Neuropsychological Approach to the Problem of Aggressive Manifestations of Personality

The article presents a neuropsychological analysis of aggressive manifestations of normal personality and aggression of persons with brain dysfunction. Theoretical analysis of foreign and domestic works on neuropsychological correction of aggressive behavior is carried out. The neuropsychological program on correctional and prophylactic work for persons with affective-personal disorders is offered, considering the peculiarities of determination of aggressive manifestations of personality. The essence of the concept of "aggression" is specified. The types and functions of aggression of personality of different nature are considered: positive, ambivalent, negative. The neuropsychological causes of aggression in connection with the conditionality of aggression by situational and individual and psychological personal factors according to the scheme "personality - aggressive reaction - situation - neuropsychological factor" are clarified. The multifactorial (combination of neuropsychological and social conditions of a formation of aggression) genesis of aggressive behavior in personality disorders, the basis of which is the destructive level of anxiety, which originates from childhood, is analyzed. The integration of neuropsychological and socio-psychological approaches to the study of the problem of aggression is presented.

Protecting Manhood: Race, Class, and Masculinity in Men’s Attraction to Guns and Aggression

Using an original self-report survey of 18- to 30-year-old men, this study aims to understand gendered processes underlying men’s attitudes toward guns and aggressive behavior through two types of threats. We find that acceptance threat, a threat to an individual man’s sense of masculinity, and status threat, the belief that societal changes disadvantage men as a group, are positively associated with both men’s attraction to guns and their aggressive reactions to perceived disrespect. The effect of acceptance threat is amplified when a strong sense of status threat is also present, including attraction to guns and aggressive reaction to disrespect. These patterns are more pronounced among economically advantaged white men due to their precarious position in the race, class, and gender hierarchies. The racial and classed intersections amplify beliefs of status and acceptance threat for white men, channeling these threats into aggression and attraction to guns. We discuss how men’s economic and racial locations shape their responses to threats, and ultimately the consequences for men’s violence.

Maternal reactivity of ewes at lambing is genetically linked to their behavioral reactivity in an arena test

In sheep, the bond between the dam and her lambs is established during the first hours of a lamb s life. Genetic variability for behavioral reactivity of ewes assessed in an arena test performed 24 h after lambing has already been reported. However, there is no evidence that this reactivity represents the ewe s maternal reactivity at lambing in outdoor conditions. The objective of this study was to investigate whether or not the behavioral reactivity of ewes in the arena test is genetically related to their maternal reactivity measured at lambing. A total of 935 Romane ewes were studied. The maternal reactivity of ewes at the outdoor lambing site was recorded in response to a human approach and to the handling of the lambs. Their behavioral reactivity was also recorded 24 h post-lambing in the arena test that involved a separation from the litter and a human presence. Flight distance, aggressive reaction, time to restore contact with the litter at the lambing site and maternal behavior scores were moderately heritable (0.18 to 0.34), and vocalizations were slightly heritable (0.16). All of these behaviors were genetically correlated with the behavioral reactivity in the arena test. The highest genetic correlations (from 0.60 to 0.90) were found for maternal behavioral scores, flight distance and high-pitched bleats. In conclusion, behavioral reactivity in the arena test can be used to assess early maternal reactivity in standardized conditions. Such phenotyping could be used for genetic improvement of maternal behavior in sheep.

Top Notes

After a brief discussion of Eugene Rimmel and Septimus Piesse, two major manufacturers and promoters of Victorian perfume, this chapter provides an overview of fragrance use for the Victorians, and explores attitudes towards perfume in early and mid-Victorian fiction with special reference to the figure of the scented dandy. The second part of this chapter shows how Victorian poetry reflects the influential perfumed legacy of Romanticism and, in particular, Shelley, a key precursor for many aesthetic and decadent writers, with an illustrative reading of Edmund Gosse’s ‘Perfume’, a sonnet saturated with echoes from both Shelley and Keats. After a brief discussion of the ‘hothouse’ atmosphere of aestheticism, decadence, and the fin de siècle, the chapter concludes with reference to the aggressive reaction of male modernists, and in particular, T. S. Eliot, to a Romantic and Victorian culture seen as decadent, feminine, and perfumed.

State, State Institutions, and Political Power in Brazil

The political conflicts during the Workers’ Party administrations led by Luís Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff have been driven by disputes between two fractions of the country’s bourgeoisie: the internal and the internationalized bourgeoisie. Their ideologies, policies, institutions, and forms of political representation have determined government policies and outcomes. These processes have unfolded within an authoritarian democracy whose structures have not been challenged by the party. The party’s limited power and continuing timidity have produced an aggressive reaction by the internationalized bourgeoisie and the upper middle class, leading to a severe crisis in the administration of President Dilma Rousseff. Durante os dois governos do Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), chefiados por Luís Inácio Lula da Silva e por Dilma Rousseff, os conflitos políticos têm sido conflagrados por disputas entre duas facções burguesas do país: a burguesia interna e a burguesia internacionalizada. Suas respectivas formas de representações políticas, ideologias, programas, bem como instituições têm determinado políticas governamentais e seus resultados. Esses processos evoluíram em uma democracia autoritária, cujas estruturas não foram contestadas pelo PT. A timidez contínua e o poder limitado do partido têm produzido uma reação agressiva por parte da burguesia internacionalizada e da classe média alta, levando a uma crise severa na administração da Presidente Dilma Rousseff.