Question: why do people fight ?

Paul Roche answered on 21 Jun 2010:

I guess aggression is a basic human instinct – we have evolved from animals, so we still retain some of the basic animal instincts. Some people are much more aggressive than others (I think it is due to the male hormone Testosterone?), but this can often be controlled by drug therapy, or even just by counselling to teach people how to control their aggression.

Some people just fight because they can’t cope with a situation where they feel they can’t control things, or because they just can’t think of an alternative – so there must be psychological reasons as well. I guess it’s a very complicated thing. I “fight” every few days, but that is in judo etc., so we have rules and the purpose is as part of training or a competition – so we are not trying to hurt anyone – but you learn to control aggression and direct it.

In the modern world, aggression is usually a bad thing – but way back when we lived in a very brutal, violent world, the ability to be aggressive and pump your body with adrenaline, must have been very useful (e.g. if some wild animal was attacking you….).