4. Aggression as a consequence of the learning process

Whether aggression is genetically conditioned or not (Hacker, 1985, pp. 78-79) is not of great importance for my thesis. I am more interested in reasons for some people reacting aggressively when others do not. Regardless that capoeiristas in schools I have studied came from different social and cultural backgrounds, they have all conformed to school rules and beliefs about violence and aggression. The modes of application of aggression and violence were learned through educational processes and socialisation in certain capoeira group. Therefore, they should not be understood only in therms of psycho-sexual development of an individual. Hacker (1985, pp. 78-79) criticizes psychoanalytic theories of inherent drives and instinctive acts by human and proposes that the higher developed organisms react in accordance with their learned patterns, which are much more complex than instinctive reactions. Geen (1998, pp. 4-5) argues that: "every human act, also an aggressive one, has consequences. These consequences - rewarding or punishing outcomes of aggression-constitute the basis for the social learning process.  Aggression, which is rewarded, produces an increased expectancy that such behaviour will be useful in the future under similar conditions." 

Thus, human beings would repeat certain behaviour patterns in specific situations if it was beneficial. Hacker’s deliberation is similar to Bateson’s learning process theory. Bateson (1972, p. 293) analyses following stages of learning:

Zero learning – an organism’s responses to the environment that do not change according to the principle of right-wrong.

Learning I - change of organism’s responses to the environment with corrections for wrong decisions and reactions from a given and known set of alternatives.

Learning II - change in the learning I process. Correctional changes of a set of alternatives from which decisions and reactions are made.

Learning III - change in the learning II process. Correctional changes of the system of sets from which decisions and reactions are made. 

Learning IV - change in learning III. However, Bateson states that no adult living on earth is capable of this type of learning. 

Regarding the levels of the organisms’ learning process, I can categorise the appearance of aggression based on previous positive experiences in learning I. However, aggressive or violent behaviour as a mode to resolve specific life situations is rarely socially accepted even if it is beneficial. And yet most people would react aggressively to certain stressors regardless of the consequences of such behaviour. I presume that most humans are capable of the learning II process and therefore are able to change their set of reactions. So why do we still act aggressive and violent? I have been present many times when capoeiristas from schools where violence was disapproved and even aggressive play was undesired, played violent in some public rodas. If the play in roda became more dynamic or even aggressive some - sometimes even those that were mostly very calm and reserved during the trainings - started to play very aggressive, sometimes violent. They were sanctioned later by their master, yet during the play they forgot about what they were learned in the school. Thus can aggression be socially learned or does it root in more primitive functions of the human brain than cognition? I will not enter this topic but will only suggest that aggression and violence are not identical and inevitably connected phenomena.