So far we have been reviewing evidence for and against the idea that human beings are ‘hard-wired’ for violence. We have been suggesting that there is limited evidence for the strong proposal that acting violently is an integral part of ‘human nature’ and that there is plentiful support for the alternative perspective. At the very least, the charge of biological determinism for human violence remains unproven. To be sure, this is not to discount the plentiful evidence that violence has obviously been a recurrent feature of human life at both individual and societal levels for millennia. It is awareness of this long-standing characteristic that may sustain the seemingly widespread but as yet unjustified assumption that we are inherently motivated toward violence, or that we cannot stop ourselves from engaging in it. However, we must remind ourselves again that the simple occurrence of violent events even if frequent does not on its own confirm or deny the supposition that the cause of them lies in our basic nature, or that such a pattern is inescapable and we are perennially bound to repeat it. All that counting violent events can ever do is support the self-evident position that we have a capacity for violence that in some circumstances is expressed. The extent and manner of that expression shows large variations, between individuals, between social groups, and over time, as a function of developmental, cognitive, situational and historical factors. These variations provide the key to understanding the more likely reasons for human violence and the degree to which environment and culture counterbalance any hypothetical innate drive toward aggression and destruction.