|
INTRODUCTION
Psychology
today includes studies of processes within individuals, where relations
with neurophysiology are being established;
studies of the behavior of individuals in isolation or when interacting
with machines; and studies of individuals in groups. Research has been concerned
primarily with questions of causation and development, therein differing
from research on behavior carried out by biologists, who have been interested
also in questions of the biological function and evolution of behavior.
Most of the psychological research relevant to war has been concerned not
with the causes of war as such but with its conduct — for instance,
with the selection of military personnel, the behavior of soldiers in and
out of battle, the maintenance of morale, the performance of human operators
in charge of war machines, and the design of such machines to optimize performance.
Developments in psychology permitted increased sophistication in the selection
of personnel in World War II, especially in officer selection; and the increasing
complexity of war machines requires designs compatible with human capabilities,
so that considerable psychological research has been devoted to such topics
as the vigilance of radar operators and other aspects of human performance.
For these purposes psychology has employed both experimental approaches
in appropriately controlled but contrived situations, and "field" data from
real-life situations. Such studies have had strictly specified practical
objectives, but they have had some impact on psychological theorizing: there
have been, for instance, notable advances in control theory stemming from
military research, and in theories of habituation and memory from the work
on human performance.
Since the monumental studies of war summarized by Quincy
Wright (1965), considerable efforts have been made to establish links
between psychology and other disciplines. In forging those links, psychologists
have become increasingly interested in principles drawn from biology,
but are rightly distrustful of analogies between the behavior of
particular animal species and particular human practices: there are so many
animal species, and so many human cultures, that analogies to back up any
thesis are always available. The resemblances of conflicts between ant colonies
and international war are entirely superficial, and even the inter-group
conflicts of chimpanzees lack all the defining features (see below) of international
war
More importantly, the last fifty years have seen intense efforts to link
advances in endocrine and neurophysiology with individual functioning (e.g.,
Damasio,
1994), to relate the behavior of individuals to their social situation
and group membership (Turner
et al., 1994), and to incorporate the insights of sociology and anthropology
on the role of culture (Hinde,
1987,1997). It is with such issues that this essay is primarily concerned,
because they throw light not on the causes of particular wars, but on how
it is that individuals are prepared to accept the horrors of war.
A linguistic point is first necessary. In everyday speech we speak of one
individual behaving aggressively to another, and we use exactly the same
words when speaking of two nations, each with a population of many million
individuals. The factors that increase the likelihood of aggression between
individuals are not the same as those that increase the likelihood of war
between states; the processes are quite dissimilar. Again, some ascribe
the propensity to harm other individuals to assertiveness and even associate
it with creativity (Lorenz,
1966; Mansfield,
1991). This is simply wrong: an assertive salesman does not hit his
clients, and the motivational bases of assertiveness have little in common
with those of aggressiveness, though they may contribute to aggressive acts.
To say that, without man's aggressive capabilities, "humans would never
have been able to build cathedrals, fight disease, or devise scientific
theories" (Mansfield,
1991) is absurd.
To anticipate the argument made here, in order to understand any aspect
of human social behavior it is necessary both to distinguish successive
levels of complexity — physiological/psychological processes within
individuals, individual behavior, interactions, relationships, groups, and
societies — and to come to terms with the relations between them. Each
of these levels affects and is affected by those adjacent to it, and each
also affects and is affected by the socio-cultural structure of beliefs,
norms, values, and institutions with their constituent roles. Thus, in the
present context, an aggressive interaction between two individuals, group
aggression, and the societal phenomena of war can be described in similar
words, but they differ in many respects. For instance, group aggression
may involve individual aggressive propensities but also issues of group
dynamics irrelevant to the behavior of individuals; and war involves issues
of group dynamics but must be seen also as an institution with its constituent
roles. This paper therefore discusses three examples of aggression to illustrate
the continuum from individual aggression through group, religious, and ethnic
conflicts to international war.
LEVELS OF
COMPLEXITY
In
order to discuss
these three paradigmatic cases of individual aggression, intergroup aggression,
and international war, a digression explicating both the distinctions between
successive levels of social complexity and the relations between them is
first necessary.
The first two levels are the province of individual psychology/physiology
— processes within individuals (which could, of course, be further
subdivided into intracellular, cellular, organic, and so on) and individual
behavior.
Moving to social psychology, an interaction is defined as involving
at least two individuals and lasting only a brief span of time. During an
interaction the behavior of each individual is influenced by his/her own
goals and by the norms and values held, by perceptions of those of the other,
and by the context. Each participant seeks to understand the goals and strategies
of the other and to realize his/her own so far as possible.
In terms of the behavior involved, a relationship involves a series
of interactions between two individuals, each interaction being influenced
by past ones and, often, by expectations of further interactions in the
future. Thus a brief conversation between two strangers would constitute
an interaction, but next time they met they would be influenced by the first
interaction, and start to have a relationship. Of course, behavior is not
all: relationships continue in the absence of interactions and involve wishes,
emotions, judgments, and so on.
Each relationship is usually nested within a network of other relationships.
These may constitute a psychological group, namely one whose members
define themselves and are defined as a group and see themselves as interdependent,
and whose interactions are mediated, at least to some extent, by rules and
norms more or less characteristic of the group (see below).
An individual may belong to several groups. A collection of groups whose
membership may or may not overlap, but whose members recognize the groups
as constituents in a larger unit, constitute a society. Group processes
may operate to augment the cohesiveness of the society.
Three points about these levels of complexity must be emphasized.
First, each level
has properties that are not relevant to the level below. Thus a relationship
may involve one or many types of interaction — a property not relevant
at the interaction level. And a group may be structureless, centrifocal,
hierarchical, and so on — properties not relevant to the relationships
within it.
Second, we tend to
use different explanatory concepts at each level. We might see nationalism
as a factor in aggression at the societal level, sibling rivalry at the
relationship level, and acquisitiveness at the individual level.
Third, each level
affects and is affected by the others. For instance, a relationship is
affected both by its constituent interactions and, since A's relationship
with B is affected by B's relationship with C, by the group in which it
is embedded. And the nature of a group is affected by the relationships
of the individuals within it and by the society of which it forms part.
Here it is also necessary to bring in an anthropological/ sociological
perspective, for each level affects and is affected by the socio-cultural
structure — that is, by the values, norms, institutions, and so on
— accepted by the individuals concerned, and by the relations between
those values. Thus a norm of group loyalty affects the behavior of its
members, and the behavior of the individuals affects the group norm.
The relations between these levels can be seen as dialectical, in the
sense that new "truth" is continually emerging from their reciprocal interaction.
The successive levels of complexity, including that of the individual,
must be regarded not as entities but as processes in continuous creation,
maintenance, or degradation mediated by internal factors and by the dialectical
relations with other levels (Hinde,
1997).
We shall return to these dialectical relations between levels repeatedly
in later sections. In the meantime, it will be apparent that their importance
for understanding the phenomena of war depends on the precise question
being asked. Analyses of the causes of war in political, economic, or
historical terms are likely to focus on the dialectics between societies
and their socio-cultural structures. Understanding the causes and course
of a particular war would involve also reference to group processes and
to the relationships of and interactions between the leaders on each side,
as well as to the behavior of individuals. The following sections, therefore,
consider some of the factors involved in individual and group aggression
before considering how each contributes to institutionalized war.
REFERENCES
Damasio, A.R.
(1994). Descartes' Error. New York: Putnam.
Hinde, R.A.
(1987). Individuals, Relationships, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hinde, R.A. (1997). Relationships: a Dialectical Perspective.
Hove: Psychology Press.
Lorenz, K. (1966).
On Aggression. New York: Harcourt.
Mansfield, S.
(1991). The Rites of War. London: Bellew.
Turner, J.C..
Oakes. P.J., Haslam, S.A. & McGarty, C. (1994). "Self and Collective:
Cognition and Social Context." Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 20, 454- 63.
Wright, P.Q. (1965).
A Study of War, Vols 1 & 2, 2nd Ed. Chicago: Chicago University
Press.
|
![[American Diplomacy]](img/sublogo.gif)
