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Aggression

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

  • 252 Accesses

Synonyms

Assault; Attack; Hostility; Violence; War

Definition

Aggression generally refers to the intended harming or targeted injury of one organism by another.

Introduction

Among humans and other animals, there exists a variety of behaviors by which individuals try to impose costs on other individuals. Male walruses fight for dominance, lions hunt for prey, a man smashes a mosquito, a woman poisons her abusive husband, etc. Given this variety of aggressive behaviors, aggression is sometimes defined in broad, abstract terms (e.g., the targeted infliction of disorder on one organism by another; Tooby and Cosmides 2010). Sometimes aggression is defined in more specific terms to demarcate a subset of aggressive behaviors (e.g., using the term indirect aggression for inflicting harm via the manipulation of other people or gossip). Researchers in biology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, public health, psychiatry, and political science have worked to document and understand aggressive...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Bartholins Allé 7, DK-8000, Aarhus, Denmark

    Florian van Leeuwen

Authors
  1. Florian van Leeuwen
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Correspondence to Florian van Leeuwen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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van Leeuwen, F. (2016). Aggression. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2959-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2959-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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