- published: 05 Sep 2015
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Act may mean:
Acts may mean:
Aggression, in its broadest sense, is behavior, or a disposition, that is forceful, hostile or attacking. It may occur either in retaliation or without provocation. In narrower definitions that are used in social sciences and behavioral sciences, aggression is an intention to cause harm or an act intended to increase relative social dominance. Predatory or defensive behavior between members of different species may not be considered aggression in the same sense. Aggression can take a variety of forms and can be physical or be communicated verbally or non-verbally. Aggression differs from what is commonly called assertiveness, although the terms are often used interchangeably among laypeople, e.g. an aggressive salesperson.
Two broad categories of aggression are commonly defined. One is described as affective (emotional), hostile or retaliatory aggression, and the other as instrumental, goal-oriented or predatory aggression. In the context of violence, data from a range of disciplines lend some support to a distinction between affective and predatory aggression. However, others question the usefulness of a hostile vs instrumental distinction in humans, despite its ubiquity in research, on the basis that in real life most cases involve mixed motives and many factors.