Arrrggghhh!

Splat! You've just been hit by a pie. Would you laugh? Groan? Curse? Start court-martial proceedings? Or would you just enjoy the custard?

There are many forms of aggression. Hitting, hurting and killing are obvious acts of aggression, but there are other kinds. The prizefighter, the chess champion, the political candidate, the salesman closing a deal, the kid raising his hand in class and the guy who makes friends at parties--all are being aggressive in their own subtle ways. They share something with the guys who read the Police Gazette, who have seen Godfather II seven times or who delight when Merlin Olsen creams a quarterback.

Aggression is multifaceted; it can't be covered by one quiz, with a ready-made A.Q., or "aggression quotient," that classifies you as a Vicious Vic, a Timid Tim or a Latent Louie. So, here are four subtests that get at aggression from several angles--how you think you'd act, how you do act, what you know and what you believe.

The test that follows was given to a scientifically selected sample of 115 Playboy readers. Turn to page 134 to compare your answers with theirs.

The Culture of Violence

Between the quick and the dead live the paranoids who nervously adhere to the boy-scout motto: Be prepared. This test probes your grasp of the vocabulary of violence. A high score may not indicate that you are a menace, but watch out for the dude who can order ham and eggs with a Molotov cocktail to go.

1. How many coils in a hangman's noose?--

2. What is O. J. Simpson's number?--

3. Where is the bull's-eye on an N.R.A. regulation human-silhouette target?--

4. What is the rank one step above brigadier general?--

5. Whose men were killed in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre? A. Legs Diamond; B. Bugs Moran; C. Lash LaRue; D. Robert Stack.

6. Which of the following sporting gestures is not illegal? A. jamming; B. slashing; C. clotheslining.

7. Match the author with his creation:

A. Mickey Spillane

B. Dashiell Hammett

C. John D. MacDonald

D. Don Pendleton

a. Mack Bolan

b. Mike Hammer

c. Sam Spade

d. Travis McGee

8. Which of the following is not a martial art? A. Aikido; B. Nin Jitsu; C. I Ching; D. Savate.

9. In bullfighting, what is the man called who sticks the bull while sitting on a blindfolded horse? A. matador; B. bulldagger; C. picador; D. cuspidor.

10. Who was the director of Straw Dogs? A. Rex Reed; B. Sam Peckinpah; C. Andy Warhol; D. Robert Aldrich.

11. What is the principal ingredient of a Molotov cocktail?--

12. Match the mass murderers pictured at left with their names: Charles Manson; Juan Corona; Richard Speck; Charles Starkweather. (For extra points, list number of known victims.)

13. In warfare slang, ham and eggs designates which of the following? A. uniform decoration; B. rations; C. type of bombardment.

14. What is a shiv?--

15. What name appears on the most widely used boxing trunks? A. Cosell; B. Ever-last; C. Eveready; D. Louisville Slugger.

16. What type of motorcycle is known as the Hog? A. Honda 750; B. Harley-David-son Sportster; C. Harley-Davidson 74; D. Vespa.

17. Which of the following is not a derogatory term? A. dago; B. ginch; C. spic; D. suds; E. mick.

18. How many engines are there on a B-52?--

19. In boxing, what class is just heavier than lightweight? A. welterweight; B. bantamweight; C. middleweight; D. paperweight.

20. Who used the names John L. Raines, Eric Starvo Galt and Ramon George Sneyd?--

21. Which hand wins? A. straight; B. flush; C. full house.

22. Match the wrestling hold with the pictures below left: hammer-lock; half nelson; full nelson; ozzie nelson.

23. Who is the alter ego of Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk? A. Ben Grimm; B. Bruce Banner; C. Alex Karras; D. Peter Parker.

24. What is the form of execution in which the condemned is strangled with a piece of wire? (Hint: It is not a long-distance phone bill.)--

25. What was the caliber of the handgun used by Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force?--

26. What is the slang term (originating in Vietnam) for the elimination of a superior officer by his own men?--

27. Who is the current director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation? A. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.; B. J. Edgar Hoover; C. Emmett Kelly; D. Clarence Kelley.

28. What do Ann Calvello and Joan Weston do for a living?--

29. Who was Albert DeSalvo?--

30. Pictured below are: a. an M-1 (used in World War Two) and b. an M-16 (used in Vietnam). Which weapon is larger in caliber?--

Everything you say will be used against you

The first test was fairly objective. As Sergeant Friday used to say: "Just the facts, ma'am." Either you had the information on the tip of your trigger finger or you didn't. Now it's time for true confessions. The following questions are an inventory of personal behavior. There are no right or wrong answers. Honesty is the best policy, but only because it is more interesting to find out about yourself than about someone else. Read each item carefully and check those that apply to yourself. If you cannot think of a specific incident in your own experience, leave the answer space blank.

1. Do you own a gun?--

2. If so, is the gun loaded at this moment?--

3. Have you been in a fistfight since the ninth grade?--

4. Within the past year, have you ended a telephone conversation by hanging up on someone?--

5. Have you given the finger to anyone in the past two months?--

6. Have you told someone off within the past two months?--

7. Have you ever written an opinionated letter to the editor complaining about something?--

8. Have you ever had a controversial bumper sticker on your car?--

9. Have you written graffiti in a public place within the past year?--

10. Within the past year, have you struck any child or adult with whom you were angry?--

11. Within the past year, have you struck any animal that made you angry?--

12. Within the past month, have you struck a machine because it wasn't working right (e.g., kicking a vending machine, lawn mower, pay phone, etc.)?--

13. In your adult life, have you ever struck a child or adult because you were angry over some unrelated event?--

14. In your adult life, have you ever struck an animal because you were angry over some unrelated event?--

15. Within the past six months, have you struck any inanimate object because you were angry over something unrelated to that object (e.g., kicking a chair because someone insulted you)?--

16. Have you spanked or tied up your sexual partner in the past year?--

17. In the past year, have you "taken" your lover (i.e., had sex against her will, or without warning)?--

18. Do you always try to sleep with a girl on the first date?--

19. Would you say that you are more successful or more powerful today than your old schoolmates are?--

20. Would you say that you are physically stronger and tougher than average for your age, size and sex?--

21. Were you a firstborn child or an only child?--

22. Have you ever asked for a raise?--

23. Have you ever voted for someone you did not particularly like because you wanted another candidate to lose?--

24. Have you ever owned a practical-joke novelty device (a handshake buzzer, etc.)?--

25. As a child, did you ever run away from home for more than 24 hours?--

26. Have you ever tortured an animal (e.g., pulling legs off spiders)?--

27. As a child, was your home life particularly violent? (Did your parents fight? Were you beaten when you misbehaved?)--

28. As a child, did you tend to get into more fights than other children?--

29. Did you have more school problems and truancy than other children?--

30. Did you throw temper tantrums more often than most children when you were young?--

31. When you drink a lot, do you become mean?--

Total checked:--

Patience is no Virtue

Imagine that you are driving home after a hard day. The light at an intersection turns red and you stop. After a few minutes, the light turns green. For no apparent reason, the vehicle in front of you does not move. The slow burn commences. How long would it take for you to express your irritation? The pictures at the right re-create this situation for three different vehicles (a Cadillac Fleetwood, a battered Ford and some outlaw motorcyclists).

The Cadillac

Would you honk at the driver of the Cadillac? If yes, about how many seconds would you wait before honking?

Circle one: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15.

The Ford

Would you honk at the driver of the battered Ford? If yes, about how many seconds would you wait before honking?

Circle one: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15.

The Motorcyclists

Would you honk at the outlaw motorcyclists? If yes, about how many seconds would you expect to live after honking?

Circle one: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15.

Tears of Rage

The world is rife with aggravation. Events occur daily that result in mild stomach upset, Excedrin headaches and stark-raving-out-of-your-gourd fits. What's your flash point? How angry would you be if these incidents happened to you? Would you move to the suburbs? To Peru? Rank each item according to the scale below. The descriptions are rough. If they do not seem appropriate, make up your own description for each level of rage.

1. No Sweat: It just wouldn't bother me.

2. Mild Anger: I'd feel it, but I wouldn't express it outwardly.

3. Moderate Anger: I'd scowl, clench my fist or make sarcastic remarks.

4. Clearly Pissed: My voice would rise; I'd swear, argue, make obscene gestures or threats.

5. Physical Threat: I might chase or threaten with violence the object of my anger. I probably wouldn't actually use force.

6. Fighting Mad: If given the chance, I'd start swinging. I would try to inflict pain or damage.

7. Homicidal: I'd be mad enough to kill. If I had a gun, I would use it.

1. A hot-rodder passes you with a roar on the highway, cuts in front of you recklessly, then turns and gives you the finger.--

2. You get a package from a relative you don't like with ten cents' postage due.--

3. A news report says the President is raising taxes next year to cover his expanded defense budget.--

4. You made reservations by phone, but the hotel clerk says he's already rented the room to someone who paid in advance.--

5. At a football game, a tipsy fan spills beer down your neck.--

6. The boss says that, due to increased costs, there will be no Christmas bonus this year.--

7. Your lover gives you V. D.--

8. Your father dies during a routine appendix operation because of the negligence of an incompetent intern.--

9. A dog pisses on your leg while you stand at a street corner.--

10. You get a speeding ticket for driving only three mph above the speed limit.--

11. A guest in your home accidentally breaks a favorite beer stein.--

12. You put 15 cents into a Coke-in-a-cup machine, the Coke comes out, with no cup, and goes right down the drain.--

13. As you drive home, some children throw mud balls at your car.--

14. You find a strange man in bed with your wife or girlfriend.--

15. You're playing poker and finally discover that the guy who has already won $20 from you is dealing from the bottom.--

16. The judge finds you guilty of a crime you didn't commit.--

17. You phone a girlfriend over and over for nearly an hour and get busy signals.--

18. At a sporting-goods store, someone carelessly swings a tennis racket, hits you in the face and breaks a tooth.--

19. A man pulls in next to you at a parking lot and nicks some paint off your car door.--

20. A new cigarette lighter stops working after one day's use.--

21. Just as you reach the ticket window, they put up a sign saying Sorry, Sold Out.--

22. A fellow worker lies to the boss that you've been goofing off; you finally confront the tattler, alone.--

23. You see a strange man carrying your TV set out the door of your home.--

24. You sit down to look at a special show on television, when a tube blows.--

25. You finally saved up $2000 and invest it in a stock your best friend recommends. One month later, the stock is worth $1000.--

26. You take off your clothes and your lover begins to laugh.--

Total for all answers:--

Scoring

The Culture of Violence

Score one point for each correct answer. On questions 7, 12 and 22, score 1/2 point for each correct match.

1. Coils in a hangman's noose: 13.

2. O. J. Simpson's number: 32.

3. Bull's-eye on an N.R.A. human-silhouette target: the chest area (no points are given for head or between-the-eyes shots).

4. Rank above brigadier general: major general.

5. Victims in St. Valentine's Day Massacre: B. Bugs Moran's gang.

6. A. Jamming (an offensive maneuver in roller derby) is not illegal. Slashing (hitting with stick in hockey or lacrosse) and clotheslining (forearm chop to the Adam's apple in football) are penalty offenses.

7. Mickey Spillane--b. Mike Hammer; Dashiell Hammett--c. Sam Spade; John D. MacDonald--d. Travis McGee; Don Pendleton--a. Mack Bolan (The Executioner).

8. C. The I Ching is a philosophical text, not a martial art.

9. The man who sticks the bull: C. picador.

10. Director of Straw Dogs: B. Sam Peckinpah.

11. Molotov cocktail: gasoline.

12. a. Charles Starkweather (11); b. Juan Corona (25); c. Charles Manson (7 known victims; there may have been more); d. Richard Speck (8).

13. Ham and eggs: C. a type of bombardment--high explosives (the decorations on an officer's cap are called scrambled eggs).

14. Shiv: slang for knife--usually homemade and concealed.

15. Brand name of boxing shorts: B. Everlast.

16. The Hog: C. Harley-Davidson 74.

17. Nonderogatory term: D. suds.

18. Engines on a B-52: eight.

19. Heavier than lightweight: A. welterweight.

20. Aliases used by James Earl Ray.

21. Winning hand: C. full house.

22. a. half nelson, b. full nelson, c. hammer lock.

23. The Hulk's alter ego: B. Bruce Banner (Ben Grimm is The Thing, Peter Parker is Spider Man).

24. Strangulation by piece of wire: garrote.

25. Gun used by Clint Eastwood: .44 magnum.

26. Elimination of a superior officer: fragging.

27. Director of FBI: D. Clarence Kelley.

28. Ann Calvello and Joan Weston: roller-derby queens.

29. Albert DeSalvo: the Boston Strangler.

30. Larger caliber: a. the M-1 uses .30-caliber ammunition (the M-16 uses .223 caliber).

• • •

This quiz was a bear. Most of the participants in our test sample failed miserably. Playboy's editorial staff added some easier items so you wouldn't rip up the magazine in frustration. A respectable score, we'd guess, would fall between 15 and 25. A score below 10 means that aggressive themes turn you off. Violence doesn't interest you. You'd rather watch Heidi than a football game, and if someone gave you a Mickey Spillane novel you'd probably press flowers in it.

A total above 25 means you're either meaner than average or smarter than average, and we'll be the last to tell you which. If you tallied over 30, you're excessively interested in things morbid and bloody, and you're no doubt reading Playboy because you can't find your copy of Guns & Ammo. If you want to argue points, see Gus, our 250-pound doorman. He got a perfect score and will probably eat your car.

Everything you say will be used against you

This quiz is hard to fake, even though its meaning is transparent. If you've answered honestly, your score should reflect true aggressiveness, rather than any ideal image you wish to project. The average Playboy reader in our pretest scored eight items yes: If you checked more than eight items, you are more overtly aggressive than most, or at least you remember and confess more than our test sample. Compare your answers with those of the average Playboy reader on these questions.

1 and 2. About one in five persons owns a gun, and of these, one in five keeps it loaded.

3. About half say their last fistfight was during or since high school, the other half say it was in the ninth grade or before.

4--9. Personal, rather than anonymous expressions are favored: 69 percent have "told someone off," and nearly half say they've hung up on someone and/or given the finger to someone in the past two months. But only 29 percent have ever written a letter to the editor, bumper stickers are almost passé and the fingers that wrote graffiti have moved on.

10--15. Not surprisingly, the typical reader is much more likely to hit the object of his anger (items 10--12) than to hit an object just because he's angry (13--15). In either case, he will strike inanimate things more often than humans, and humans more often than animals.

16--18. Sexual aggression isn't typical: 23 percent admit they always try for sex on the first date and 21 percent have "taken" their lover, but only 9 percent go in for spanking-and-tying.

19--21. A substantial number of our subjects probably find aggression rewarding. Researchers know that a mouse becomes exceedingly vicious after winning several fights but becomes timid and docile after a losing experience. Humans learn aggressive habits, too. If you are bigger, stronger or more powerful than average, or if you were a first-born child, then you probably have experience in winning, dominating and seeing your aggressions rewarded. Research studies have suggested that first-born are disproportionately represented among Rhodes scholars, Who's Who listings, U. S. Presiidents and astronauts (21 of the first 23 American astronauts were first-born children).

22--24. Socially acceptable aggressive acts are widespread. Fully 73 percent have asked for a raise (which may explain inflation); 60 percent have voted against someone (which may also explain inflation). About 50 percent have owned practical-joke devices.

25--30. The child is parent to the adult: 15 percent of our sample claim violent upbringing, and 27 percent admit torturing animals, but only 5 percent have ever run away from home.

Items 28--30 get at specific predictors of adult aggression reported in a recent issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers collected thousands of papers, clinical records and prison files dealing with the childhood behaviors of people who became exceptionally aggressive adults. They found that the three factors in items 28--30 (fights, temper tantrums, and school problems and truancy), along with a general inability to get along with other children, were the behaviors most often cited as harbingers of adult aggression. The presence of one or two problems isn't serious, but if a child has all of them concurrently, there is a strong statistical possibility that he'll grow up to be a violent adult.

31. Eight percent of our pretest sample become more aggressive when drunk. Alcohol is a fear reducer. Drunk and sober rats will work equally hard to reach food, but if they're trying to escape a feared location, the drunk rat won't work nearly as hard as the sober one. Booze wipes out inhibitions. If a person has been punished for aggressive acts, he may fear his own impulses and then become nasty after a few beers.

Patience is no virtue

Whether you are quicker to honk at a big new Cadillac or a rusty old Ford is, to some degree, a measure of your aggression toward authority. If you're like our sample, you've got guts on paper and said you'd be more impatient with the rich bitch in the Caddy (average wait--7.5 seconds) than with the poor bastard in the Ford (8.9 seconds). That's what you said, but what would you do? Several (continued on page 209)Arrrggghhh!(continued from page 134) years ago, social scientists Anthony N. Doob and Alan E. Gross ran this very study. The experimenters drove either a shiny new Chrysler Crown Imperial or a rusty old Ford (switched at times for an unobtrusive old gray Rambler) to selected stop lights in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, California, and observed the drivers who pulled up behind. An assistant with a stop watch hid in the back seat or in a parked car nearby. The findings were clear: Only 50 percent of the drivers honked at the Chrysler but 84 percent honked at the Ford or Rambler. (Two potential subjects had to be dropped from the analysis, because instead of honking at the Ford or Rambler, they hit its back bumper, and the experimenter driving decided not to wait around for a honk.) Males sounded off a bit sooner than females, but both sexes were relatively more inhibited behind that big black Chrysler.

Doob and Gross posed the hypothetical question to other subjects and most, especially the males, said they would honk sooner at the big luxury car--just as our reader sample said--precisely the opposite of what people did in the street. Clearly, then, many persons (males especially) will claim to be more assertive and pushy than they really are.

As for honking at outlaw motorcyclists, we know of no research on the matter and, frankly, there are limits to our scientific curiosity.

Tears of Rage

If your total score is about 87 (i.e., 3.3-per-item average), then you get pissed off about as much as the average Playboy reader. Below 80: You are less easily riled than most; you're tranquil, tolerant and easygoing; when angered you react with a long slow burn. Below 70: You are stoic and calm under pressure, or at least you like to appear that way. Below 60: You are unaffected by things that bother most people. Below 50: Are you alive?

Above 100: You tend to overreact to frustration. Friends might call you hot-under-the-collar. Above 110: You have a quick temper. You come to the last straw first. Your friends might call you bad-ass. Above 120: You have a low flashpoint, a short fuse. Your friends, if you have any, probably don't call you.

The 26 situations are listed below in order of ascending provocativeness. Compare your scores to the average rage responses of our sample to see whether the situations fluster you in roughly the same order, and whether you are more or less touchy in certain areas.

No Sweat:

2. Postage due: 1.23.

Mild Anger:

17. Busy signal: 1.56.

6. No bonus: 2.21.

20. Lighter fizzles: 2.22.

11. Broken beer stein: 2.37.

Moderate Anger:

3. Tax rise: 2.53.

12. Coke, no cup: 2.85.

26. Laughing lover: 2.85.

24. Blown TV tube: 2.9.

10. Speeding ticket: 3.1.

5. Tipsy fan: 3.1.

25. Stock drops: 3.12.

1. Reckless hot rodder: 3.24.

13. Mud balls on car: 3.31.

21. Tickets sold out: 3.4.

4. Reservation lost: 3.44.

Clearly Pissed:

19. Nicked car door: 3.5.

9. Dog pisses on leg: 3.63.

7. Lover gives you V. D.: 3.79.

22. Co-worker lies: 3.98.

8. Father dies: 4.16.

18. Tennis klutz: 4.28.

15. Poker cheat: 4.46.

Physical Threat:

16. Found guilty: 4.68.

23. Burglar: 5.1.

Fighting Mad:

14. Cuckolded: 5.5.

Surprise! One More Test: Causes and Cures

We saved this test for last because it's a little tricky. Now that you've found out about your own aggressiveness, or lack of it, we want to see what you have to say in your defense. At some point in the past few years, you've probably attended a cocktail party and listened to the local pundit (someone who memorizes the "Behavior" section in Time magazine) hold forth on aggression. Did you agree with his statements? Did you pour your Singapore sling down the front of his shirt? The following are typical ideas about the causes and cures of aggression. Rank each statement from 1 to 4, depending on whether you: (1) strongly agree; (2) tend to agree; (3) tend to disagree; or (4) strongly disagree.

1. Each of us comes into the world with about the same potential to be aggressive or meek; early experience determines which way we go.--

2. A child whose demands are continually frustrated will likely turn out to be an aggressive adult.--

3. Man is not inherently an aggressive animal; in fact, there are many primitive tribes in which no trace of aggressiveness can be found.--

4. If a person keeps his anger bottled up inside, it may eventually explode in violent behavior.--

5. An angry child should be encouraged to take out his aggressions on an old chair or punching bag--otherwise, he might take them out on people.--

6. Man is the only animal to kill his own kind.--

7. Man needs an enemy to focus his aggressive energy on; in the absence of real enemies, societies must create imaginary ones.--

8. The man who gets a flat tire on the way to dinner will curse louder if he is very hungry than if only moderately hungry.--

9. A person who suppresses aggression or bottles up rage needs an opportunity for letting off steam.--

10. When a person wants something very much and doesn't get it, he becomes a bit more hostile to anyone who crosses his path.--

11. Women have the innate potential to be as aggressive as men, but this is thwarted by social pressures that discourage feminine aggressiveness.--

12. Man, like many animals, has an instinctive drive to acquire territory and fight off all intruders.--

13. Poverty is the major cause of social violence.--

14. People should be encouraged to work off their aggressions vicariously, through fantasy, sports or aggressive games.--

15. If you're angry, you'll probably feel much better if you express it and get it out of your system.--

16. Aggressiveness is always a learned behavior--biology and body chemistry have little to do with it.--

17. People who are quick to anger are quick to recover.--

18. Hormone balance is more important than daily experience in determining how aggressive a person will be.--

19. War is inevitable because man is a born killer.--

20. If you're angry at someone, you'll feel less aggressive later if you "tell him off" now.--

Scoring

Causes and Cures

This quiz tests what you believe, not what you know, so you probably expect us to say that there are no right or wrong answers. You're wrong (and so are your answers) if you agreed strongly with any of the statements on the list. Each is a common misconception about aggression: unsubstantiated, contradicted by research or stated in terms too extreme and dogmatic.

But don't be discouraged if you agreed more often than you disagreed: So did most of the participants in our sample. A person with perfectly undecided beliefs would score 2.5; our subjects averaged 2.27 (a total score of 45), substantially into the "agree" column.

Almost everyone harbors some misconceived notion about the causes and cures of aggression; this quiz is designed to show you the ones that you hold most dear. The statements fall into four categories that represent unaccepted schools of thought. A low score on statements 2, 8, 10 and 13 indicates that you subscribe to The Frustration Theory of Aggression. Your score on statements 1, 3, 11 and 16 tells whether you find solace in The Silly Putty Learning Theory. Your score on statements 6, 7, 12, 18 and 19 suggests where you stand in relation to The Killer-Ape Biology Theory. Your score on statements 4, 5, 9, 14, 15, 17 and 20 reveal how deeply you are immersed in The Bathtub Theory.

A. The Frustration Theory (items 2, 8, 10, 13 on test)

The theory that aggression results from frustration dates back to Freud, but it reached a vogue among experimental psychologists in the Thirties and Forties. They stated that aggression is always caused by frustration, and that frustration always causes aggression--boldly unambiguous as psychology theories go. In other words, if a child hits his baby brother for no good reason, it is because a drive has been thwarted--perhaps he lost a favorite toy, or couldn't reach the cookie dish. Any time a child wants something and doesn't get it, the theory says, he always becomes somewhat aggressive as a result, and the more he wants it, the more aggressive he becomes. The display may occur immediately--or many years later in adulthood.

The frustration-aggression theory sought the cause of social unrest in people's unfulfilled hopes, the origin of riots in poverty. It tried to explain how frustration fueled prejudice and scapegoating. In a classic study, Hovland and Sears found that from 1882 to 1930 the number of Negro lynchings in the South was inversely related to the going price of cotton: When prices were down, lynchings were up, and vice versa. It seems that frustrated people may take out their aggressions on the nearest available target--even innocent ones unrelated to the frustration. In many rural districts, incumbents are most likely to be voted out of office in the year following a poor rainfall. Recent controlled research shows, however, that the frustration--aggression theory doesn't always hold up. Merely having one's hopes dashed does not in itself make one behave more aggressively--unless one sees the frustration as an attack, a deliberate result of someone's ill will. If the new TV blows a tube, you won't necessarily kick the cat--unless you believe you were deliberately bilked into buying the set by an unscrupulous salesman.

Leonard Berkowitz and his colleagues have recently added a new wrinkle: that a frustrated person may behave more aggressively if he merely sees something aggressive. In other words, you might be more likely to kick the cat if you had been watching a prize fight when the TV tube blew. In one study a group of subjects behaved much more aggressively than another after going through some frustrating test experiences--and the only difference between the two groups was that members of the first "incidentally" saw a gun lying on the experimenter's table (the others saw only badminton rackets and shuttlecocks or an empty table). The disturbing implication is that the violence we see around us may be making us more violent by its very presence. As Berkowitz observed, "the finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be pulling the finger."

B. The Silly Putty Learning Theory (items 1, 3, 11 and 16 on test)

People learn aggressiveness--there is no doubt of it--but the extreme statements in this section say that aggression is always the result of prior experience and of no other important factors. Hardline social environmentalists such as Ashley Montagu and Margaret Mead believe that our aggressive behavior is infinitely malleable like Silly Putty. We are shaped, if not battered, by our environment. Our sample rated the items for this theory at 2.35 on the average--slightly on the "agree" side of the scale.

But it just isn't true: There is ample evidence that aggression is affected by factors not related to experience: genetics, brain function and hormones.

Heredity is one factor. It is possible, for example, to take a litter of rats, divide them into the most and least aggressive, and then by inbreeding for several generations produce an aggressive strain and a tame strain. These rats will for the most part remain true to their heritage even if raised from birth by a mother rat from the opposite strain. There is every reason to believe that human beings can also be divided into groups that have different genetic predispositions toward aggression.

Testosterone, the male hormone, also affects aggression. A castrated chicken, horse or man grows meek and submissive. Almost any animal becomes more combative when injected with testosterone. Hormones affect women's aggressiveness, too. J. H. Morton and associates found, for example, that among 249 women prisoners, 62 percent of the crimes of violence had been committed during the week before their menstrual periods.

A predisposition toward aggression seems built into the biology of maleness. Cultural pressures can affect how much difference or overlap there will be between male and female aggressiveness, but it is naïve to say that all differences between boys and girls result from the way they were brought up. Warfare is an exclusively male prerogative in every society on earth, for example. And while there are some warless societies (e.g., Eskimo, Arapesh and Bushmen), they are far from unaggressive: They may have very high rates of jealousy killings, suicide, voodoo magic, spell casting or other forms of aggression expressed within the culture.

C. The Killer-Ape Biology Theory (items 6, 7, 12, 18 and 19 on test)

This was the least believed of the four theories (a 2.57 average rating, just barely on the "disagree" side of 2.5). "War is inevitable because man is a born killer," was rated "strongly disagree" far more often than any other item on the whole list.

I have called this The Killer-Ape Biology Theory to stress that it is an extreme wing of the legitimate school of thought, and just as naïve and dogmatic in its way as The Silly Putty Learning Theory. Proponents of the extreme biological view are Konrad Lorenz and Robert Ardrey. (The phrase killer ape is Ardrey's.) In African Genesis, Ardrey proposes that we are aggressive animals today because of some predatory urge inherited from long ago. It's true that our ancestors were the first predatory primates, but this type of killing has no relationship to general cussedness or a killer instinct. Bulls and fighting cocks are notoriously aggressive, for example, yet they are vegetarians--so their fighting urge can't possibly come from an underlying predatory drive (unless perhaps they read Stalking the Wild Asparagus).

Cynics delight in hearing that man is the only animal that kills his own kind (not true: There are well-documented cases among lions, hyenas, chimpanzees, various monkeys, zebras, lizards, gulls, rats and hippos), or that man is "the cruelest and most ruthless species that has ever walked the earth" (as Anthony Storr wrote, apparently quite seriously. in Human Aggression). Such statements may allow us to cope with a violent world, to shake our heads and resign ourselves to the notion that aggression and warfare are inevitable aspects of being human, part of our genetic inheritance.

Writers speak of a killer instinct, but, if anything, we have the opposite: an instinct to cooperate, share and get along. Military leaders know how hard it is to teach men to kill. Inflammatory stories about the enemy must be manufactured for a war. The inhibition against killing our fellows is short-circuited by dehumanizing the enemy--Untermensch, gook, kraut and Commie; by using emotionless words for kill (waste, vamp or terminate with extreme prejudice); or by outlawing fraternization with the enemy so that the seeds of brotherly love are never planted. And for good measure, there's the court-martial: A soldier is most effective, Trotsky observed, when he is faced with probable death when he advances and certain death if he retreats.

Most aggression theorists today recognize the importance of both biology and experience, and they are beginning to understand how they comfortably interact. For example, testosterone levels drop off in rhesus monkeys that lose fights, and in Marines during the first humbling week of boot camp. Early evidence suggests that if mice that have fought confront their rivals again later, blood-testosterone level suddenly rises in the previous winner and drops off in the previous loser--a change in both that is biological but learned.

D. The Bathtub Theory (items 4, 5, 9, 14, 15, 17 and 20 on test)

We often hear that aggression builds up inside a person until he expresses it and that he becomes healthier and less aggressive once he gets it out of his system. In psychiatric jargon, this is catharsis, but I call it The Bathtub Theory, because it reduces everything to water level. Of the seven Bathtub Theory statements, the first three represent the plugged-up variation, in which aggression pressure stays at whatever level it's at or rises until it overflows, perhaps in violence. The last four represent the drained-out variation, in which the pressure drops back to normal after aggressions are released.

Our sample endorsed this theory more than any other (with an average total rank of 14.4, or 2.06 each). Proponents come from the ends of the social-science spectrum: Statement 17 paraphrases Fritz Perls and statement 5 is the advice of Ann Landers.

Hydraulic energy is built into our language: When aggression rises, it's "dammed up" or "bottled up," so one "blows off steam," "finds an outlet," "discharges it," "vents it." No wonder the theory seems so intuitively right.

Bathtub theorists often stress harmless, vicarious outlets: Kick a chair or chop a tree, read a murder mystery or watch a football game, dream an aggressive Freudian dream or scream a Janovian primal scream. When Ann Landers tells mothers that "youngsters should be taught to vent their anger against things--not people," readers nod in agreement, never stopping to ask why children must be taught to vent their anger at all.

Unfortunately, most researchers who have looked for evidence of the catharsis effect have found just the opposite: The Bathtub Theory no longer holds water. People who express aggression become more aggressive, not less. Angry people who flail away at Bozo dolls later behave more aggressively than those who "bottle up" anger inside. Adult football fans scored higher on a hostility survey after an Army-Navy game than others did on the same quiz before the game.

A series of studies finds that after children watch Kirk Douglas play the beaten fighter in Champion or see a man punch an inflated bag, or play games with toy guns, or even sit quietly and make up aggressive stories, they all emerge behaving more aggressively than they did before. The Bathtub Theory has been part of our folk system. The three statements agreed to most by our readers were all bathtub axioms (4, 9, 15). It's true you may feel better after expressing anger, but whether that will "get it out of your system" is questionable. Expressing anger may make you feel better now, but quicker to anger the next time. There is no evidence whatever that "bottling up" rage will make you more vengeful later; just the opposite is more likely.

Talking aggressive feelings out can be beneficial. Someone may not realize he is angering you, and might change if he knew, or you might find after he explains himself that your anger was ill-founded. But all evidence indicates that simply "letting off steam" has no cathartic effect: All it does is make you more likely to let off steam in the future. If you've agreed to most items, don't feel bad: So did most everyone else. Many myths contain a grain of truth, but aggression remains such a complex and unpredictable behavior that no single theory can hope to explain it all.