader of a country with a potentially valuable resource along a contested border with [...]
Evolutionary psychologist David Barash has written an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education about human violence. It was published August 12, but I read it today, in the shadow of the sad and sometimes appalling stories coming out of New Orleans. Barash argues against the view that man is unique in his violence against [...]
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