Outline and evaluate neural and hormonal mechanisms in aggression.
There are two main biological explanations to aggression, neural and hormonal. The neural explanation is the serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitters and how they affect our aggression; the hormonal mechanisms are the testosterone and cortisol chemicals.
Testosterone is a hormone that is more concentrated in men than in women as it is a male sex hormone, it is thought to influence aggression from a young age onwards, due to its actions on the brain areas involved in controlling aggression. One research study that was done on testosterone involved measuring the testosterone found in the saliva of violent and non-violent criminals. This study was concluded by Dabbs et al…show more content… One problem with this is that there isn’t much evidence to support that cortisol has a link with testosterone, so it is hard to suggest that the higher the testosterone levels, the lower the cortisol level and the higher the aggression. However if it is true low levels of cortisol should link to increase levels of aggression, as Virkkunen showed in his study, were he reported low level of cortisol in habitual violent offenders, which was also what Tennes and Kreye also found this with their study on violent school children. This suggests that although relatively high testosterone is the primary biochemical influences on aggression, low cortisol also plays an important role by increasing the likelihood of aggressive behaviour.
The neural aspect of the biological approach to aggression suggests that higher levels of dopamine links to increased aggressive behaviour, however it hasn’t been as well established as the link with serotonin has been. Lavine concluded that increases in dopamine activity via the use of amphetamines have also been associated with increases in aggressive behaviour. As well as this, Buitelaar says that antipsychotics, which reduce dopamine activity in the brain, have been shown to reduce aggressive behaviour in violent delinquents. The biggest problem with this study is that it is relying on drugs to reduce aggression, which has been shown to have many negative side effects, as well as possibly meaning
