Psychology

and

war: a

review

Leonard Berkowitz, Aggression: A Social

Psychological Analysis

ELTON B. McNEIL

Department of Psychology, The University of Michigan

&dquo;Bangl Bangl Bang! As three shots ripped

through my groin, I was off on the greatest
adventure of my lifel&dquo; This is reputed to
be a classic, attention-getting, opening line
and it has become increasingly apparent
that psychologists who write about aggression need such an opener if their work is

of the twisted psyche. It is not surprising

that, for the lay person, incomprehensible
political and national behaviors are most
comfortably understood as a manifestation
of emotional illness, for in this realm all
things irrational seem reasonable. When
Joost A. M. Meerloo speaks of sick cultures

the attention of those who make

decisions and form policy in international

and Jerome Frank refers to pathological

leaders, the reader experiences a sense of
correctness and fulfillment that is denied
him if he searches through the maze of political, economic, and historical theories with
all their complexity and seemingly chimerical reality. A too-easy, uncritical public
acceptance of mental derangement as a
source of international misunderstanding has
resulted in an unintended oversimplification
and stereotypy regarding human conflict.
This book by Berkowitz seems to add a
number of dimensions usually overlooked by
the casual student of psychology and agres-

to seize

relations.
While aggression has been

probed in its
various aspects by every discipline worthy
of its name, it remains, in the words of
Churchill, &dquo;... a riddle wrapped in a
mystery inside

an

enigmal&dquo;

war and peace has

been a varied and multidimensional one, yet
it has always been tarred with the brush
of the individual-psychoanalytic-pathological conception of hostility. Psychologists
can fairly be accused of neglect of the
normal. But they have been aided and
abetted in this oversight by the perpetual
fascination of the lay person with the emotional sickness of his fellow human being.
There has always been a moth-and-flame
fascination to personal pathology, and the
compelling quality of the juicy details of
human frailty is such that more than one
person begins reading the daily paper by
a guilty, pleasing perusal of the obituaries
or latest accounts of violence. Nor is he
spared a daily TV immersion in the world

Psychologys

view of

sion.

While not intended solely as a study of

Berkowitzs book is the closest approximation yet to a really useful tool for the
student who is aware that in addition to
its political, economic, and historical
branches, the roots of war are sunk deep in
the psychology of mans aggression toward
his fellow man. For some time now, the
various social sciences have bickered peevishly and uselessly with one another concerning the proper role of each in assem-

war,

778
a realistic model of the constructive
and destructive forces in international society. In this respect, Berkowitzs social
psychological analysis of aggression appears
to be an important bridge between the opposite shores of personal pathology and
political-historical-economic views of the
nature of human conflict.
First, in a simple but dignified ceremony,
Berkowitz buries the &dquo;instinct&dquo; doctrine of
war in the Potters Field of theory. It is
apparent that if nations possess &dquo;death
wishes&dquo; they must either wage constant war

bling

against others or turn these impulses inward and destroy themselves. Neither com-

history gives
speculation. There is a
certain romantic theoretical pleasure in using the concept of a death wish in a highly
symbolic and abstract fashion, but this
mon or uncommon sense nor

credence to such

pleasure should forever be reserved

as

the

province of wistful philosophers. The instrumental quality of most aggression, i.e.,

aggression in the service of the accumulation of power,

wealth, personal freedom, or

destiny, is a broad enough concept
encompass most of mans fatal procliv-

national
to

ities. Ancient views of instinctive aggression, such as McDougalls instinct of Pug-

nacity, often got entangled with

some

very

shaky anthropology. Instinctivists were

pleased to point out the high frequency of
human wars as evidence for the instinctual
basis of conflict and McDougall once insisted that Europeans had a stronger aggressive instinct than the Indians or Chinese.
Given World War II, Korea, and current
anxiety about the Chinese approach to coexistence, we find few disciples of such
theory. Berkowitz sums it up tersely, &dquo;War
among nations is a social phenomenon, not
a biological one&dquo; (p. 23).
In discussing the inhibition of aggressive
action, two basic alternatives are available:
fear of punishment and the urge not to

violate ones standard of conduct. Punishment has at least two dimensions-the

strength of the expected punishment and
the probability of its occurrence. It is perfectly evident that policy-makers, without
the benefit of research and theory, deduced
that these elements were functional ones
and from this derived the theory of massive
deterrence and related doctrines. While this
seems to have been the absolute minimum
derivation possible from a common sense
view of hostility, it is par for a policy course.
As Berkowitz indicates, human beings fear
more than physical punishment. They also
seek to avoid the punishment which arises
from disapproval by others. Obviously,
they fear disapproval only from those persons important to them and it is here that
nationalism works to the disadvantage of the
world. Nationalism has certain internally
unifying characteristics but it tends at the
same time to circumscribe the reference
group of important &dquo;others.&dquo; World opinion has had attributed to it an enormous
force that seems regularly to be measured
only in terms of its inability to have any impact in times of nationalistic adventuring.
It is clear a world-wide community of emotional co-involvement has yet to be developed and, until it is attained, fear of punishment may be our only resource.
In Berkowitzs analysis of intergroup hostility, a single sentence seems to contain the
essence of his viewpoint: &dquo;Any complete
description of the Civil War, or any other
conflict for that matter, obviously must involve the full range of the social sciences:
political, historical, sociological, and economic considerations, as well as those taken
from psychology.... The study of intergroup conflict, of necessity, is a multidisciplinary matter&dquo; (p. 132). Among the
disciplines, there certainly exists overlap of
focus, distinctly different levels of analysis,
and disparate groups of facts attended to.

779

For psychology, the nonrational components

of conflict yet remain its most familiar baili-

wick.
An

analysis of international conflict in

personal or cultural tensions is inadequate. Berkowitz paraphrases this by
saying &dquo;Tensions, like the poor, will always
be with us&dquo; (p. 165). While these tensions
terms of

and frustrations may never be eliminated,

mankind could at least devote greater effort
to the task of diverting these energies into
socially more useful goals. To this end the
UNESCO sponsored social scientists have
largely concentrated their efforts on the investigation and elimination of misleading
attitudes and stereotypes concerning other
national groups. Such programs have been
useful only to a limited degree since they
may well be dealing with measle spots
rather than the disease itself. In the whirling
vortex of international affairs more than one
observer has been confused by effect which
he mistakenly takes to be cause.
Despite his social and group emphasis,
Berkowitz remains less than convinced. He
still is inclined to stress the importance of
individualistic considerations in the field of
group relations. This view is most clearly
outlined in his statement that, &dquo;Dealings
between groups ultimately become problems
for the psychology of the individual. Individuals decide to go to war; battles are
fought by individuals; and peace is established by individuals. It is the individual
who adopts the beliefs prevailing in his
society, even though the extent to which
these opinions are shared by many people
is a factor governing his readiness to adopt
them, and he transmits these views to other
individuals&dquo; (p. 167). This statement does
not recant his belief in a multidisciplinary
approach. It rather establishes its sequence
and its areas of greatest application for
each.

The most direct procedure for reducing

intergroup conflict remains that of lessening
the occurrence of frustrations or, at least,
of preventing the frustrations from bursting
into open aggression. In a list directed to
achieving this end, Berkowitz includes com-

advocating peace and harmony

(including
futility of trying to scare
into
people
changing their behavior), minimunications

the

mizing group differences, the establishment

of perceived interdependence among people
and nations, and the provision of equal
among the various peoples.
Berkowitz indicates that certain factors
must exist before there can be intergroup
conflict. ( 1 ) People must be categorized
as a unit and collectively regarded as a
frustrating agent, (2) the group must be
visible, i.e., be &dquo;different,&dquo; (3) there must
be some frustrating contact with the group.
Since our relations with Russia and China
seem to have satisfied all these conditions,
the fact of intergroup conflict should come
as
no
surprise. Berkowitz presents a
thorough discussion of a variety of facets
of aggression. Of these, perhaps his chapter
on aggressive personalities is most relevant.
Since men most often are political leaders
and since they have learned more aggressive
habits and have less strong inhibitions
against direct aggression, we need only add
frequent frustrations throughout childhood
and we have the portrait of a human being
ready to become quickly and strongly enraged. Berkowitz describes such a person.
He is a person who (a) readily interprets
many events as frustrations (including ambiguous events), (b) has a low frustration
tolerance so that his emotional reactions ta
status contacts

thwarting
associates

relatively intense, (c) readily

people and objects with his

are

frustraters so that there are many stimuli

capable of &dquo;drawing&dquo; hostile behavior from
him, and (d) may have learned to make

strong aggressive responses

to

aggression

780

this, Berkowitz proposes that

of
strength aggressive actions exhibited
a
by person is a joint function of the intensity of his anger, the strength of his restraints against aggression, the degree of association between the initial instigator and
the aggression cues in the situation, and the
strength of his habitual tendencies to recues.

From

the

spond aggressively

to

aggression

cues.

When Berkowitz discusses aggression in

crime, homicide, and suicide he adds other
dimensions to this portrait. He conjectures
about the personality of persistent lawbreakers and concludes that they (a) are relatively unable to defer gratification, (b) are
easily frustrated and typically show a strong
emotional reaction when aroused, (c) feel
alienated and apart from many other people,
often viewing them with hostility and resentment, (d) have relatively strong ag-

gressive motives, (e) possess insufficiently

developed moral standards such that socially
disapproved behaviors do not produce intense guilt and, (f) hold attitudes justifying
antisocial behavior.
If, indeed, the triggering of war must
eventually revert to the psychology of the
individual leader, then we can never again
underestimate his impact on human holocaust. It would seem that intergroup hostility is the backdrop before which the per-

sonal drama of leadership is played to its

fatal conclusion, yet to focus all of our
attention on the central character would be
to narrow our perspective unreasonably. The
declaration and execution of war still requires the combined forces of history and
fate tied closely to the spirit of the times.
Leadership plays a part in aggression that
should never be neglected, but it is, in its
very nature, a product of an accumulation
of other forces and determinants.
In all, this extremely well-written, lucid
book points the way to a proper appraisal
of the function of aggression in human affairs. It does not diagram the way in which
the various social sciences can learn to find
common ground with one another and, even
more important, move them to communicate
with the physical, natural, and hardware
sciences in resolving this human dilemma.
It is a book that ought to be read carefully
by the other sciences. It is a document that
states what psychology has presently to
offer those most concerned with international affairs, and while it does not deify
psychology as mankinds only hope, it indicates clearly that psychology is an im-

portant contributing discipline.

REFERENCES

BERKOWITZ, LEONARD. Aggression: A Social

Psychological Analysis.
Hill, 1962.

New York: McGraw-