Dominance and Aggression in Humans and Other Animals: The Great Game of Life examines human nature and the influence of evolution, genetics, chemistry, nurture, and the sociopolitical environment as a way of understanding how and why humans behave in aggressive and dominant ways. The book walks us through aggression in other social species, compares and contrasts human behavior to other animals, and then explores specific human behaviors like bullying, abuse, territoriality murder, and war. The book examines both individual and group aggression in different environments including work, school, and the home. It explores common stressors triggering aggressive behaviors, and how individual personalities can be vulnerable to, or resistant to, these stressors. The book closes with an exploration of the cumulative impact of human aggression and dominance on the natural world. - Reviews the influence of evolution, genetics, biochemistry, and nurture on aggression - Explores aggression in multiple species, including insects, fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals - Compares human and animal aggressive and dominant behavior - Examines bullying, abuse, territoriality, murder, and war - Includes nonaggressive behavior in displays of respect and tolerance - Highlights aggression triggers from drugs to stress - Discusses individual and group behavior, including organizations and nations - Probes dominance and aggression in religion and politics - Translates the impact of human behavior over time on the natural world

This volume is an overview of research examining the relationship between hormones and aggressive behavior. The last 15 years have witnessed a tremen dous growth of knowledge in this area, yet reviews written by specialists are virtually nonexistent. This work is an attempt to provide a comprehensive and cohesive synthesis of this literature. Chapters 1-7 provide an analysis of hor monal influences on the major forms of aggressive behavior, including intermale, interfemale, shock-induced, maternal, territorial, and predatory aggression. The focus of Chapters 8-12 is an examination of the mechanisms through which hormones might act to produce changes in agonistic responding. Genetic, de velopmental, neural, and biochemical influences are considered. It is well known that environment, social context, and experience modulate the effects of hor mones on behavior. Thus, Chapters 13-15 are designed to review the literature concerning hormone-pheromone interactions, hormonal responses to compe tition, and the influence of social context on the endocrine system and aggressive behavior. Frequently, the principles advanced by behavioral endocrinologists are based on research in one species, the rodent. To provide a more comparative perspective and to examine specifically the generality of those principles gen erated for rodents, Chapters 16-22 examine hormone-aggression relationships in a variety of species, including fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles, infrahuman primates, humans, ungulates, and insects. This volume should be useful to both beginning and advanced researchers in animal behavior, behavioral endocri nology, physiological psychology, neuroendocrinology, zoology, physiology, and psychiatry.

This volume focuses on two questions: why do people from one social group oppress and discriminate against people from other groups? and why is this oppression so mind numbingly difficult to eliminate? The answers to these questions are framed using the conceptual framework of social dominance theory. Social dominance theory argues that the major forms of intergroup conflict, such as racism, classism and patriarchy, are all basically derived from the basic human predisposition to form and maintain hierarchical and group-based systems of social organization. In essence, social dominance theory presumes that, beneath major and sometimes profound difference between different human societies, there is also a basic grammar of social power shared by all societies in common. We use social dominance theory in an attempt to identify the elements of this grammar and to understand how these elements interact and reinforce each other to produce and maintain group-based social hierarchy.

Expanding on the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, this book deals specifically with mammals in neuroscience and behavioral research laboratories. It offers flexible guidelines for the care of these animals, and guidance on adapting these guidelines to various situations without hindering the research process. Guidelines for the Care and Use of Mammals in Neuroscience and Behavioral Research offers a more in-depth treatment of concerns specific to these disciplines than any previous guide on animal care and use. It treats on such important subjects as: The important role that the researcher and veterinarian play in developing animal protocols. Methods for assessing and ensuring an animal's well-being. General animal-care elements as they apply to neuroscience and behavioral research, and common animal welfare challenges this research can pose. The use of professional judgment and careful interpretation of regulations and guidelines to develop performance standards ensuring animal well-being and high-quality research. Guidelines for the Care and Use of Mammals in Neuroscience and Behavioral Research treats the development and evaluation of animal-use protocols as a decision-making process, not just a decision. To this end, it presents the most current, in-depth information about the best practices for animal care and use, as they pertain to the intricacies of neuroscience and behavioral research.

This book presents extensive field research and analysis to evaluate sexual coercion in a range of species—including all of the great apes and humans—and to clarify its role in shaping social relationships among males, among females, and between the sexes.

Social neuroscience is a rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field which is devoted to understanding how social behavior is regulated by the brain, and how such behaviors in turn influence brain and biology. Existing volumes either fail to take a neurobiological approach or focus on one particular type of behavior, so the field is ripe for a comprehensive reference which draws cross-behavioral conclusions. This authored work will serve as the market's most comprehensive reference on the neurobiology of social behavior. The volume will offer an introduction to neural systems and genetics/epigenetics, followed by detailed study of a wide range of behaviors – aggression, sex and sexual differentiation, mating, parenting, social attachments, monogamy, empathy, cooperation, and altruism. Research findings on the neural basis of social behavior will be integrated across different levels of analysis, from molecular neurobiology to neural systems/behavioral neuroscience to fMRI imaging data on human social behavior. Chapters will cover research on both normal and abnormal behaviors, as well as developmental aspects. - 2016 PROSE Category winner - Honorable Mention for Biomedicine and Neuroscience - Presents neurobiological analysis of the full spectrum of social behaviors, while other volumes focus on one particular behavior - Integrates and discusses research from different levels of analysis, including molecular/genetic, neural circuits and systems, and fMRI imaging research - Covers both normal and abnormal behaviors - Covers aggression, sex and sexual differentiation, mating, parenting, social attachments, empathy, cooperation, and altruism

The study of nonverbal behavior has substantially grown in importance in social psychology during the past twenty years. In addition, other disciplines are increas ingly bringing their unique perspectives to this research area. Investigators from a wide variety of fields such as developmental, clinical, and social psychology, as well as primatology, human ethology, sociology, anthropology, and biology have system atically examined nonverbal aspects of behavior. Nowhere in the nonverbal behavior literature has such multidisciplinary concern been more evident than in the study of the communication of power and dominance. Ethological insights that explored nonhuman-human parallels in nonverbal communication provided the impetus for the research of the early 19708. The sociobiological framework stimulated the search for analogous and homologous gestures, expressions, and behavior patterns among various species of primates, including humans. Other lines of research, in contrast to evolutionary-based models, have focused on the importance of human developmental and social contexts in determining behaviors associated with power and dominance. Unfortunately, there has been little in the way of cross-fertilization or integration among these fields. A genuine need has existed for a forum that exam ines not only where research on power, dominance, and nonverbal behavior has been, but also where it will likely lead. We thus have two major objectives in this book. One goal is to provide the reader with multidisciplinary, up-to-date literature reviews and research findings.