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Cruelty as by-product of ritualisation of intraspecific aggression in cultural evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2006

Ralf-Peter Behrendt
Ralf-Peter Behrendt*
Affiliation:
MRC Psychiatry, The Retreat Hospital, York, YO10 5BN, United Kingdom
*
[email protected]
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Abstract:

There are few commonalities between intraspecific aggression and predation and few convincing arguments for the conceptualisation of blood and pain as rewards for predation. Not cruelty, but ritualised intraspecific aggression is the predominant mechanism of accretion of social power and this, not cruelty, is what bestows reproductive advantages. Enjoyment of media cruelty is not reinforced by emotional circuits adapted to predation, but represents transient relief from culturally determined inhibition of aggression.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , June 2006 , pp. 226 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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