In a paragraph of not more than 100 words, sum up what the writer says about the causes of conflict.
The causes of conflict
The evidence taken from the observation of the behavior of apes and
children suggests that there are three clearly separable groups of simple
causes for the outbreak of fighting and the exhibition of aggressiveness by
individuals.
One of the most common causes of fighting among both children
and apes was over the possession of external objects. The disputed
ownership of any desired object - food, clothes, toys, females, and the
affection of others - was sufficient ground for an appeal to force. On Monkey
Hill disputes over females were responsible for the death of thirty out of
thirty-three females. Two points are of particular interest to notice about
these fights for possession.
In the first place they are often carried to
such an extreme that they end in the complete destruction of the objects of
common desire. Toys are torn to pieces. Females are literally torn limb from
limb. So overriding is the aggression once it has begun that it not only
overflows all reasonable boundaries of selfishness but utterly destroys the
object for which the struggle began and even the self for whose advantage the
struggle was undertaken.
In the second place it is observable, at least in
children, that the object for whose possesion aggression is started may
sometimes be desired by one person only or merely because it is desired by
someone else. There were many cases observed by Dr Isaacs where toys and other
objects which had been discarded as useless were violently defended by their
owners when they became the object of some other childs desire. The
grounds of possessiveness may, therefore, be irrational in the sense that they
are derived from inconsistent judgments of value. Whether sensible or
irrational, contests over possession are commonly the occasion for the most
ruthless use of force among children and apes.
One of the commonest kinds of
object arousing possessive desire is the notice, good will, affection, and
service of other members of the group. Among children one of the commonest
causes of quarrelling was jealousy - the desire for the exclusive
possession of the interest and affection of someone else, particularly the
adults in charge of the children. This form of behaviour is sometimes
classified as a separate cause of conflict under the name of
rivalry or jealousy. But, in point of fact, it seems to
us that it is only one variety of possessiveness. The object of desire is not a
material object - that is the only difference. The object is the interest and
affection of other persons. What is wanted, however, is the exclusive right to
that interest and affection - a property in emotions instead of in things. As
subjective emotions and as causes of conflict, jealousy and rivalry are
fundamentally similar to the desire for the uninterrupted possession of toys or
food. Indeed, very often the persons, property which is desired, are the
sources of toys and food.
Possessiveness is, then, in all its forms a common
cause of fighting. If we are to look behind the mere facts of behaviour for an
explanation of this phenomenon, a teleological cause is not far to seek. The
exclusive right to objects of desire is a clear and simple advantage to the
possessor obit. It carries with it the certainty and continuity of
satisfaction. Where there is only one claimant to a good, frustration and the
possibility floss is reduced to a minimum. It is, therefore, obvious that, if
the ends of the self are the only recognized ends, the whole powers of the
agent, including the fullest use of his available force, will be used to
establish and defend exclusive rights to possession.
Another cause of
aggression closely allied to possessiveness is the tendency for children and
apes greatly to resent the intrusion of a stranger into their group. A new
child in the class may be laughed at, isolated, and disliked and even set upon
and pinched and bullied. A new monkey may be poked and bitten to death. It is
interesting to note that it is only strangeness within a similarity of species
that is resented. Monkeys do not mind being joined by a goat or a rat. Children
do not object when animals are introduced to the group. Indeed, such novelties
are often welcomed. But when monkeys meet a new monkey or children a strange
child, aggression often occurs. This suggests strongly that the reason for the
aggression is fundamentally possessiveness. The competition of the newcomers is
feared. The present members of the group feel that there will be more rivals
for the food or the attention of the adults.
Finally, another common source
of fighting among children is a failure or frustration in their own activity. A
child will be prevented either by natural causes such as bad weather or illness
or by the opposition of some adult from doing something he wishes to do at a
given moment - sail his boat or ride the bicycle. The child may also frustrate
itself by failing, through lack of skill or strength, to complete successfully
some desired activity. Such a child will then in the ordinary sense become
naughty. He will be in a bad or surly temper. And, what is of
interest from our point of view, the child will indulge in aggression -
attacking and fighting other children or adults. Sometimes the object of
aggression will simply be the cause of frustration, a straightforward reaction.
The child will kick or hit the nurse who forbids the sailing of his boat. But
sometimes - indeed, frequently - the person or thing that suffers the
aggression is quite irrelevant and innocent of offence. The angry child will
stamp the ground or box the ears of another child when neither the ground nor
the child attacked is even remotely connected with the irritation or
frustration.
Of course, this kind of behaviour is so common that everyone
feels it to be obvious and to constitute no serious scientific problem. That a
small boy should pull his sisters hair because it is raining does not
appear to the ordinary unreflecting person to be an occasion for solemn
scientific inquiry. He is, as we should all say, in a bad temper.
Yet it is not, in fact, really obvious either why revenge should be taken on
entirely innocent objects, since no good to the aggressor can come of it, or
why children being miserable should seek to make others miserable also. It is
just a fact of human behaviour that cannot really be deduced from any general
principle of reason. But it is, as we shall see, of very great importance for
our purpose. It shows how it is possible, at the simplest and most primitive
level, for aggression and fighting to spring from an entirely irrelevant and
partially hidden cause. Fighting to possess a desired object is straightforward
and rational, however disastrous its consequences, compared with fighting that
occurs because, in a different and unrelated activity, some frustration has
barred the road to pleasure. The importance of this possibility for an
understanding of group conflict must already be obvious.
(From Personal Aggressiveness and War by E. F. M. Durbin and John Bowlby)
Then press this button to check your answer: