Violence and Aggression in Human Behavior - Essay Example

Hate crimes and their etiology will be next to explored. Then domestic violence, examining one theory that explains the power dynamics between couples and how these dynamics cause couples violence. Black men, who are more violent than other groups, will next be explored, in the context of the sociological reasons for their violent behavior. Lastly, the way that violence is learned will be explained. Joran van der Sloot savagely attacks a woman with a baseball bat, leaves her dead body and takes off.

Ted Bundy kills a multitude of women over a long period of time. Hitler. Charles Manson. John Wayne Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. Jack the Ripper. These are just a few of the infamous names that have become household over the years. What causes these men to kill? Is it sociological, psychological, neurological, or all of the above? Jonathan Pincus, MD and Dorothy Lewis, MD theorize that violent criminals are made through a combination of neurological damage, psychiatric illness and abuse. This underlying pathology is the cause of all kinds of killers – one-time killers, serial killers, rage killers and killers who dissociate.

Roy Hazelwood, an FBI profiler, contends that killers are disorganized or organized, the disorganized being the one-time rage killers, the organized being the stereotypical serial killer. These causes point to individualistic, psychological, neurological and abuse causes. There are other factors that cause violence as well, sociological causes. Hate is one of these – when individuals stereotype, scapegoat and dehumanize whole groups of people, hate-related violence ensues. Blacks suffer a disproportionate amount of violence, and the causes for this is sociological as well.

Violence is learned through cultural expectations, television exposure and through witnessing violence at home. Domestic violence is caused through complex power dynamics between couples. This paper reviews just some of the theories for all types of