A comprehensive listing of all the possible motivators of violence occurring would be too expansive to contain in any one place but the following are select primary emotions and instinctual desires that motivate creatures of many types in their struggle to protect themselves and survive danger. However, these same defenses mechanisms can be overused and malfunction leading to unnecessary aggression that incites violence without due cause. Such instances can trigger ceaseless violent backlash as those engaged increasingly become less rational and prone to future violence, from tribal warfare to political assassination the forms of violence have many of the same primal roots.
FEAR is among the most primordial emotions that humans can experience and it normally serves a vital purpose, this instinct will alert a creature to danger. At several times a healthy sense of fear under the right circumstances might be the key to survival against unimaginable odds. The origins of fear are intertwined with human evolution to allow biological entities to protect themselves and react intuitively to sources of danger. However, our imperative responses can be misled because they interact with ancient biologically inherited structures in the human brain that have been refined for millennia but still make errors without greater context. Humans in the more dangerous past required almost instantaneous responses to assure their survival and this desire to respond with violence persists in many people but the genuine dangers are far less prevalent.
Stress inspires fear and this response produces chemical reactions that trigger several biological responses that include a quickened pulse and breathing. The stress might vary from a threatening person to a phobia of inanimate objects but the result is our minds cry out and the human body can quickly respond even if no danger exists. Unfortunately, fear is an instinctual response and does not require consciously triggered circumstances to activate, all that is required is our deeper brain feeling threatened. Multiple neural pathways react to fear as the brain attempts to translate danger levels presented by a source of stress both with the amygdala offering nearly instant flashes of danger and longer-term interpretation of the exact threat and its nature. In response another portion of the brain, the hypothalamus, responds by setting off a fight, flight, or freeze response and a person’s body and senses become heightened for action. Fear is a survival mechanism but if experienced too often without genuine danger it can become a hindrance to human existence. Conditioned fear can be a useful tool that we develop to negative stimulus by making logical associations such as dangerous storms with lightning or tornadoes but we can also make illogical connections such as between a bad experience with a type of person and apply that fearful judgement to all similar people. Three prevalent general responses to extreme fear are fight, flight, and freeze responses in which a person will attempt to engage the threat, escape it, or become paralyzed by fear. Fear can extend from universal fears of certain poisonous creatures to cultural or regional trends relying on a common shared group fear of dangerous climate threats.
While our lives once depended on nearly instant fear responses to assure our survival in modern times such fear is often unnecessary within the context of most human interactions. Unlike the days of open tribal warfare across the globe, modern people do not often enter life or death combat interactions repeatedly in the course of their day. Our ancestors primarily feared predators, brutal human rivals, weather events, and starvation but modern humans without many immediate concerns for survival often fear less dire events such as being humiliated, losing power, and achieving a certain social or financial status. Thus, our instinctual reaction to experience fear can treat a situation as dire even when it might be simply be a common unfortunate occurrence that happened under circumstances no person might control, but they still inspire fear in many. These modern sources of fear present significantly lower amounts of real danger but cause stress because they are largely vague concepts which rely on the past negative experiences or expectations of a possible future disaster.
DISGUST is an unconscious emotional reaction that has developed to protect humanity from dangerous behaviors, sources of disease, and rotten food or drink. The word itself means “bad taste” and the reach of the disgust mechanism extends to personal hygiene behavior, decisions to associate or not with other people, and mate selection. Disgust preferences regarding smells, tastes, and even appearance has overt and subtle effects on decision making without any initial conscious dislike of another person. Additionally, disgust occurs in a wide range for different people and some naturally possess overactive or almost inactive disgust thresholds which offer additional challenges to normal social interactions. Overactive disgust reactions have been linked to eating disorders that extend the normal range of disgusting foods to nearly all food a person suffering encounters.
Unlike fear, an obsession with cleanliness is reportedly not fright of infection but an overactive disgust mechanism because this reaction operates upon “sympathetic laws of contagion” that are based upon the belief of any contact with an undesirable thing is lasting contact with it. Reactions from disgust often inspire the use of shame and outrage to curb destructive or abnormal human tendencies and these activities extend to greater complexity when triggering other types of disgust. This reveals the interpretive nature of some forms of social disgust from learned behavior and cultures attaching the emotion to varying culturally forbidden behaviors. Conflicts often arise from different social traditions that rely upon significantly opposing tenets and cherish sometimes wholly different moral imperatives. Such conflicts are often fueled upon by judgments that an opponent is not merely wrong but immoral.
Moral disgust in some forms unlike biological initiated versions does not require legitimate universal standards but operates with specialized traits that vary based on the individual’s beliefs. While biological and sometimes moral disgust proves useful in protective behaviors and assists in social unity, it too can be a constant source of suffering for those unfairly targeted by disgust. This latter type of disgust has been and continues to be harnessed in the name of antisocial behavior, tribal conflict, political massacres, religious purges, and launching wars to assist the parties seeking to dominate. Strikingly, any type of disgust can result from perceived or real environmental threats and might include enduring physical symptoms related to emotions that can inhibit a normal existence and lead to enduring mental and social dysfunction.
STATUS desires are driven by the elemental need in humans to belong within a social group and earning status in a group requires human interactions. People are born into a family social hierarchy and learn skills and behaviors from that group for survival purposes and with age humans repeat the process of social interaction with friends, neighbors, coworkers, and other members of the public. Positive interactions are the basis for establishing status and retaining its beneficial effects, but the system also relies upon some losing status when they act outside acceptable limits with negative behavior. Yet even justified status losses can inspire irrational reactions and social counterattacks by the person seeking to defend their status and damage the image of those reproaching them.
Status can be awarded for endless reasons that include desirable physical traits, remarkable talents, prized skills, and meritorious behavior. If such benefits are utilized to maximum potential they can lead to the possession of fame, wealth, and power but in truth all those desired resources are in part merely an extension of status. The drive to seek things which can enhance our status and public image is a constant need that must be fulfilled and even those who can resist most status conflicts still desire in some way to acquire a form of status and resent those with more to some extent. This process might be contained to a small local group or extend to international politics and a perceived insult or slight has potentially expansive consequences because alterations in status can affect our mental stability and even affect our biological systems for an extended period based on the level of change.
Status is a vital part of social interaction but it can become a significant detriment to all concerned when some people ceaselessly attempt to acquire status at the expense of others for often increasingly unjustified reasons. A reasonable amount of status is beneficial to all who earn it constructively but when some attempt to manipulate the system it leads to conflict and sometimes violence. Humans must strike a balance to utilize the mental tools nature has provided and the contextual abilities we have evolved to possess that keep our emotional desires and ancient instincts in check.
Related Article
Our Desire to Judge Others
Related Podcasts
Why Status Can Drive People to Violence
How the Disgust Mechanism creates Violence
Fear and the Origins of Violence
Why Is There So Much Discord?
