The Multifaceted Direct and Displaced Aggression in Everyday life
- Sruthi Hariprasad
- Jul 27
- 8 min read
Updated: Sep 3
Aggression as per Merriam-Webster is: "Hostile, injurious, or destructive behavior or outlook especially when caused by frustration" We use this term synonymously with Hostility- which is being ready for fight out of anger or stubbornness. I am currently reading Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky and one term that caught my attention was Displaced Aggression. I was curious to know its manifestations and upon further reading into the topic, I am almost taken aback by its silent seeping in our daily lives. Here's a post that could hopefully make a few of us aware of the manifestations of aggression which we sometimes label as personality or just making it part of our lives altogether.
Any instance of aggression has a provocation- an act or an event, a provocateur the person responsible for that act, and an aggression target who receives the blow from the aggressed. In a simplified way, aggression is our response or reaction to an event or an individual's act, which in some way doesn't align with your expectations out of them.
Types of Aggression:
There are over 8 variations of aggression. Here's an overview of them and below that will be steps we can take to be conscious of our choices of actions:
These terminologies may seem too psychological or scientific, but stick with me, it is the day to day actions of ours and of people around us. Most movies carry one of these concepts, which further normalizes aggression. The only aim of this post is to make each of us conscious of the aggressive behaviours as they arise, and just creating a gap between the driving impulses and ill intentions, and your actions.
Direct Aggression:
Impulsive Aggression:
This is the most common form of aggression we associate the term with, which could either be physical or verbal. Here, the aggressor directs his impulsive response to the provocateur. There's no attempts to curb or hide the aggression and it directly targets the victim, and usually isn't meditated or manipulated. The intention here is to retaliate in the visible way, without an intention to obscure, and to cause some physical or psychological harm. Example: Temper Tantrums, Road Rage, Verbal Abuse, Self Harm, Acts of Violence etc.,
Instrumental Aggression:
Instrumental aggression is goal-oriented and calculated behavior involving harming others as a means to an end. This kind of behaviour involves aiming to achieve a specific outcome, power or control through deliberate action and involves planning and understanding consequences even if that involves harming another. The driving force of this action is not emotional impulse, but a scheme to achieve an intended result.
Example: Bullying, Sabotaging friends or colleagues, Theft, Robbery, Terrorism, Cyberbullying etc.,
Displaced Aggression:
This is a behaviour where the aggressor directs their anger towards the target that's different from the initial provocateur. One chooses this route when the direct aggression is risky socially, or is undesirable. The frustration here more channeled towards an accessible and relatively safer target. a defense mechanism where negative emotions are redirected from a threatening source to a less threatening one. We choose to take this route unconsciously too, since this is an animal trait as well- Like Cats being aggressive not to the original stimulus but to the safer thing closest to it. This is also called redirected Aggression.
Example: Yelling at children or spouse after a bad day at work, kicking a pet after an argument etc.,
Triggered Displaced Aggression (TDA):
This behaviour is extremely close to Displaced aggression, but a slight deviation from the fact that there's a secondary trigger present at the safer target. The provocation is carried over because of the inability to display a direct aggression, and a less threatening situation presents as a Trigger and the retaliation to that seemingly small trigger is much severe than it demands, as the aggression is displaced from the initial provocation. Rumination seems to increase the Aggression Augmenting Effect. It can either be a Provocation focussed rumination- leading to thoughts relating to provocateur, specific provocation, and means of retaliation. Alternatively, it could be a self-focussed rumination, relating to inward thoughts, and rethinking one's faults and emotions.
Here are the moderators of TDA:
Moderators in Statistic world refers to variables that changes relationship between 2 variables( or cause and effect). The Triggered Displaced Aggression can be increased due to:
Traits: People with high propensity to displace aggression would show maladaptive aggressive behaviours and generally range from high stress, to decreased life satisfaction. Higher TDA is more prevalent amongst drug users leading to increased tendency to many aggressive and antisocial behaviours.
Alcohol: Acute alcohol consumption is implicated in 35-60% of violent crimes in the World. Alcohol Myopia Theory reflects upon alcohol induced attention changes, and hence TDA. It confirms that under the influence of alcohol intoxication, our attention is directed towards salient provocative cues rather than a less salient inhibitory cues. So, Alcohol consumption increases the tendency to have higher TDA.
Public vs Private Settings: Audience affects Displaced aggression, where the public settings increase the Aggression Displacement when compared to provocation followed by rumination and then a trigger in a private setting.
Cognitive Load: The mental difficulty of a task at hand is called a Cognitive Load and a higher cognitive load affects information processing, and diminishes mental resources available for other simultaneous tasks. This increases the TDA only when the Trigger is more salient. High load processes only more salient cues, and hence augmented the TDA.
Others: The attitude similarity with the Target, Target Valence, and ingroup- outgroup status can also be moderators driving TDA.
Example: A tough day at work followed by a relatively insignificant trigger from spouse leading to an outburst of rage and anger.
Relational Aggression:
Relational aggression is a much subtler form of aggressive behaviour that it's almost undetectable. It's a type of social manipulation intended to harm provocateur's social relationships. It involves going behind someone's back, hence not straight-forward to find its manifestation. This kind of behavior has severe negative impacts on both victim and perpetrator. Victim's of relational aggression can suffer severe consequences including but not limited to negative mental health, and increased risk of maladaptive behaviours like suicide ideation.
Example: Ostracism- Exclusion from social groups, Spreading rumours or gossip, Threatening to end friendships, etc.,
Vicarious Retribution:
This is more of an abstract form of TDA, involving neither the perpetrator, nor the triggering Target directly in the aggressive retaliatory response. This refers to acts of aggression against an outgroup member where neither the ingroup or the individual are directly harmed by either that or another ougroup member. This sounds so obscure and remote, but happens in everyday lives. The individual seeks retribution beyond the initial provocateur to an easier target and easily available amongst the outgroup members. It also considers the ingroup strength- to confirm how strong his/her circle and self-concept, and the Outgroup Entitativity- as the scientists say- The outgroup's cohesiveness to gauge their retaliation.
Example: Killing a person from a particular community/society who neither did any harm to himself or his ingroup members.
Excitation Transfer Theory:
This is close to TDA too- Where there's an initial provocation followed by manipulation of arousal- Which is the Trigger is TDA. However there's no displacement of aggression. So this still pertains to direct aggression. The increased salience of the physiological arousal elicited by say exercise, or erotica or a loud noise- triggers, the aggression is reduced. So there's no displacement of aggression but a transfer so the intensity drops.
Hydraulic Theory of Aggression:
This theory suggests that aggressive energy builds up like water pressure, and needs a release- either upon the provocateur or upon the displaced target. If the aggression is not released, it could build up and gets its release in more detrimental ways with violet outbursts. The process of aggression release is innate, so overcoming aggression needs conscious efforts to go past this innate nature of humans.
How to overcome Aggression and its manifestations?
Now we know that aggression is not just hostile verbal and physical abuse, but goes into subtler forms of behaviors manifested into causing harm to others. Inherently, we are wired to retaliate when things don't go the way you wanted it, or when people cause damage and suppress your ego. There are a few things. we can do to be aware of such actions that you cause or be a victim of, and a few basic ways to handle them. This next series of steps must be taken only after establishing one fundamental but crucial understanding: I am the only person responsible for my emotions and actions. What we feel even though appears like an outcome of an external event, we are the person in control for how we feel and how we act. Now let's get to the steps:
Recognize the kind of aggression you face from people. The expressions as you know is not always direct anger but maybe displaced or even camouflaged as a guilt trip, jealousy, ostracism from your social settings or friendships, and even vicarious acts.
Note that you unconsciously be exuding such aggressive behaviors too. As much as you scrutinize where others are coming from, take some time to reflect on actions and emotions you show to people- Are you subtly dumping your aggression upon them in sneaky ways?
Once you notice these, find out the source or cause of that aggression- Do you think you're the Trigger or provocateur. Also if you're the aggressor, find out if they are the displaced target or the provocateur.
Now you know the What and the Who of the behavior. It's time to find out the Why in what you do and whom you do it to. Why does that particular action or that trigger make you become aggressive directly or passively? Is that due to Physiological, Psychological, or Socioeconomic influences?
Physiological would involve medical conditions like Genetics, Medical, and Psychiatric diseases, Neurotransmitters, Substance use, Medication, and Hormones. If the cause of aggression is biological as mentioned above, it must require medical attention.
Psychological influences would involve certain traits, especially DSM-5 diagnoses (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)- Which would include- Schizophrenia, Bipolar Affective Disorder, Major Depression, General Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, and Antisocial personality. These reasons and causes would require consistent therapy sessions, and release ways to manage Aggressive behaviors.
Socioeconomic influence on Aggression is the environment factor shaping our behaviour- Domestic violence, companion abuse, Control issues, fear of abandonment, and jealousy. Social deprivation in an ooppressed group is a common cause of aggression where they recognize the relative deprivation of what they haven't got when compared with another group, and then retaliate aggressively. These reasons need to be addressed in a very depper way of understanding lives.
Once we recognize the why behind an action or an event or an individual triggers an aggressive response from us, we should determine How we respond to this trigger. The reaction to provocation is different from the responses, as the latter is thought out and is conscious of the impacts for the self and for others, and responses if aligned with a conscious awareness, would choose greater good. So, recognize the baseline of next course of action and consequences of aggressive outlets.
if the aggression seems to be getting out of your control, DO NOT INTERACT with anyone, take a break- no media, no body else with you, but yourself, and sit by your own. World doesn't need more of your aggression, it suffers enough of it already. Sit idle, and bring your focus back to breath as it wanders. It triggers previous instances of possible disrespect, unfairness, and provocation, and resurfacing of possible actions you'd want to do to get back at the provocateur. That is okay. It might be daunting at first, but doing this activity without distraction is key- Since we might be displacing this emotion once we distract ourselves with social media or something else.
After this exercise of being by yourself, recognize that you're a 100% in control of your next scenario of life and how you feel about life. So, choose your actions that will maximize the wellness for yourself, and for others involved- Provocateur or Trigger.
If you're the victim, find ways to center yourself with the understanding as mentioned in the previous point, and do not react, but respond. The last thing we want is more of drama in our lives!
This is not an exhaustive list, in fact, this is just an overview post of aggression and basic steps to handle them. As the research and development grows, and as people get more informed about various manifestations of Aggression, maybe World would become much Peaceful place!
-Sru🔥
References:
Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky
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