"For every minute you are angry you loose sixty seconds of happiness." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

People get mad. You can see it in their eyes and hear it written about in songs. Countries go to war, a boxer throws another blow at his opponent, people get killed on the street, a student punches a pillow - all of these things are lumped into one big category - Aggression. So what is this force that drives us in so many different directions?

Aggression has been defined as many different things. On an every day level, people speak of "attacking" or "tackling" their problems, "mastering" a problem, or "getting their teeth into" things. It seems that aggressive words are used to describe a number of things. It is the basis of intellectual achievement, pride, and independence. It includes assertiveness and forceful conduct as well as volatile or violent behavior.

Another take on aggression views it as the violation of social norms. This is not to say that slight social deviants are necessarily aggressive persons, but rather that an act that might be seen as aggressive is more likely to be categorized as such if it violates social norms. For example, a scalpel in the hands of a surgeon is a tool, compared with a knife in the hands of a thief, a weapon.

More specifically, aggression can be called those acts intended to hurt others, provoke conflict, or to secure an increased competitive advantage. The point here is to say that there is no one exhaustive definition for what we call aggression. In the following pages, the pervious description will serve as our operation definition of aggression.