PRACTICAL THINKING. —「Some physiological psychology behind oddly aggressive behavior . . .」
「And how to realistically model such behavior in fiction . . .」
After losing an argument an individual follows you around and threatens to fight if you don't keep distance, saying you want to fight, but they are the ones following you around, while you try to keep away from them and have long ceased to speak.
I'm a writer and I think it best to write realistically and therefore convincingly. It's also good to know why this occurs when it occurs in reality. If you comprehend the psychological rules underlying your characters, you can write more gripping and tense and compelling situations in the fiction you write. The rules are like rules of chess. The game is more enjoyable if you follow the rules. Otherwise readers may feel something is off — not quite right.
The story may be fictional, but the drama must be compelling.
@Cheah suggests in a comment this occurs because people are not quite rational or these particular specimens of our species are not all there.
It's not that they aren't rational per se.
Rather all mammals have social dominance preprogrammed into them, and it results in odd behavior in this age.
Again, the individuals discussed above will, as you've noticed, loudly demand you to go away all while they approach you and then aggressively and closely follow you around. This as you try to keep away from them. Their behavior is actually worse if they are presently in a group. The behavior of whether they follow you or not and continue to attempt to threaten you or not depends on where they see you in their dominance hierarchy.
All this after they feel they lost an argument.
@Cheah suggests some persons cannot distinguish bruises to their ego from bruises to their body.
It's not so much that human brains cannot distinguish threats to body from threat to egos — which is somewhat true. The less intelligent they are they less their brain can tell the difference between an intellectual argument and a physical argument — and this in the context of position in a hierarchy of social dominance. Because when humans evolved there was no such distinction. (I refer you to this book: Satoshi KANAZAWA, The intelligence paradox, Hoboken: Wiley, 2011)
We live in an age where, despite everything, persons survive far more independently than ever before. In the past, when there was no significant production of anything — social group and therefore social dominance hierarchy — was survival — not distinguishable and therefore not selected to be always preconsciously distinguished.
You might be interested in these two classic papers on the subject:
The authors observed the behavior of a monkey group and then performed surgery on the cortex to inhibit learning social dominance hierarchy, memorizing social dominance hierarchy, and observed what changes in the group after that.
Understanding this work helped me significantly in writing gripping and realistic argument-leading-up-to-a-fight scenarios for my stories, on demand.
Understanding these resources is especially useful in preventing science fiction from becoming an information dump. Or from it becoming a didactic conversations with wooden character interaction which are, while interesting, entirely unconvincing.
The purpose of literature is, first of all, to entertain. After that it can provide information.
A paradox is that fiction — whose purpose is primarily to entertain — benefits from greater truth and realism. This can be considered especially a paradox for fantasy and science fiction. — It's both surprising and true that what aims neither at psychological truth nor psychological reality would significantly benefit from a broader and deeper knowledge and comprehension of psychological reality during its production.
The other major monograph is that by Konrad LORENZ (*Zur naturgeschichte der aggression, Wien: Borotha Schoeler, 1963). Lorenz was a friend of Pribram. He was also interest in this problem.
He argued, among other things, that species which evolved from species whose individuals are both more physically tough, less easily injured in the absolute sense, more robust, and also more dangerous when attacking, such as large predators, are far less aggressive. (Aggression is here famously defined as initiation of violence by members of the same species against each other, not mere predation.)
The fundamental issue of aggression, then, in his view, in species such as humans and monkeys, is that these mammals evolved from generally peaceful, weak, and harmless foraging ancestors. They can easily injure each other yet have little evolved psychology to limit aggression, and dominance hierarchy position.
Several other monographs and papers will be discussed. Possibly Today. Maybe Sunday.
I usually write stories which are 10,000–25,000 words . . . 40–100 pages.
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I'm a scientist who writes fantasy and science fiction under various names.
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My model for character design and story action for characters, is built on this same idea. Each character first, sees themselves as the author of their own tale in some way, so their actions come more form an internal rationale, than anything outside. While outside influences definitely factor in, it's that internal process that leads to action.
Secondly, that character, whether a bit player, or your hero, is constantly trying to achieve something, even if it is only peace (as in the character running away from the attacker) so, they will act on this, until a more pressing objective is introduced (defending themselves, for example) On a bigger scale, as you said, there is some dominance involved, but more than that, it is about self image. So, some characters will not seek to dominate to "own" a situation, but to ingratiate, so they can become something to that other person, a friend, or lover, perhaps. In this case, the attacker wants , in a very real sense, to be your characters "conqueror" it's not about your character,but some perceived lack in themselves that defeating another person can temporarily fill. So, they will follow this course of action, until it becomes unreasonable to them (there's a very real chance of serious injury, or death) and then they will find a way to get out of the situation, while maintaining as much of their pride as a conqueror as possible. This objective to be over another is also what leads to them having some tacit respect if they are defeated,because now they see in you, the conqueror they wish to be. Their objective is then open to reinterpretation. Depending on what they see the most value in, they might try to emulate you, or they may become bitter and plot their revenge. The only way the "conqueror" objective changes, however, is to be replaced by something that character places higher value on. For instance, if their family is threatened, they might switch to wanting to be a "defender" (closely related to conqueror, with subtle differences) all of this happens in split seconds inside your character, and can often just be shown through their actions and subtle shifts in dialogue. We don't often think too much of our own motives, and to me, writers that get too much inside their character's heads (unless writing anxious characters,or severe narcissists where their internal monologue is their main way of processing) often lose the reader.
Some good points here. I'll update the post above with some more points on the articles. And then follow up on your points regarding objective change and desire to ingratiate.
There's a nice way to think about preferences of characters so far at they can change. It ties in nicely with what you discuss.
It's an acting technique called relationship communication. I've thought about writing a book on using it for writing.
Rreally interesting article @tibra, well constructed and easy to follow. I think that the choice of monkey could however have a predetermined result in the first study, I would wonder had the study focused on a primarily passive monkey group like say, bonobos would have they seen such a stark change.
Keep up the great work.
Ty
Good point about the species of monkey chosen. That would be good experiment to perform again. (There's some difficulty in getting funding for animal experiments like these ones involving surgery. Much more so today. But there were some follow ups in the 50's and 60's. I might write about those and the resulting papers.)
The other major monograph is Konrad LORENZ, *Zur naturgeschichte der aggression, Wien: Borotha Schoeler. Lorenz was a friend of Pribram.
He argued, among other things, that species which evolved from species whose individuals are both more physically tough, less easily injured in the absolute sense, more robust, and also more dangerous when attacking, such as large predators, are far less aggressive. (Aggression is here famously defined as initiation of violence by members of the same species against each other, not mere predation.) The fundamental issue of aggression, then, in his view, in species such as humans and monkeys, is that these mammals evolved from generally peaceful, weak, and harmless foraging ancestors. They can easily injure each other yet have little evolved psychology to limit aggression, and dominance hierarchy position.
Well I did have a detailed reply but then my esteem app had a brain fart. So I will go with this.
😀
I appreciated reading this and @cheah's post. I recently went through something similar with someone i care about. It is hard to describe, but it was similar to the beginning of this post. I don't need to go into any more detail because I am trying to heal. But stumbling across this post from a PYPT mention, was very much appreciated.
Looking forward to your fiction. And thanks again for sharing this healthy perspective on humanity and how it relates to our craft upon the page.
#thealliance #steemexperience #thewritersblock
Ty for the kind words and the resteem.
This is a great and unique. I love it @tibra ◕ ‿ ◕✿
Ty
I read both posts with great interest, I would far rather walk away than get involved in a fight. At the same time I never call out someone for what they said what I do is say something like..."Hmmmm that's interesting, I never knew that, my understanding of it was ..." That way I find that it does not give someone means to get their back up so to speak. But there are people in this world also who are just looking for a fight, its very uncommon that we come across them but sometimes we do. Thank you for writing this.
Ty
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