EVILICIOUS: Cruelty = Desire + Denial by Hauser Marc

Author:Hauser, Marc [Hauser, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Amazon KDP
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

HARMING OTHERS, version 1.5: upgrade to lethal aggression

I noted in the Prologue that there are three situations in which animals kill others. Two are broadly distributed across the animal kingdom — predation and infanticide — and one is extremely rare — adults killing other adults from the same species — adulticide. It is this rare form, as we will see, that is the most difficult to explain, but of greatest interest in terms of our own evolutionary history44.

In virtually every taxonomic group of animals – insects, reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds, and mammals — there are predators and prey. Predators are not merely aggressive, but designed to kill prey species for the purpose of survival. When I say that predators have been designed, I mean that evolutionary processes have resulted in specialized brain areas, anatomical structures, and behavioral strategies that are highly adapted to the problem of prey capture. As noted by the psychologist Victor Nell and the neurobiologist Jan Panksepp45, predatory killing is enabled by stealth-like attacks accompanied by brain circuitry that makes killing highly rewarding. These two features are important as they distinguish predatory killing from most other forms of aggression. In particular, when predators kill, it is not a reactive response to a victim, but rather, one that is planned, including the initiation of a hunt when the victim is out of sight. When predators seek out their prey, the dopamine systems of the brain are highly engaged. Recall from the last section, that dopamine is linked to reward, and especially the anticipation of reward. For predators, the anticipation of killing is the opposite of aversive — there are no internal brakes at all. Once a predator kills its prey, the brain’s opioid system kicks in, a system that I discussed in chapter 1. The opioids deliver pleasure. For a predator, killing and consuming its prey is like smoking opium in humans — deeply rewarding.

The second, common form of killing is infanticide, carried out by both parents and recently immigrated males. When parents engage in infanticide, it is often a response to the lack of resources required to rear young. To enable this response requires overriding those instincts that evolved to take care of young. The primatologist Dario Maestripieri suggests that this can occur under conditions of stress. Recall from the last section that heightened cortisol levels are often associated with stress, which typically results in animals backing down from an aggressive attack. But when cortisol levels rise and are sustained over long periods of time, heightened aggression often follows, turning parental care into parental violence. In these situations, parents may kill their infants. This is as true of the monkeys studied by Maestripieri as it is of humans living under conditions of extreme poverty and stress — in the developed world, the United States has the highest level of infanticide, and as one researcher suggests, this may be due to the fact that extreme poverty is in close proximity to extreme wealth, a contrast that makes it even more stressful for the poor.

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