BOOK NOTES: HUMAN PALEOPSYCHOLOGY:

William Tillier

Click to print page. Print

Applications to Aggression and Pathological Processes

book by Kent Bailey, these notes assembled by W. Tillier

Bailey, K. (1987). Human paleopsychology: Applications to aggression and pathological processes. Hillside, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Preface

"Human paleopsychology characteristically focuses on the animal aspects (especially, phylogenetic carry-overs from mammalian and primate phylogeny) of human behaviour,"

Foreword by Brendan Maher

"When we find very intelligent people enthusiastically offering poor evidence in support of their theoretical position, it is important to figure out why they do this."

Chapter 1. Introduction

"The extraspective and introspective methods of observation have equal scientific validity, and both methods are subject to… erroneous interpretation." quote from Herrick

" … new models and theories need to be developed and old ones dusted off and re-evaluated."

"Ideas evolve just as do organic and behavioural systems, with most destined to fall by the wayside."

"One formulation that has been attacked repeatedly but refuses to die is that of the "animal" nature of man."

"Stephen J. Gould (1981) strives mightily to discredit the beast-within idea,"

"Shall we accept the beast-within idea on the basis of its acceptance by many of the world's great thinkers since the dawn of history, or by its common-sense appeal, or by its implicit validation each day on the front page of every newspaper; or, should we stand with many modern intellectuals and social scientists who reject the idea as socially dangerous, … " " … .the concept has never been scientifically disproven, … "

" … human beings appear to possess both phylogenetically old or animal characteristics, and distinctively human ones as well."

Why does the beast hold such fascination for us? "Is it because an animal nature continues to reside within us, living in "schizophysiological" disharmony with our higher nature, as Paul MacLean (1954a) and Arthur Koestler (1967) suggest?"

P. 7. "Plato's view … ."

"Thought or reason was seen as locked in eternal battle with animal passion, and only through willpower and self-denial could the passions be contained."

"Aristotle liked to think in terms of levels and hierarchies, … … he postulated three levels of life - a hedonic life governed by vulgar pleasures, a political life devoted to honor, and a contemplative life devoted to wisdom and truth."

" … .only [the] states of character are distinctly human, for the former two are "natural" and do not involve rational choice."

" … man is the sole possessor of the highest function of the soul, intelligence."

"Rene Descartes. He postulated that animals act as pure machines and are subject to the universal laws of physics. Man likewise, has an animal nature analogous to a biological machine, but he alone, as a creature made in the image of God, possesses a soul or rational mind."

Charles Darwin:

After the theory of evolution: "the principle of continuity became more than a way of viewing the scale of beings; it became a necessary consequence of the fundamental law of life."

" … .the mind became less a transcendent instrument of knowing and progressively more an adaptive function of the organism."

"Darwin took the age-old idea of biological evolution and gave it new life and respectability."

"Natural selection provided a means of explaining the method by which evolution generates new species and dooms others to extinction, … "

Darwin saw: " … nature was extravagant in the production of offspring but frugal in allowing survival up to or beyond reproductive age, thus setting the stage for fierce competition in the struggle for life."

"By virtue of individual differences or interindividual variability within populations, the mechanism of natural selection would determine which of the supernumerous offspring would be winners or losers in the game of life."

"Mayr (1972 lists six cherished ideas of Darwin's time … "

"(a) the idea that the earth was created no more than 6,000 years ago; (b) catastrophism and the notion of a harmonious, steady-state world; © the concepts of automatic upward evolution; (d) the Genesis account of creation; (e) essentialism, nominalism, and typological thinking; and (f) anthropocentrism, the idea of man's uniqueness in nature."

Problems with Darwin: "(a) Darwin was woefully ignorant of the mechanisms of heredity. At one place in the Origin he lamented, "The laws governing inheritance are quite unknown" … .

"(b) Darwin had no reason to reject the then popular Lamarckian theory of inheritance of acquired characters."

"(c) Darwin avoided the controversial issue of human evolution in the Origin … ."

Animal-Human Continuity.

"man must be included with the other organic beings in any general conclusion respecting his manner of appearance on this earth" …

" … .no clear line of demarcation between the highest ape and the lowest human."

" … .the difference between the lowest savage and the highest man was again a matter of

degree: … "

Human Instincts.

"Instincts were appropriately seen as complex, unlearned behaviour patterns, … "

" … instincts are produced by the slow, accumulative effects of natural selection … ."

Darwin " … postulated a psychological continuum proceeding from simple instincts at the primitive pole, on through mixtures of instinct, reason, and voluntary action in the middle range, and then on to reason and intellect minimally mixed with instinct at the upper pole."

Emotions and Expressions.

"All of the emotions are more phylogenetically primitive than reason, intellect, or memory, but some emotional expressions are more primitive than others."

" … the emotions and sensations (feelings), when experienced in sufficient intensity, will typically spill over into habitual patterns of action … "

"Darwin basically agreed with the proposition that strong feeling generally leads to behaviour, … ."

" … Darwin considered most emotions and their linked expressions to be innate or unlearned, and he also thought that the ability to recognize certain expressions in others might be innate as well."

This point bears on the relationship between emotion and the " … processes of communication."

" … natural selection would favour those animals most capable of recognizing emotional expressions in other members of their species, … "

Phylogenetic Reversion.

" … Darwin generally relied on four modes of explanation: Lamarck's theory of acquired habits, natural selection, sexual selection, and reversion."

Darwin: " … the child often reverts in certain characters to its grandparents or more remote ancestors, providing us with yet another type of reversion."

" … of phylogenetic kinds of behavioural reversions, such as teeth-baring and the snarl that represent carry-overs from our animal progenitors … "

"Although we humans no longer use our teeth as weapons, when provoked we still expose them ready for action, like a dog prepared to fight".

This "phylogenetic regression" is a major theme in this book.

" … natural wildness of the animal is overlain with new habits and arbitrary constraints which, with varying degrees of success, serve to suppress natural tendencies."

"Darwin believed that such regressive behaviour was particularly evident in the insane."

"Dr. Maudsley asserted that the "animal-like traits in idiots" were due to the "reappearance of primitive instincts," …

"A final type of behavioural reversion is that of group or social regression."

" … .entire populations may revert or retrogress from a high level of civilization and domestication to barbarism, … "

"Thomas Huxley championed the idea of phylogenetic continuity in the organic world and was intrigued with the similarities between humans and the higher apes:"

" … Huxley believed that man was a base creature by nature, … "

Huxley: " … .man must "escape" from his place in the animal kingdom and establish a kingdom of man governed upon the principle of moral evolution rather than biological evolution … ."

Huxley: " … .social progress requires that man deny his animal desires, and if the goal is moral perfection, the self-denial must be total:"

Huxley: "When the masses of mankind are cast into misery, as in the French Revolution, society becomes as unstable as a package of dynamiter, … ."

"Huxley believed that evolution could be retrogressive as well as progressive,.."

Herbert Spencer

" … every state of being -- both physical and mental -- reflects the organism's constantly evolving attempts to adjust to the environment:"

Spencer: "The ideally moral man, … … [can] satisfy needs in three basic areas: (a) needs pertaining to self; (b) the needs of offspring; and (c) the needs of other members of society."

"The moral man restrains immediate impulse, reflects on the consequences of his acts, imagines future contingencies, emphasizes indirect as well as direct effects, and thinks in general rather than specific terms."

George John Romanes

"Phylogenetic continuity exists between the animal and human mind, and differences are a matter of degree not kind."

Romanes: " … all human psychological traits, with the exception of those pertaining to '

'religion and the perception of the sublime,' arise through the process of evolution whereby fundamental animal characters are elaborated and refined into their human counterparts."

Ernst Heinrich Haeckel

Idea of "Recapitulation, which Haeckel called the 'fundamental biogenetic law,' is stated thusly: 'Ontogenesis is a brief and rapid recapitulation of phylogenesis, … .'

Haeckel said " … ontogeny, the history of the embryo, and phylogeny, the history of the stock, stand in intimate relation to one another, … ."

" … the theory predicts that adults of inferior groups should be like the children of superior groups, … "

Cesare Lombroso

Based on idea of " … atavism, or the sudden reappearance, in offspring, of mental or physical traits seen in earlier generations. Such atavisms, or reversions to use Darwin's term, may emanate from earlier human ancestors or from subhuman ancestors in phylogeny."

"Criminals are born and not made, … ."

Criminal " … .stands midway between the lunatic and the savage; … ."

Lombroso: "asserted that phylogenetic primitiveness or advancedness of individuals could be interred from deviant physical characteristics or stigmata --"

p. 29: "In line with the 19th-century writers, this book is based on the idea that Homo sapiens is really two beings rather than one: The first, the animal being, is comprised of our phylogenetically old characteristics, both structural and behavioural, whereas the second, the human being, encompasses the first but adds measures of self-consciousness and intelligence unknown anywhere else in nature."

" … .it is much easier to phylogenetically regress than progress, for the animal nature is much older, more well-established in the genotype, and more well-established in the brain, … … "

"We are thus, from many important perspectives, more animal than human, … ."

Chapter 2 -The New Biology

" … .evolutionary theory has slowly, and often imperceptibly, become the foundation stone of the biological and social sciences."

"Dobzhansky … " and "E. O. Wilson … " are key figures.

The Phylogenetic Level.

" … fundamental morphological and behavioural characteristics are conditioned by evolution --"

" … the human species is the most flexible and least gene-controlled of all species, … ."

" … .the whole of psychology may, in the last analysis, be reduced to vicissitudes of brain functioning."

The Cultural Level.

" … man shapes the world and the world shapes man in a dynamic, ongoing feedback relationship, … ."

"Culture is not a thing, but rather a system of symbolically organized patterns based largely on the distinctive human capacity for language … "

"Culture must be learned."

" … .the cultural system serves as an 'environment' to society by providing ideological legitimization of the society's normative order."

"Lorenz found convincing evidence for instincts throughout the animal world."

".. For Lorenze, an instinct is an inherited, species-specific, stereotyped pattern of behaviour that is adaptive and contributes to the survival of the organism."

"E. O. Wilson (1975), in his famous treatise Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, raised hackles by asserting that sociobiology will "cannibalize" the social sciences … "

" … there may exist genetic predispositions to play certain broad roles (Wilson, 1975) in terms of dominance, leadership, helping others, and possibly intelligence and mental ability."

Wilson: " … .human mind is nothing more than 'a device for survival and reproduction, and reason is just one of its various techniques'" … .

Wilson and Lumsden talk about gene-culture coevolution: units called " … culturgens, . . . "

Wilson and Lumsden: "The social patterns which comprise culture are formed by gene-culture translation, a process whereby choices of individual members (via the epigenetic rules) are related to the distribution of culturgens in society as a whole."

Wilson and Lumsden: " … .genes do not specify social behaviour directly, but act through the intermediary epigenetic rules laid down in the innate organic processes of the body. How we are built and function physiologically, neurophyschologically, and cognitively affects what and how we learn and what choices we make."

Biosocial anthropology

"Once one gets behind the surface manifestations, the uniformity of human behaviour and of human social arrangement is remarkable" … .

"male togetherness … " "male mystique" had been exploited earlier in Tiger's (1969) controversial monograph Men in Groups, much to the consternation of feminists and cultural determinists."

Fox: Humans differ from animals: "(a) humans are unique in that naming, prescribed rules, and classification schemes play major roles in kinship relations; (b) humans are uniquely exogamous, a factor of immense significance in homind evolution and social organization; and © … ..constrain sexual and aggressive drives so that simple breeding systems could evolve into complex, stylized kinship systems. Thus, culture is largely based on these highly corticalized inhibitions, customs, mores, and so forth, which oppose our natural sexual and aggressive proclivities, … ."

" … our self-sacrificing altruism to close kin serves to perpetuate our genes in them through succeeding generations. The object, then, is for genes themselves to survive, whereas the fate of individual phenotypes is of lesser consequence."

"Animal and human social behaviours are means toward the end of reproduction and genic survival, and sexual selection, kin selection, nepotism, parenting strategies, and even culture, in disguised forms, are all part and parcel of this quintessential process."

"eventually culture became the chief vehicle of competition" …

"The very emphasis of the commandment Thou shalt not kill makes it certain that we spring from an endless ancestry of murderers, with whom the lust for killing was in the blood, … ."

"Rado's (1964) … ." " … cerebral system involves several hierarchically arranged levels of integration roughly corresponding to the phylogeny of the human species."

McGuire and Fairbanks: "We believe it is in recognizing species-typed tendencies, exploring their ontogeny, their tenacity, and their modifiability as well as observing the consequences of thwarting them that ethology gains interpretive leverage over current theories of normal and abnormal behaviour."

We have " … "extra" brain tissue, above that needed to mediate body functions, [that] serves as the basis for the evolution of higher cognitive functions (Jerison, 1976)."

" … those species possessing larger brains also appear to have more complex brains as well."

Laughlin and d'Aquili suggest: " … neural reorganization, and not simply larger brains, was the crucial factor in the evolution of higher mental functions in humans."

" … the rudiments of our brain organization were established in the prehuman, … ." phase of evolution.

P. 55 "The left hemisphere is 'dominant' over the right hemisphere by virtue of its mediation of handedness and the 'higher functions' of language and speech, linear cause-effect thinking, temporality, and propositional-analytic reasoning."

" … the rational, abstract, controlled functions of the left brain are more highly valued in our technological culture than are the more 'primitive' experiential functions of the right brain."

" … it appears true that left hemisphere functioning is more phylogenetically advanced than that of the right hemisphere."

" … the left hemisphere appears to have specialized in mediating the 'highest' human functions of speech and reason, … "

"With language specialization, the right lobe remained basically the same, while the left lobe lost many of its prior functions, replacing them with higher ones. Consistent with this idea is the right brain's involvement in the "lower" functions of emotional reactivity."

Paul MacLean:

[There is a complex section on MacLean and these quotes certainly do not do it justice.]

"In the process of human brain evolution, new tissue and connections were added in two ways: (a) brain size increased as body size increased, and (b) 'extra' brain matter was added through the process of encephalization, allowing for the emergence of higher cognitive functions."

" … ..most of the larger evolved brain was designed to mediate modal or 'lower' survival activities … ..whereas a quite small proportion of the increase was allocated to the 'higher' functions. Thus, despite its overall size, the human brain is far more old in its morphology and function that it is new; as primates, we continue to be phylogenetically programmed mainly for adaptation to the environment."

"Within each of us, then, are three distinct 'minds,'" … one inherited from our reptilian ancestors, one from our mammalian ancestors, and one from our primate and hominid ancestors."

Reptilian:

" … the R-complex appears to play a central role in primitive forms of motivation in both animals and humans."

We continue to " … retain the basic neural chassis in roughly similar proportions to phylogenetically lower species" …

" … reptilian behaviour falls into a number of general categories including imitation and species conformity, establishment and defence of territorial areas, home-site selection, foraging and feeding, courtship, mating and reproductive behaviour, ritualistic display, group formation, and competition, dominance, and aggression … .."

Paleomammalian brain (limbic system):

MacLean: "Schizophysiology refers to dis-integrations and antagonisms between phylogenetically disparate brain levels, producing, among other things, 'conflicts between 'what we feel' and 'what we know' '..'"

" … the R-complex provides the monsters and dragons (Sagan, 1977) and the limbic system the overpowering fear and anxiety."

"MacLean (1977b) sees schizophysiology behind many forms of human psychopathology, … "

"Bailey (1978, 1985) refers to this type of schizophysiology as phylogenetic regression, . . . ."

"love is the invention of mammals,"

" … the evolution of mammals can be viewed as the history of the evolution of the family."

" … most phylogenetic regressions occur in the emotional -- subjective realm of mental functioning, … "

"A major role of the neocortex is to interpret, modulate, elaborate, or repress or deny these limbic urgings and feelings. Thus, in many respects, the neocortex is passive and reactive, a pawn of the millions of years of reptilian and limbic evolution … "

"There are those moments of "progression," … "It is to such rare moments, when a few great minds in human history (Cattell, 1971) produced their 'progressive' and creative insights, that modern culture and technology are so deeply indebted."

Neomammalian Neocortex:

" … all incoming information must be processed through the two lower systems … "

"Focussed on the outside world and 'servant' (Plutchik, 1977) to the limbic and reptilian systems, the neocortex is somewhat like a coldly reasoning, giant computer (MacLean, 1982a) that has the capacity to be infinitely destructive, or loving and kind, depending on motives emanating from the lower systems."

"Anatomically, the neocortex is an impressive structure consisting of cell bodies, 50 to 100 deep, organized into six levels or strata of gray matter … ."

" … .10 billion neurones, three-quarters of the total number of the entire human brain and four times the number found in the brain of our closest nonhuman relative, the chimpanzee … ."

"Holloway (1968a) concluded that relative increases occurred in the temporal and inferior parietal areas, but not in the frontal lobes."

"Kolb and Whisaw (1980) agree that the human frontal lobes changed little functionally in phylogeny, and further say that they are not really special organs at all when compared to other animals."

MacLean: " … the prefrontal cortex serves as a communicative link with the internal world (mainly the limbic system), allowing one to interpret 'inner feelings,' look ahead to the future, and to empathically 'experience' the feeling of others."

" … as the presumed seat of personality, empathy, and foresight, the prefrontal area might be the phylogenetically latest and most advanced of the various neocortical areas."

Dynamic Cerebral System:

"Newer levels of functioning are thus derived from preceding ones, and the old and new work together in expanding the repertoire of adaptive responses."

"The neocortex not only serves the lower needs, however, but also acts to inhibit instinctive responses through cultural programming of prescribed beliefs, norms, and values, on the one hand, and the intellectual control of asocial and antisocial impulses on the other."

" … we might, add a fourth level, the "asymmetric symbolic" which takes hemisphericity and lateralization into account."

Chapter 3 -Ape and Angel Revisited: A Theoretical Perspective

" … tendencies to regress as well as progress must be duly considered; in so doing, we must confront the Beast in each of us in order to understand the Man."

" … human behaviour is constantly moving up and down the continuum in response to inner urges and outer stresses."

"Jackson (Taylor, 1931) applied the doctrine of evolutionary levels to different pathological forms such as illusions, hallucinations, and delusions … "

" … Arlow and Brenner (1964) distinguish between five different types of regression-genetic, systemic, instinctual, phylogenetic, and biogenetic … "

[We need ] " … to view regression as a general process of primitivization, dissolution, hierarchical disintegration, and so on which involves both phylogenetic and ontogenetic components."

" … regression may be viewed simultaneously as both a phylogenetic and an ontogenetic phenomenon, and the proportionate loading of each serves to determine the distinctive character of the physiological and behavioural results."

" … emotion is phylogenetically archaic, closer to the core of the personality, and thus more 'regressed'."

"Emotion, broadly defined, is not only essential, but probably the most fundamental component of an instinct."

[Izard maintains that] " … not only are the emotions adaptive in the evolutionary sense, they constitute the primary motivation system of human beings."

" … the emotions may be seen as neurophysiological constants that are inhibited, modified, elaborated upon, and/or triggered by social and environmental stimuli."

"Plutchik assumes that emotions are the by-products of biological evolution … "

" … human neocortex: … primary function is to serve the deeper, older, and survival related motivational systems of the person, rather than serving merely as an autonomous organ of cognition and reflection. This point is a crucial one as we elaborate the phylogenetic regression concept in subsequent sections."

[In humans] "we rarely see a pure instinctive pattern analogous to nest-building birds or territorial defence in the hedgehog, but old stereotyped patterns still intermix with the most lofty human endeavors."

"Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968) sees regression as a 'loosening of the hierarchical mental organization,' a disintegration of the personality wherein primitive states reappear (dedifferentiation) and 'functional dysencephalization' (decentralization) occurs."

Rado: "This regressive tendency is characteristic of life. The most general mechanism that brings about regression is the failure of higher patterns. When more recent, higher organization fails, the organism reverts to more elementary patterns" (p.56)."

"Abraham Maslow's (1943, 1954) famous need-hierarchy theory popularized the notion that greater pleasure is to be found in the higher as opposed to the lower needs, but common sense and statistical rarity of the 'self-actualized' personality suggests the contrary."

" … Maslow's higher needs are more phylogenetically advanced, cortically dominated, more rational, conscious, abstract, and distinctly human than the lower needs … "

" … there should be decreasing proportions of archaic emotionality in the expression of the higher needs … "

"The phylogenetic regression-progression model would appear to be one way of enriching Maslow's theory … "

Summary: " … there are many forms of hierarchical regression including genetic reversal of stages, hierarchic dissolution, dedifferentiation, decentralization, and so forth."

"All involve a temporary loss or diminution of cortical control which consequently leaves the more primeval urges less constrained."

"Phylogenetic regression in the form of downward displacement in the hierarchical brain has particular relevance in the area of episodic and uncontrolled rage and violence."

Several points: "(a) aggression in primates is primarily mediated through brainstem and limbic-hypothalamic structures; (b) aggression is held in check largely by inhibiting mechanisms in the neocortex;"

"Mark and Ervin (1970)" " … dyscontrol syndrome … "

Sagan: "..Dragons of Eden … " " … temporarily regressing the victim back several hundreds of millions of years."

Conclusions: "(a) there is a continuing interplay between neocortical brain structures and phylogenetically older structures; (b) this interplay may be antagonistic or protagonistic, beneficial or pathological; © regressions from the new to the older structures sometimes occurs; (d) the regressions may occur very quickly and appear to underlie certain types of episodic violence; and (e) both internal conditions (brain dysfunction, developmental abnormalities, drug and alcohol intake, etc.) and external conditions (stress, threat, etc.) may act as elicitors or facilitators of regression."

P. 94.

"As the cortex goes, so goes human behaviour."

" … the uncommitted cortex, to use Arieti's (1976) term, provides us with limitless opportunities to creatively rise about our phylogenetic origins. Yet, once its vigilance is relaxed to the slightest degrees, the threat of regression arises … "

Footnote: "Phylogenetic progression, as defined here, is basically an active process of transcending our basic animality through neocortical inhibition of our generally amoral and acultural natural tendencies on the one hand, and cultural reshaping on the other."

" … phylogenetic progression may be partly passive up through the lower levels of cultural conformity, but becomes distinctly active on through the higher sublevels of cultural innovation and technocultural advancement … "

" … it is possible to phylogenetically progress from lower levels of functioning to cortically dominated, conscious, rational, abstract, and distinctly human levels of functioning as well."

Regression and progression are not simply opposites, they are different - here is a summary of the differences.:

"1). It is far easier to regress than to progress."

" … to phylogenetically progress, one must often oppose natural, pleasurable tendencies for the sake of social conformity … "

2). " … most of the content of phylogenetic progression is supplied by the custom, mores, and fads and fashions current in a particular social group or culture at a particular time."

" … in progression we conform, in varying degrees across individuals within a given social classification, to outer pressures and demands that often go against our wishes and natural proclivities."

3). "We humans all start at basically the same place, and when we regress we regress to basically the same place."

4). " … momentary regressions are far more common than momentary progressions."

" … at the lower "paloepsychic" (Maclean, 1976) levels we might find things such as violent homicides, tantrum and rage reactions, the heights of sexual passion, panic reactions, active defence of self or kin, symbiotic reaction, and so on."

" … the middle or "mixed"level, we find such things as courtship and marriage patterns, patterns of hunting behaviour, aggressive sports activities, kinship togetherness, group cooperation, "love" … "

"It is from this middle band of mixed activities that we typically regress to lower emotion-bound compulsions or progress up to reflection and thought involving minimal emotion."

" … two different psychologies may be required to accommodate these considerations; a paleopsychology for the primitive, phylogenetically regressive aspects of behaviour, and a neopsychology for advanced forms of aggression."

"Intellectual functioning is typically associated with higher, progressive processes, but only when it serves an inhibitory role and acts in opposition to the lower systems. However, intellect sometimes sides with and facilitates the lower limbic and reptilian systems, producing what might be called active phylogenetic regression. Passive phylogenetic regression, by contrast, refers to an uncontrolled or dyscontrolled loss of neocortical ability to inhibit archaic compulsions … "

" … mental powers of animals and humans exist on a phylogenetic continuum … "

Herbert Spence coined the term intelligence. " … the capacity for processing large quantities and qualities of information … "

" … we should distinguish between biological intelligence and human abstract intelligence as measured by the IQ test.

Now, man: " … must achieve, 'keep his nose to the grindstone,' and not let his 'mind go to waste.'

" … abstract intelligence is a recent, rare, fragile, and unnatural capacity that few possess in abundance and even fewer enjoy putting to use (Bailey, Burns, & Bazan, 1982)."

" … the proportion of neocortex to total brain size is estimated at 50% in prosomians, 67% in monkeys, 75% in apes, and 80% in humans … "

" … humans have extremely overdeveloped motor areas for controlling hand movements … "

Man has: " … massive association areas spread throughout the neocortex that mediate functions other than simple sensory input and motor output."

"Flexibility, anticipation, the ability to internalize stimuli rather than merely respond to them, and the ability to inhibit inappropriate thoughts or behaviours are basic parameters of intelligence … "

" … loss of inhibition normally exerted by the prefrontal lobes should lead to phylogenetically regressive forms of intellectual functioning and behaviour."

" … the neocortex as a whole is the primary mediator of cognitive and intellectual functions in humans, and is, thus, the closest thing to a "seat" of intelligence."

" … language in its many vocal and written forms, is not a single entity capable of a single location in the brain … "

" … the language system, and other systems of the brain, are not organized into simple, unidirectional hierarchies, but, instead, into complex, integrated, and flexible 'hierarchical arrangements.'"

" … each of MacLean's hierarchical levels has its own peculiar neurochemistry, its own consciousness, and its own 'intelligence.'" … producing the following advanced to primitive phylogenetic hierarchy:

-left neocortex,

-right neocortex,

-paleo-mammalian cortex,

-reptilian brain system.

MacLean says there are three forms of mentation: Protomentation at the reptile level, Emotomentation mediated by the paleo-mammalian cortex and Ratiomentation of the human neocortex."

" … higher intellectual functions reflect the increasing specialization and differentiation of the neocortex, and one suspects that they are rather recent acquisitions … "

" … man's conquest of nature has brought with it the ecological catastrophes of technological warfare, urban blight … "

" … man's potential for creative imagination and refined intelligence is rarely used … "

" … the actual emission of intelligent behaviour is generally more a function of motivation than sheer mental ability."

" … intelligence is normally servant to body needs and demands."

" … the male of low-to-moderate intelligence appears to be at high risk for regressive acting-out in the form of juvenile delinquency."

Heilbrun on low IQ and violence: " … described the highest risk factor as a combination of low IQ and proneness to psychopathy, producing a person of low empathy, low impulse control, and low inhibition over physical aggression."

"In the intellectually normal or superior person, intelligence sits at the very center of the personality … "

"Intelligence can, thus, set itself in opposition to lower systems (progression), or it can ally itself with them (regression)."

Restak: " … 'unnatural' cultural pressures came to exert a more significant selective effect on brain development than did the demands of mere survival."

"Active phylogenetic regression, however, is possibly the greatest threat of all to species survival … "

" … mayhem on a grand scale … "

To grow into a civilized person, neocortical inhibition has to have help: " … (a) the individual must be thoroughly socialized, enculturated, and infused with customs, values, and moral prohibitions, and (b) added to this cultural programming must be constant social and cultural pressure to behave in prescribed ways. To be civilised is to be unnaturally constrained and self-denying … "

"The goal of culture, it appears, is to condition the most reliable conformity in its members, and to discourage forms of individuality and self-expression which represent threats to group stability."

" … we are, by nature, rather selfish, xenophobic, regressive, and pleasure loving creatures who possess the potential for the most wicked and vile acts, and the most lofty and inspiring ones."

Chapter 4: Regression-Progression and Human Evolution

" … it is assumed that the response output is the net product of the many excitatory, inhibitory, and mutually interacting influences … "

" … human behaviour constantly moves up and down the [regression-progression] scale depending on the state of the organism and prevailing circumstances."

"The present view, however, emphasizes the momentary nature of behaviour, and the suddenness of regressive and progressive movement … "

Scale developed: " … proved to be very effective in rating the primitiveness and advancedness of self-reported pleasures and aversions, which themselves are correlated with personality, psychopathology, and IQ scores."

" … Burns (1984) has recently developed an objective Pleasure-Aversion Scale … "

" … the primitive pole for humans would describe the most "animalistic" behaviour possible … " "Ted Bundy"

"The advanced pole of the regression-progression continuum describes something akin to what Sandor Rado (1969) calls 'emotionless' thought."

" … only a few humans are capable of operating toward the upper pole, and even then petite regressions easily draw one away from the rarefied atmosphere of pure thought."

" … 'consciousness' is involved at even the most phylogenetically primitive levels of functioning … "

"We shall not, therefore, attempt to force a false precision on these phenomena by relegating events into discrete, well-defined categories." All mental functions represent mixtures of processes.

" … at higher levels we find refined self-consciousness and self-awareness, verbally mediated rational thought, self-control, a sense of reality, selflessness and altruism, individuality, empathy, and cultural refinement."

" … to be civilized is to regularly conform to higher mandates, and to maintain reliable control … "

"As we move to the mammalian level, an even greater number of human functions and activities are subsumed."

" … with mammals there came a more advanced sense of kinship and sociality that would later reach full flower in the primate species." "play"

" … the mammalian limbic system provides us with a capacity for emotions … "

Footnote P. 129: "The phenomenon of play is absent in reptiles, but assumes a position of great functional importance im mammals and primates."

" … when distinctive is defined as 'absent in any form in animals lower on the phylogenetic scale,' we would expect very few human characters to be distinctively human."

" … it is abundantly clear that we humans sprang from the primate family and share much with our cousins the monkeys and apes."

"Table 4.7 briefly summarizes the basic mental abilities of monkeys and apes."

"Table 4.8 summarizes the basic characteristics of the hominid creatures that stand between the nonhuman primates and modern man."

"Afrensis can be credited with important phylogenetic gains in male-female relationships and social organization."

"With the contributions of habilis, human evolution began in earnest … "

"Neanderthal was the first true philosopher, who devoted brain and intelligence to higher concerns than day-to-day survival and ecological adaptation.

" … Cro-Magnons, with their small faces, vertical foreheads and well-developed frontal lobes, were the ones to take the last giant step to full humanhood starting about 50, 000 years ago."

"To become fully human was not to forsake the limbic and reptilian wisdom of the past, but to build upon it and at the same time keep it under control. Only in the technological-intellectual sphere do we, on rare occasion, temporarily transcend our animal nature, while in the social sphere we often do little better than the apes."

" … our ancestors were hunter-gathers, and many of our physical traits, emotional predispositions, and mental characters were formed or elaborated during this period."

"It is generally agreed that little or no biological evolution has occurred in humans since the demise of Neanderthal 35, 000 years ago … "

"Hunting is the master pattern of the human species."

" … the rudiments of virtually every human behavioural complex can be traced to the hunting and gathering phase … "

Two conclusions follow: " … (a) the biological nature of man was designed for hunting and gathering … " b). Cultural evolution has contributed little to the basic nature of man and represents a thin veneer over the hunter-gatherer lying underneath.

" … when we phylogenetically regress - under stress, provocation or threat - we are most likely to regress to some aspect of our essential hunting and gathering nature."

" … on one hand, the primeval hunter-gatherer is a cooperative, sharing, and loving creature, whereas on the other he is a creature who makes a living through killing."

"Should we be surprised, then, that a Mother Teresa and a Ted Bundy are both of the human race … "

" … our hunting and gathering nature is extremely difficult to transcend to begin with, but once transcended the powers of regression are waiting in the wings."

" … as regression deepens, progressive losses at the neocortex and cultural levels occur, and proportionate gains are realized at the lower phylogenetic levels."

" … passive regression refers to more or less automatic, natural recovery of phylogenetically older predispositions and patterns under stress or other elicitors … "

" … progression refers to the achievement of relative independence from the lower centers through the exercise of intellect and imagination."

" … what is unique about the human species?"

"First, most of the distinctive attributes are sexually asymmetrical or involve special interactions between the sexes … "

" … human female is distinctive in several regards, most dramatically in undergoing menopause and concealment of ovulation … "

"Second, … increasing emphasis on parental care … "

"we transcended the animals by virtue of culture, and not so much by biological evolution."

Chapter 5: Fundamental Paleopsychology: Correlates and Consequences of Phylogenetic Regression

" … behavioural scientists have failed rather badly in studying the human animal … "

" … we have failed to confront the primitive, irrational, sometimes "animalistic" side of human nature … "

" … most writers agree that advanced forms of cognition clearly separate man from animal."

"Human consciousness may [thus] be viewed as primitive or advanced, regressive or progressive, depending on its manifestation at a given time."

"The 'predatory' criminal who 'hunts,' lies in wait for his victim, and then attacks, is, of course conscious of his actions to a degree, but the most powerful irrational urges operating overshadow the cognitive component. In other words, the regressive elements are the determining ones in such behaviour."

"Human consciousness and intelligence, when separated from the phylogenetic wisdom if the past, often become unwitting enemies of the natural order of things. By definition, the higher our consciousnesses are raised, the more alienated we become from our animal heritage … "

"We humans, first of all, have little access to the inner mechanics of the motives, feelings, but, more importantly, we seldom ponder those things that are accessible to us."

"Reduced inhibition is another correlate of the regressive process."

" … breakdown of internal and/or external inhibitions has become a greater problem now than in any time in human history."

"The phylogenetically advanced person is, therefore, one who exerts mental control over his own impulses and is able to successfully traverse a variety of socially defined situations … "

"Most notably absent in severely regressed actions are the learned values and inhibitions that normally keep tight rein on the lower instincts."

" … [we] expect our primitive animal side to produce more extreme, all-or-none forms of responding … "

"In the fight or flight situation we see phylogenetic regression most clearly … "

" … tonic immobility syndrome is similar to the constellation of symptoms often ascribed to catatonic schizophrenia … "

" … when the prey remains immobilized and "frozen with fear." Such behaviour is adaptive because it serves to diminish or turn off the predators kill response … "

"Our task is to control, modulate, sublimate, or otherwise mold our vast array of primal patterns into socially acceptable forms of behaviour … "

" … nonverbal communication is far more prevalent in human behaviour than is verbal communication … "

" … nonverbal (and generally nonconscious) communication is not only more prevalent than strictly verbal forms, it also more deeply mirrors the inner person."

" … refined, advanced forms of speech or writing are recent and tenuously held acquisitions, as are the higher forms of abstract thought or intelligence."

" … human beings have the richest repertoire of facial expressions in nature."

"Although certain facial expressions may be innate and universal, the stimuli that elicit them and the circumstances under which their expression is permissible differs from culture to culture."

" … let us construct a theoretical hierarchy going from emotionless abstract thought down to the most natural and primitive nonverbal behaviour-emotion linkages."

"First … we may assume that consciousness becomes less acute as the hierarchy is descended … "

"Second … inhibitions are reduced with descent … "

"Third, evolved defence or attack behaviour are elicited at the lower levels … "

"Fourth, the pain-pleasure, approach-avoidance system becomes increasingly obvious with descent … "

"And last … gender differences appear to be accentuated with descent … "

"Delay of impulse gratification, … is antithetical to the nature of the organism and, in the human being, requires massive enculturalization and generous amounts of parental admonition."

" … selfishness and hedonism are generally kept within manageable bounds … "

" … it is theoretically possible to progress to sufficiently advanced levels of moral or ego development where selfishness, in its rawer forms, is replaced by refined sorts of individualism (Graves, 1966)."

Herrnstein: " … organisms find especially pleasurable those phylogenetically prepared behaviours that are important for survival."

Pleasure seeking has deep roots " … but withdrawal activities in the form of avoidance and escape behaviour may lie deeper still."

Bailey wants to " … underline the fundamental significances of aversive-withdrawal tendencies in the motivational-behavioural systems of animals, including humans."

" … 'moving away from' noxious, excessive, or threatening circumstances is the most fundamental and powerful form of motivation in living organisms."

" … expressing aggression is often pleasurable."

" … man has been a predator for a long time and his nature is such that he easily learns to enjoy killing other animals … "

" … aggression is not always a pure and independent pattern, but typically is part of a larger and highly adaptive system of fight and flight responses."

" … phylogenetic regression is a general process of primitivization where older emotional and motive systems not only increasingly emerge but increasingly fuse with depth of regression."

"At advanced levels of functioning … aggressive and fear systems are de-emotionalized and discoordinated … "

"For Freud, the development of personality was largely a matter of distribution and transformation of libidinal energy … "

"For both Freud and Jackson, regression meant a return to older, simpler, more automatic, and more neurophyschologically primitive modes of response under physical or psychological stress."

"Sex is an inherently 'risky, gratuitously consuming' (Wilson, 1978) and 'wasteful' activity (Ghiselin, 1974), but one that is worth the trouble in terms of mobilizing genetic variability … "

" … men and women do revert to basic gender patterns in catastrophes, with men striving 'to tough it out' and play the protector role, and women exhibiting 'selfless concern for others,' helplessness, and despair … "

" … men generally [are] more active, aggressive, 'passionate,' variable, and prone to disease and psychopathology, and women being more gentle, less aggressive, more inclined toward attachment, bonding, and social relationships, and lesser degrees of deviance and psychopathology."

" … in phylogenetic regression, the male often becomes more dangerous and threatening . . . "

" … the female may become more dependent and passive in the regressed state."

" … we make gallant efforts to at least understand the child molester, the murderer who 'lost control,' or the alcoholic who cannot control his passion for drink."

" … regression works differently in 'positive' versus 'negative' areas of behaviour."

" … primal hate tendencies (eg, predatory aggression) have been with us since the dawn of life (Valzelli, 1981) and mammalian love tendencies only for a few million years … we may speak of the primacy of the negative … " "It follows that regression is generally more likely to produce 'negative' than 'positive' effects."

" … what humans generally value as good forms of behaviour are quite recent derivatives of the evolutionary process … "

p. 189: Meerlo: " … the word 'regression,' as used in areas like pathology, psychiatry, and psychology, almost always has negative connotations … "

"Many times people must regress to progress."

" … certain forms of regression are not only beneficial but necessary for the full realization of human potential."

" … some of our natural, positive correlates of regression: imprinting, attachment, love, kinship, and family relations, play, cooperation, and submission to authority."

" … imprinting is a special, adaptive, and phylogenetically ancient form of learning that promotes species survival by raising the probability that certain fundamental preferences will be acquired early in life."

" … if we speak of sensitive and susceptible periods in humans, . . then we are on firmer ground conceptually."

"Phylogenetic regression theory assumes weak vestiges of imprinting do exist in human beings … "

" … human beings have many primal preferences of presumed high survival value that are learned quickly and strongly during early sensitive phases of development."

Morris: [like Grof] says: "[the] intrauterine bliss is never forgotten, and is, for all practical purposes, imprinted on the human psyche. The fetus-womb interrelationship thus appears to serve as a prototype for all later relationships … "

" … falling in love generally occurs during a sensitive period early in adult life … "

"In mal-imprinting, the animal performs normal species patterns of behaviour, but directs them toward inappropriate objects." [like John Money's ideas]

"In The Evolution of Love, Mellen (1981) outlines the paleopsychological origins of human love from the mammals on up through monkeys, apes, protohominids, Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and modern Homo sapiens."

" … ancient mammalian traits lie at the root of the profound and special emotional intimacy between the average mother and her baby today … "

Of all of the progressive changes: " … the mammalian mother-infant bonding system was possibly the most important, providing the leitmotif for evolutionary processes leading to human love."

" … maternal love is the most fundamental affectional system in primates, including humans … "

" … a deep sense of family gradually emerged … "

Van Berghe makes three points here: "(a) the human family is a biologically evolved form . . . analogous to family groups in other species." "(b) the human family … exhibits certain underlying universal characteristics; and © so-called cultural universals often are biologically based ecological adaptations … "

" this progression from sociobiological kinship to oneness with humanity represents one of the great leaps in human evolution … "

" … kinship relations appear universal in the human species, and they serve many adaptive functions."

"To be 'a part of' is a fundamental prerequisite of every human being … "

"The extended family has already been replaced by the nuclear family in many countries (Dumond, 1975), producing numerous pathological consequences."

" … humans can phylogenetically progress to the point of alienation from our deepest needs and wishes."

" … human cooperation owes much to the social and economic imperatives of the hunting strategy … "

" … love and hate … and cooperation and competition … work in concert and have the capacity to fuse and defuse … "

"Play is a natural, spontaneous and highly social instrument of learning whereby the juvenile acquires skill in the arenas of sex and dominance … "

"It is largely through play that the young are socialized and prepared for their adult roles in a make-believe context … "

" … the more one moves down the phylogenetic scale within the primate, the more rigid and invariable social structures … "

" … it seems reasonable to speak of an innate need to submit to authority … "

" … with [autonomy] comes solitude, loneliness, and alienation from the warm, secure comfort of primate togetherness."

Chapter 6: The Primers and Elicitors of Phylogenetic Regression

"Plato believed that when man is enslaved by his inner passions and compulsions, he is no longer free … "

"Human action is more free, conscious, and variable toward the progressive end of the scale … "

" … we humans generally behave relatively 'far from' our genes … "

" … distance-from-the-genes is reduced when lower systems are predominant … "

" … primitive behaviour patterns generally involve a relatively small array of primarily internal causes … "

"Primers, or priming conditions, are stimuli that contribute to states of readiness to respond … "

"Elicitors are stimuli that are (more or less) sufficient to set off or release a response or response pattern … "

" … internal priming conditions do not produce phylogenetic regression directly … "

Genotypic primers: genes influence us in two ways:

"1. First, the great mass of our genes make up the phylogenetype, those genes that we share with our ancestors in phylogeny."

"2. Secondly, only a small proportion of our overall genotype (1% or so … .) is concerned with differences between us and our closest primate relative … "

This difference may be " … called the transgenotype, because by it we have transcended the great apes."

" … not all genes are structural ones; the genotype also includes control genes that regulate growth and development by turning processes on and off."

" … the transgenotype cannot account for all of the anatomical and behavioural differences between man and ape."

" … many of our innate characters are shared with our closest living nonhuman relative, the chimpanzee … "

"The pituitary gland, hypothalamus, limbic system, and the endocrine glands situated in various parts of the body, all comprise a superordinate negative-feedback control system designed to promote balance and order in a growing, changing, and often stressed human organism."

" … the hormonal system is slower and spreads messages broadly throughout the body that may be picked up by any cells possessing receptors for them … "

"Some synaptic transmitters are widely distributed throughout the mammalian nervous system whereas others are not … for example, the two major inhibitory transmitters, GABA, and glycine, account for about half of all synapses in the brain."

" … the brain's inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters play important roles in the more general processes of response inhibition and excitation in the central nervous system."

" … the biological clock may be viewed as a subtle and invisible mediator or primer of phylogenetic regression by augmenting the adverse effects of threatening and stressful external stimuli."

"Even if an individual is highly internally primed for a certain behavioural reaction, an external elicitor is usually required to set it off."

" … the brain-damaged person is particularly primed for phyloregressive behaviour … "

" … mental stimuli play crucial roles in phylogenetic progression … "

"A possible hierarchy might be: dreams->images->fantasies->emotional thoughts->emotionless thoughts."

"Most primers are internal, most elicitors are external."

"Although pleasurable circumstances often serve as elicitors of regression, it is likely that pain-avoidance is the more significant elicitor across situations."

" … pain is a noxious perception actually experienced by the animal or person, whereas fear is a noxious emotion often based on the anticipation of pain or injury."

"At the human level, we see the fear system developed to such an exquisite degree that it can be activated not only by real threats to life and limb but by vague anticipation and even thoughts as well."

Drugs may influence regression: "(a) reptilian and limbic regressions may be inhibited or even reversed by antianxiety or antihallucinogenetic substances; (b) regressions may be retarded by the paradoxical effects of certain neural excitants (eg, the effects of amphetamines in controlling some types of hyperactivity in children); © certain substances may facilitate regressive behaviour through their direct excitatory effects (eg, as with the confused and disorganized behaviour, irritability, fear and suspicion, etc., in the amphetamine psychosis); and (d) the inhibitory and constraining effects of the neocortex may be diminished so that lower drives and emotions are released into behaviour."

" … drugs do not produce new physiological or behavioural responses-they simply modify ongoing processes."

" … a relatively small dose of the appropriate central nervous system (CNS) depressant, such as ethyl alcohol, has the potential to relax the restraining power of the neocortex and allow limbic and reptilian material to slip through."

"The phylogenetic regression model views anxiety as the hyperfunction of the limbic system, that, among other things, is designed to produce the powerful emotion of fear when actual danger or even the threat of danger is present."

" … anxiety is a neocortical elaboration of the limbic fear response, and as such is literally a mild form of active phylogenetic regression."

" … the content of the amphetamine psychosis is not manufactured by the drug's effect on the brain, but rather, the drug, in high enough dosage, serves to release pre-existing emotions and response patterns encoded in the brain in phylogeny. In the amphetamine psychosis we see a caricature of our phylogenetically old tendencies and predispositions in extreme form: fear, sex, aggression, and xenophobia."

" … alcohol constitutes the greatest social problem due to its capacity to disinhibit neocortical functioning and release primitive behaviour and emotion from their normal constraints."

"Macho behaviour and hypermasculinity go hand-in-hand with both alcohol abuse and criminality."

" … behaviourally complex elicitative stimuli that set off complex and relatively variable patterns and combinations of patterns are referred to social releasers."

"The general term elicitor is used to encompass sign stimuli, social releasers, and any other stimulus conditions that have the capacity to bring out, in whole or in part, phylogenetically loaded responses."

" … during the process of ritualization:"

"1. The original behaviour undergoes a change of function."

"2. The ritualized expressive movement may become independent of its original motivation and develop its own motivating mechanisms."

"3. The ritualized movements are frequently exaggerated … "

"4. The threshold values for releasing stimuli often are altered … "

"5… . behaviour becomes stereotyped and unambiguous."

" … cultural transmission of ritualized behaviour is no doubt more important than is phylogenetic transmission in humans."

" … most innate behaviour appears to be of the secondary, ritualized type … "

"An educated, middle-class person may exist in a rarefied social atmosphere relatively free of stimulation from primitive releasing stimuli … "

Chapter 7: Some Special Theory-Derived Primers and Elicitors

"Phylogenetic regression theory posits that stress, broadly defined, is perhaps the most potent elicitor of regression."

" … even the smallest perceived threat may set off an extensive neuropsychological defence response."

Seyle: stress is: " … anything in the environment capable of triggering the body's defence systems. Virtually any stimulus can act as a stressor … "

"1. First, "Human beings were designed for a relatively simple life with minimal variation in social and environmental stimulation."

" … people possess a natural 'conservative impulse,' a natural tendency to resist change and the stress and sense of loss that comes with it."

"2. Second, stress may result from either over- or understimulation."

"3. Third … any deviation from our phylogenetically prepared modes of experiencing stimuli and responding to them is likely to produce stress and attempts to adapt."

" … stressors are presumed to affect the regressive process in one or the other of the following ways: (a) as direct cause of regression in instances where clear survival threat is involved." "(b) as primers that regress the person neurologically, emotionally, and/or cognitively, but do not, at the time, elicit an obvious behavioural response."

" … Milgram sees high density living as inherently stressful and as a severe obstacle to healthy and spontaneous social behaviour."

" … the "intensification" attendant to high densities arise primarily from the emotional and motivation centers of the limbic-hypothalamic complex."

[Turnbull describes how a tribe of mountain people, the Ik, fell apart under stress:] "As the Ik sank deeper and deeper into their obsessions with sheer survival, virtually all of the characteristics we consider distinctly human were slowly peeled away … "

" … each of us lives in a state of mild frustration, a mild regressive readiness to compete with others for the resources that surround us."

"There is something about being in a group that often brings out the worst in people … "

" … the lower brain centers are most likely to gain control in groups and crowds, with the higher centers slipping into the background."

"Phylogenetic regression is more likely to occur in groups than individuals, and , further, occurs more quickly in the group situation … "

"When the individual is alone, balance and order among the personality's components are relatively easily maintained; one is simply required to control one's own appetites, drives, and emotions."

" … the group experience typically serves to excite primitive centers on the one hand, and disinhibit higher constraining centers on the other."

" … the leader, with his almost hypnotic control of the collective mind, can with word or gesture, easily regress followers to limbic emotionality, or with somewhat greater difficulty progress them to higher levels of functioning."

"In the crowd, or, with strangers as well, normal constraints may be abandoned as self-consciousness and self-identity are diminished and deindividualization occurs."

" … individuation may be viewed as a phylogenetically advanced state whereby the individual rises above the animal desires of his species and becomes a self-conscious and self-controlled human being."

" … anonymity and deindividuation appear to be strong and consistent elicitors of phylogenetic regression as we define it."

[We are afraid of strangers:] " … the stranger could only represent threat to self or threat of loss of resources in primitive man … "

[therefore] " … hominids would have become extremely sensitive to "differences" that facilitate speedy classification of familiar versus strangers … "

" … there is a great amount of phylogenetic inertia to overcome in relating to strangers, and regressions are all too frequent … "

" … the black is not hated because of the color of his skin, but because he is different: the black skin serves merely as an elicitor for a deeper and more profound xenophobic response."

" … people differ in behaviour across randomly selected individuals … "

" … even relatively slight ideologically elicited regression, either where the evocative cognition releases limbic responses in the speaker or the hearer, can snowball quickly into a full-blown confrontation."

" … once the idea-elicited agonism has run its course, few stop to question the naturalness or appropriateness of the feeling or act … "

" … life is little more than a perennial struggle between different classes, each with its own ideology, wants, and style of life … "

" … the ability of the human species to "actively phylogenetically regress" is the one thing that makes us the most dangerous creatures on earth … "

" … the poor often phylogenetically regress because they have to in order to survive, as we saw earlier with the Ik, but the rich and powerful often regress in order to further maximize their maternal resources … "

Albert Schweitzer: " … the superman with the superhuman power has not risen to the level of superhuman reason."

"The very object of obtaining power is to gain access to resources, to gain priority over other, to 'win' in the game of life."

" … the rich have the opportunity for a wider range of regressions."

" … sudden riches, in the form of stalks of bananas, produced hyperaggressiveness and social disorder in a normally peaceful group of chimpanzees."

" … humans were adapted for adversity not affluence throughout their evolutionary history, and when sudden riches present themselves one may generally expect the worst to follow."

" … most people in the world will compromise his or her altruistic or ethical values for money or survival … "

" … economic stress tends to regress people back to "traditional," hunting-and-gathering modes of stereotypical maleness and femaleness."

" … thinking, philosophizing, and self-actualizing are reserved for a precious few people on this earth who have the time and money to engage in such nonsurvival pursuits."

Chapter 8: The Paleopsychology of Motivation and Learning

"The principals of motivation must, of necessity, lie at the core of any theory of the causes of behaviour."

"At the most primitive pole, we find rigid instincts composed of innate, species-specific releaser-action pattern linkages … "

" … the mere presentation of the releasing stimulus will reliably elicit a specific response pattern … "

" … much if not all of human behaviour-our overt actions, even the highly advanced ones, emanate from and are derivative of a relatively small numbers of phylogenetically programmed motive systems. It is from these few motive systems that we phylogenetically progress, and to them that we phylogenetically regress."

Table 8.1

"First, approach systems appear more numerous and variegated than do withdrawal systems."

"Secondly, one is struck by the relatively small number of basic motive systems postulated in the biopsychological literature defining the wellsprings of animal and human behaviour."

" … it is unlikely that advanced "motives" or "drives" ever totally transcend their primitive energy sources."

"it is presumed that most meaningful behaviour of animals and humans in natural situations is nonarbitrary and adaptive."

" … the complexity of human motivation becomes a matter of how the phylogenetically old aspects of motivation are retained in the brain, how these old motive systems inhibit and/or facilitate each other, under what circumstances and to what degree are they released into behaviour, and how they are elaborated upon and modified by experience."

"The "bifurcationist" hypotheses, by contrast, conjecture that human social behaviour has evolved away from the animal pattern and man essentially belongs to a kingdom of one species."

"Unmixed Motivation. … is quite rare"

"Coordination of Behaviour. Behaviour is highly coordinated and integrated, even in organisms possessing clear-cut genetically coordinated movements or fixed action patterns."

"Motivation and Conflict."

" … final behavioural output often reflects a compromise solution among opposing forces."

We need to look at " … dynamic opposing forces."

" … [the] concept of hierarchical organization is central to the phylogenetic regression-progression argument … "

" … our hypothetical hierarchy is sectioned into three molar levels of functioning roughly corresponding to MacLean's model of the triune brain."

Lowest: "At MacLean's level of the reptilian brain, species-specific fixed action patterns are yoked to equally fixed and specific motive sources … " A reptile can do what he is designed to do and little else.

Middle: "The mammal not only behaves adaptively in response to environmental challenges, but its actions are influenced by feelings and emotions too."

Top: "The neocortex served to free or decouple rigid stimulus-response linkages, and opened the way for more flexible and cognitive approaches to adaptation."

" … in humans, motivation may be repressed, suppressed, denied and otherwise transformed and dissipated through sheer conscious and/or unconscious mental activity."

"In vivo behaviour involves many hierarchically organized components and subcomponents, all of which are elicited with proper timing and magnitude, whereas inappropriate ones are simultaneously suppressed."

"We see that endocrinological and neurophysiological substrates mix and interact to produce complex sequences of adaptive behaviour"

" … we saw that functional overlap occurs among motivational-behavioural systems lying in close physical proximity in the rat's brain."

" … 'sparking over,' short-circuiting, and so forth, are presumed to occur among anatomically proximate centers … especially in the limbic system"

" … there is great neurohumoral and neuroanatomical overlap between the motivational and emotional systems, and it often is difficult to distinguish one from the other."

" … an animal has little choice regarding its action (Rensch, 1971), its feelings, or the interaction of the two in the midst of a violent agonistic encounter, whereas humans in an analogous encounter may 'feel' like hitting someone else but nevertheless suppress the behaviour. This ability to separate motives and feelings, and to deny one or both access to overt behaviour, appears to be a unique human characteristic."

" … human beings have the ability to decouple themselves from natural imperatives in a fashion impossible in any other animal … "

"We find that the hypothalamic-limbic complex is involved in the full range of primitive response functions … "

Stellar: " … continuum of functions of the limbic system … "

"1. physiological regulations"

"2. consummatory behaviour"

"3. appetitive behaviour"

"4. reward and reinforcement"

"5. pleasantness and unpleasantness"

"Little motivation is involved at the level of physiological regulation, but motivation plays a role at all of the higher levels."

" … we may argue that much of the activation and energy behind motivated behaviour has been processed greatly at the diencephalic level (physiologically, behaviourally, affectively, operantly, and hedonically) before the neocortex enters the picture!"

[Two points are important:] " … (a) the reinforcement in classical conditioning is primarily associative rather than hedonic, and (b) classical conditioning represents one of the most effective mechanisms whereby an animal may free itself from pure natural imperatives … "

" … the "new" responses are typically erected upon, and are elaborations of, the basic behavioural hardware (neurohumoral substrates) and software (species-typical dispositions, etc.) of the animal. Only in the laboratory-manipulated animal or the domesticated human are we likely to encounter arbitrary or trivial response acquisition … "

" … Olds demonstrated that intra-cranial self-stimulation (ICSS) in high pleasure areas of the brain served as an exceptional reinforcer."

" … brain-stimulation reward involves the direct stimulation of the brain's endogenous substrates of reinforcement or reward."

"the pleasure experienced in ICSS may represent normal pleasures highly augmented by direct stimulation."

"The term catecholamine refers to a group of chemically related compounds, the most important of which are epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine."

" … there is a great degree of overlap between the anatomical and catecholamine pathways subserving ICSS … "

" … noradrenaline and dopamine, are involved in the mediation of brain-stimulation reward."

" … dopamine (activation), noradrenalin (steering), and the enkephalins (satisfaction) play different, but fundamental roles in the reward sequence."

" … 'all roads lead to the limbic system' where the rudiments of behaviours are concerned."

" … the mere performance of a phylogenetically conditioned, species-typical action may be inherently pleasurable in and of itself."

" … rather than merely representing an association between a natural response and a neutral stimulus, or an after-the-fact stimulus capable of maintaining high response probability, reinforcement, in the form of endogenous brain reward, is the innate means by which organisms are encouraged, on a probabilistic basis, to conform to the natural mandates of their respective species."

" … animals and humans really learn much less than is commonly assumed … "

" … rather than being creatures created by learning, we are creatures who learn. We humans may vary in how we express our sexuality, our sociality, or our hostility, but we do not vary in whether we possess the software programs or the biogrammar subserving these adaptive patterns of behaviour."

[Even in man, ] " … response flexibility is relative, and the constraints of lower species superseded only to a degree. We humans share with the animals many of the pre-programmed "constraints" and "biological boundaries" of learning … "

" … humans have a greater capacity to decouple or disengage from natural imperatives than any other creature, and in this fact lies our uniqueness, our arbitrariness, and our domination of the world. Still, most of our behaviour is 'learned' via 'class common' mammalian, and subcortical neurostructures … "

"For species to remain in the 'normal range of reaction' in trait development, it is necessary for great amounts of potential trail expression to be inhibited or constrained."

"Waddingtion (1957) depicts canalization in development as a ball (phenotype) rolling through a set of valleys or canals. The deeper the canal the greater the canalization … "

" … with sufficient stress traits may be de-tracked and slip into another, possibly abnormal canal."

" … a learning continuum might be postulated beginning with maximally canalized and biologically constrained learning at one pole (fixed-action patterns, instincts, phylogenetically conditioned dispositions, behavioural dispositions, etc.) and proceeding up to highly variable, species-decoupled, self-conscious, and cultural forms of learning at the other pole."

"Learning is, thus, not a 'thing' but a multifarious set of adaptive strategies for processing and storing adaption-related information … "

Chapter 9: Hierarchical Analysis of Behaviour and Misbehaviour

"How, then may we lay claim to a science of behaviour?"

[two answers] 1). "The first and most popular approach is to collect the best empirical data possible and then to attribute causes to behaviour that are congruent with prevailing theoretical, social, and moral paradigms."

2). "A second approach is to avoid broad theorizing and focus instead on empirical data derived from controlled experimental research."

"Aristotle postulated four different species of causes: material, formal, efficient, and final."

"All adaptive behaviour appears to involve all four of these components … "

"The behaviour of different species differs greatly in relative influence of the phylogenotype, parental inheritance, and experience."

" … living organisms only can be understood macrodeterministically in terms of their hierarchic systems dynamics."

" … the behaviour of living organisms is not reducible to chains of micro-precise cause-effect relationships. Nevertheless, lower processes do indeed influence higher ones, but indirectly through variable intermediary subsystems , which themselves enjoy a certain independence and degree of sovereignty over subordinate component units."

"The hierarchic-systems approach seems to be the best conceptual model we have to derive causal inferences about behaviour."

"Structural constraints, of course, as Aristotle noted, are those imposed by the design features of the organism."

We conclude that: " … (a) there is a wealth of evidence supporting the notion that many behavioural propensities in humans are biologically based … "

" … (b) no sharp distinction can be drawn between behaviour that is determined by internal causes and behaviour that is externally determined."

"Behaviour also is constrained by the priming condition, or cumulative factors affecting the immediate state of the phenotype."

" … the role of the proximal elicitors in behavioural causality cannot be denied. A proximal elicitor refers to a stimulus or stimulus configuration either in the internal or external environment that causes a response or response pattern to be discharged … "

"In summary … behaviour is a function of causes from three levels of analysis - the level of inherent structural design, the level of motivational readiness, and the level of proximal elicitation."

"As human beings, it is impossible for us to be totally dispassionate and objective about things that threaten our belief systems or act against our self-interest."

"There is a powerful tendency for both scientists and laypersons to find certain causes of behaviour far more palatable than others … "

"That we are socialized is tautological, but this tells us little about the epigenesis of complex, motivated behaviour of the proximate causes of such behaviour."

" … socializing influences are more likely to play modulatory and elaborative functions."

"According to Bandura, casual processes in social learning theory are conceptualized in terms of reciprocal determinism, that is, the "continuous reciprocal interaction between behavioural, cognitive, and environmental influences" (p.344). At the center of these mutually interacting causes lies the "self-system" … "

His model, " … focuses on the interactive reciprocality that far more accurately characterizes complex human behaviour."

PRP = phylogenetic regression-progression model

"The PRP model ranks causes hierarchically … "

"Bandura seems to view the rational cognitive system as master of the lower centers, whereas, following Plutchik (1977), the PRP model sees the neocortex more as "slave" to lower needs."

" … the PRP model assumes that most of the basic substructures of behaviour are present at birth and attain subsequent levels of complexity through elaborative maturational and learning processes."

" … the PRP model was purposely designed to accommodate the phylogenetically primitive and "inhuman" aspects of human aggressive behaviour."

"Makl chooses to emphasize the cognitive and cultural bases of behaviour, and argues against strong biological determinism."

PRP agrees with Makl except: 1). " … humans have the potential for a degree of decoupling, but that potential is only marginally realized due to phylogenetic inertia … "

2). "Second, 'escape' from our biological substructures is only relative under the best of circumstances … "

"The PRP model emphasizes both biological and cultural causes of behaviour, and more importantly, accords relative importance to each depending on the state of the organism . . ."

"..why, as MacLean (1978b) asks, do we continue to do the things animals do? The PRP model attempts to solve the riddle by assuming an animal nature in all people, but adds that individuals differ greatly in their mastery of the Beast."

" … living organisms are construed as hierarchies within hierarchies, microscopic systems embedded within larger systems seemingly an infinitum."

" … the following hierarchical levels of analysis were formulated: sociobiological, ego-psychological, cultural, philosophical, and spiritual."

"Dawkins' (1976a) theory of the selfish gene represents the most extreme argument for a genetic determinism. With his best hyperbole, Dawkins reduces the human being to a robot, a throw away phenotype who is blindly compelled by selfish genes programmed to replicate themselves at any cost."

" … [Dawkins] seems to imply a supplantation of genes by culture … " "By contrast, the PRP model assumes an ongoing, dynamic interaction of older and newer function, governed by the principles of regression and progression."

" … at the hard sociobiological level of functioning, the individual is governed and guided by phylogenetically ancient, inherently selfish patterns of adaptation to the environment."

" … a man who goes into an uncontrolled rage and attacks others in random fashion is not behaving adaptively at all, but, ironically, his behaviour is being driven primarily by deep centers of the brain (see chapter 10) which mediated quite adaptive anger and attack behaviour in his phylogenetic forbears."

"Therefore, phylogenetic regression to the sociobiological level may occur in two ways: release of once adaptive patterns in nonadaptive or maladaptive fashion, and release of once adaptive patterns that serve contemporary adaptive functions."

"Everything a person does is not adaptive nor meaningful, and a microbehavioral analysis of a normal person's behaviour over an hour's time would reveal much behavioural noise."

" … old patterns may be drawn from in piecemeal fashion to meet any evanescent and nonadaptive need of the person."

"The Ego-Psychological Level."

"Now the relationship between lower sociobiological needs and overt behaviour is mediated by mental activity of either a constraining or facilitating sort."

"At the ego-psychological level we encounter sociopathic rather than sociobiological functioning … "

"Human beings are compulsively selfish and sociopathic at the sociobiological and ego-psychological levels of functioning … "

"The Cultural Level"

"Self-interest begins to yield to the needs and requirements of the group as we reach the cultural level of functioning."

" … culture typically refines, complements, and extends the biological underpinnings provided by natural selection."

" … behaviour becomes adjusted to arbitrary standards as well as natural ones, and conflict between old imperatives and new requirements is commonplace."

"The cultural level is one of intellectual and behavioural conformity … "

"The Philosophical Level."

" … the full weight of human thought and imagination are brought to bear on questions of life and existence."

"The Spiritual Level."

" … spiritual is used here to describe a transcendent relationship with a power greater than oneself … "

"Religion, in its higher forms brings us closest to a true transcendence of our animal nature … "

Footnote p. 326. "In PRP theory, however, religion may be hierarchicalized like everything else, with primitive forms of object, animal, and quasi-human animism, magic and superstition, totemism, and idolatry occupying lower points on the regression-progression scale … "

"Religion appears to be the greatest of all motivators of human behaviour, for there is nothing the true believer will not do … "

"The phylogenetically progressive form of religion, thus, represents a rising above the lower needs and a genuine, unselfish commitment to a higher power … "

" … deeply held religious beliefs seem to represent failsafe antidotes to our natural human tendencies toward avarice, prejudice, and violence."

" … mankind has produced on the order of 100 thousand religions."

" … 94% of Americans believe in God or some higher being, and 31% reported having experienced a sudden religious awakening or conversion at some point in their lives."

" … the flesh was tamed by spirit … "

" … the inner psychological battle between one's own id, flesh, or the Beast, and the superego or neocortical inhibiting structures, was externalized into a more equitable battle between the Beast and God."

"The PRP model places great emphasis on self-control, for by controlling our lower passions we are able to phylogenetically progress into a world of thought and mind and achieve some relief from the Darwinian fitness imperative."

" … traditional religious moralizing is one of the great inhibitors of our natural selfishness and self-indulgence … "

" … the PRP model places considerable emphasis on healthy regressions and healthy access to one's inner nature."

" … self-control is a tenuous thing even when supported by traditional religious morality, and without it law, custom, and lofty philosophic ideals are clearly insufficient to the task."

Bailey presents a case study of Ted Bundy.

" … Bundy's case represents an excellent one for hierarchical analysis using the PRP model."

"It seems that we are forever frustrated in seeking human causes for inhuman actions. Ted Bundy, and those like him, represent a grievous threat to prevailing theories and models of aggression and violence … "

"The fact that social scientists so carefully ignore the Ted Bundy's of the world in their theorizing is itself an interesting phenomenon … "

"The most normal of men, far more than women, appear to be gripped by irrational compulsions in the areas of sex and aggression."

"What reward, other than the satisfactions accompanying the acts themselves, could have motivated such reprehensible behaviour?"

" … considerable evidence is assembled supporting the notion that the basic motivation-behaviour-reward components of sex, aggression, and other species-related behavioural systems are innate and mediated by neural structures in the reptilian system and the limbic-hypothalamic complex."

"The PRP model argues that many of these primitive components continue to exist, however, in varying degrees of latency and activation in the reptilian and paleomammalian brain systems."

"The Cultural Level."

"During most of Ted Bundy's adult life, he operated very effectively at the cultural level."

" … Bundy remained in a survival mode fighting for his life and freedom, and never seemed to come to grips with the magnitude of his evil or the inhumanity of his acts."

" … humans beings are, by nature, selfish, sexual, aggressive, anxious, and pleasure-seeking creatures who behave in boorish ways when neocortical and cultural inhibitions are weak or dysfunctional."

"Structural causes lay the groundwork of behavioural potentialities, but priming causes often determine whether such potentialities actually find their way into overt behaviour."

"Once the inhibitory functions are sufficiently eroded, minimal eliciting stimuli are required for regressive outbreak of culturally dysfunctional behaviour."

" …Bundy had phylogenetically regressed as low as a human being can possibly go. To refer to his behaviour in those moments as in any way human is to unjustly discredit the human race."

Chapter 10: The Mark of Cain: Old Aggression in a New Age

' … human history has been dominated by the irascible, brutish ape that resides in each if us; that selfish, xenophobic, and aggressive component of human nature that seems to make territorial conflict and war inevitable. Yet, on the other hand, the human race is without peer in terms of love, compassion, yearning for peace, artistic sensibility, and thirst for knowledge."

"In the problem of aggression, we see an excellent example of Paul MacLean's (1954a) concept of schizophysiology, where phylogenetically old and new parts of the brain coexist in perpetual disharmony and antagonism."

"The higher cortical functions of intelligence, reflection, choice, language, imagination, and so forth, do not produce aggression, but rather serve to prime it, elicit it, inhibit it, elaborate it, and otherwise colour its many manifestations."

"That human aggression and violence are widespread is self-evident."

" … the primitive motive force to kill and their associated behaviour patterns may be homologous up through monkeys, apes, and humans, whereas the greater actual killing at higher levels is a product of greater intelligence and response elaboration within and across situations."

Langer: " … torture becomes the torturer's way of transcending his morality by creating the illusion that the power to inflict pain on others somehow exonerates one from suffering the same fate."

" … an extreme state of excitement may contribute to, and possible serve as an augmentor for, violent and destructive attacks."

"In the rampage reaction, we see a temporary but total loss of neocortical inhibition where the innate killing and destructive potential is released unchecked."

Zimbardo: "It is pleasurable to behave at a purely sensual, physical, unthinking level-regardless of whether the act is making love or making war" (p.90)."

Kahn and Kirk: "Aggressive drive is an inhibitor, biologically rooted, directionally oriented energizer of behaviour that is elicited by frustration … ""

" … but this ignores at least two types of aggressive behaviour: first, where through injury to the brain or temporary brain dysfunction, primitive, noninstrumental aggression is released from its normal bondage, and second, those instances where pleasurable aggression is practised for its own sake."

" … aggression is a powerful, phylogenetically primed readiness, a normal and adaptive part of animal and human nature."

" … human aggression includes a far greater range of responses than is seen in other animals … "

" … old aggressive tendencies of the reptilian and limbic systems are not lost; they merely wait for permission from the neocortex to rise into action once again."

"The organ of behaviour is the brain, which means that in discussing violence we are actually talking about one of the ways brain function is expressed in behaviour"

" … predatory aggression of the stalk-attack-kill type is mediated by the lateral hypothalamus in cats … "

" … although the primitive neuroanatomy of chimps and humans differ little, human aggression encompasses far more because of the inhibiting, facilitating, modulating, and elaborating functions of the human neocortex."

"One is struck by the alien and intrusive nature of the uncontrollable urges Charles Whitman experienced … "

"The presence of high intelligence does not guarantee advanced behaviour, however, but it does make it more probable. The neocortex and its functional correlate intelligence play crucial roles in encouraging progression and discouraging regression by exerting direct inhibitory control over the naturally expressive lower centers and by exerting indirect inhibitory control over socially and culturally deviant behaviour … "

"The issue of mixing aggression components is extremely important theoretically, because it helps explain why so many experts differ as to what aggression is, what causes it, and what is likely to control it."

"The truth of human aggression is not to be found in any single cause, but rather in the symphonic interaction of many coterminous causes."

"It is especially interesting to note that the 'negative' aggression system often interacts with the 'positive' sexual and affectional systems … "

" … there are specific mechanisms for sex, aggression, and parenting in the brain that overlap greatly neuroanatomically … "

"Observation tells us that human beings are far more often frustrated and angry than aggressive … "

" … one cardinal characteristic of the psychotic is the expression of rage or anger in inappropriate contexts … "

" … it is clear that the rage response is inherently adaptive and crucial to survival in the wild."

" … rage is a primitive and adaptive form of self-protection in animals and humans, and, further, that both its neurological triggers and suppressors are primarily limbic and not neocortical."

" … it is important to distinguish between what is socially defined as pathological, and what is pathological from the standpoint of natural, adaptive species behaviour."

" … human killing behaviour can be dissected into at least three categories: one being both biologically adaptive and socially acceptable; one being biologically adaptive but socially unacceptable; and one being neither biologically adaptive nor socially acceptable."

Chapter 11: Paleopsychological Bases of Aggression in Humans

Passingham: "The reason why man is the only primate that conducts wars is that only man is able to do so."

" … we never totally transcend our basic animality; rather, it continues to influence us in subconscious, sublimated, and disguised ways."

"As the phylogenetically oldest form of aggression, by a wide margin, it follows that predatory aggression in humans typically exists in behaviourally latent, once adaptive forms."

"From a number of perspectives we see that predatory aggression, although a genuine form of aggression, is somehow different, a special case."

[Misconceptions about primates:] "Among these misconceptions were that primates are really not that aggressive generally, and predation has little if any significance in primate social life. Both of these notions are easily refuted."

" … if we are to believe Dart, Australopithecus was a weapon-toting, stone-throwing hunter, a carnivorous consumer of flesh whose heritage demanded the use of deadly aggression for survival."

" … man shows a wide range of behaviours appropriately characterized as territorial."

"Ardey postulates a phylogenetic, instinctive basis for human territoriality, which has been severely criticized by social and biological scientists alike."

" … intergroup competition may have been more vital to hominid evolution than mere hunting, for 'keeping other humans off the hunting grounds' would seem a necessary precondition for ready access to game and avoidance of starvation."

"Hall brought human territoriality into the mainstream of modern social science … "

" … it appears probable that certain aspects of animal territoriality continue to intrude into the affairs of man … "

"Human territoriality is thus not a single, evolved entity, but rather a set of self-, kin-, and property-protecting propensities … "

"Defence of territory and competition for rank are the two most important forms of intraspecific aggression … "

" … territory serves to protect the defender in many ways, whereas social rank serves to provide order in close-knit social groups."

"Every leader is vitally dependent on the cooperation of his or her charges, and their willingness to submit to authority forms the real basis of social order."

" … primate social organization is premised, in large measure, on inhibition of aggressive tendencies, and the leader serves as a prime-inhibitor of aggression."

"Brain and development are probably the most definitive precipitates of human evolution, and Bigelow thinks that the capacity to inhibit in-group aggression enabled cooperation and communication to emerge in a way that widened the gap between humans and other primates."

"Human civilization and the infrastructure of social order underlying it are derivative from and elaborations of a dominance-submission template that originated early in phylogeny and reached full flower in our primate progenitors."

" … dominance and submission play important presently adaptive roles in the everyday lives of children, just as does, for example, spontaneous play behaviour."

Chapter 12: The Paleopsychology of Pathological Processes

"Paleopsychology thus refers to the phylogenetically old psychology of the individual, those structures, tendencies, and predispositions carried over from both our nonhuman and early hominid ancestors."

" … regression to the sociobiological level would produce something roughly analogous to chimpanzee functioning, whereas regression to the ego-psychological level would recover something roughly analogous to early hominid modes of functioning.

It is commonly assumed that we human beings have transcended our basic animality, enabling us to function primarily at the neopsychological levels of culture, philosophical reflection, and spirituality. Careful observation, however, reveals a great gap between what modern humans can do and what they actually do most of the time. Even the most intellectually elite individuals, living in the most technologically advanced societies, seldom operate above the level of cultural conformity and social habit, and rare is the person who ponders the philosophical or spiritual-cosmological implications of his or her acts as they occur."

"Modern humans must meet their own needs and the demands of culture at the same time . . . "

" … modern man is burdened with a multiplicity of neoadaptive as well as paleoadaptive demands."

" … categories for social survival: three molar categories: conformity, order, and productivity. The sine qua non of primitive culture is conformity, and without conformity there is no culture."

" … human worth is measured in dollars, material wealth, and production of goods."

"The healthiest of us engages in occasional skirmishes of neurotic conflict, self-doubt, depression, and alienation … "

"Structure-Function Anomalies."

" … damage or dysfunction at the primary structure-function level will likely release aspects of our essential apeness … "

"A once-adaptive biostructural system may misfire never-adaptively, both in ancestral species or in later species that possess the system as well."

"Once-adaptive and never-adaptive releases often occur in the context of brain damage or dysfunction."

"A progressive society composed of regressive and disconforming individuals is a contradiction in terms, and here we confront the great dilemma of modern man: Man cannot be totally himself and a creature of advanced culture at the same time."

"Regression-Progression Anomalies."

" … fixations on the regression-progression continuum are possible." [but rare], "Much more common are deep regressions that may occur in essentially normal persons who possess sufficient ego-strength to progress back at will, and sufficient cultural sensitivity to avoid being labelled deviant for their activities … "

" … few persons are able to deeply regress to primitive levels of sexuality or violence without residual effects … "

"The common notion that once one kills it is much easier to kill again (Kagan, 1984) is consistent with a regression->release explanation, as is the paradox of sexual hyperactivity (rather than sexual avoidance) that sometimes occurs in persons raped or sexually molested."

"At the other extreme is inflexibility of movement on the regression-progression continuum. The rigidity and tension of the neurotic, the character armour (Reich, 1945) and ingrained habit patterns of the personality disorder … "

"Ecological Imbalances."

"We humans are chained to our biology, but the links are flexible … "

Implications for mental health:

" … two perspectives may be deduced: (a) one for the natural organism-environment relations that characterized pre-cultural and pre-technological societies, and (b) one for the unnatural conditions of domestication in modern man."

" … as evolution progressed and the human brain enlarged, increasingly complex social and cultural environments were imposed that taxed the adaptive capabilities of cultural man, forcing him to perform at near capacity in many areas."

"If primitive man was fortunate enough to be physically healthy, he had a very good chance of being mentally and emotionally healthy as well."

"Unfortunately, because of pressures to adapt to culture as well as the natural environment, good physical health does not guarantee good psychological health in the modern human."

[Characteristics of optimal health] " … the individual must reconcile his or her biological heritage with the explicit and implicit demands of our technological culture."

" … access to the lower sexuality, aggression, love, play, and fear systems would be evident, but in culturally congruent and neocortically modulated ways."

"The optimally healthy person has access to the higher centers as well as the lower ones . . . "

" … paraphilias … unusual or bizarre imagery of acts are necessary for sexual excitement."

"The neurosis is, so to say, the negative of the perversion" (Freud, 1905/1953c, p. 165). In the Freudian model, the normal person strikes a proper balance between sexual desire and repressive social forces and, therefore, enjoys partial access to infantile sexuality; by contrast, the neurotic gives in to social repression and denies himself sexual expression, whereas the pervert does not, or cannot, yield to social restriction and expresses infantile needs more or less directly."

"We must ask, 'Where do the original infantile patterns come from?'. The most reasonable answer would be, 'From the basic mammalian and primate hardware and software programming built into the brain' … "

"As Hughlings Jackson … .argued, … there are few truly 'abnormal' conditions; rather, psychopathology is more often natural or essentially normal action tendencies abnormally expressed."

" … few, if any, of the paraphilias are distinctly human, and their roots descend deep into the animal world."

"With sexual 'liberation,' we do not progress to higher levels of Platonian romance, but instead regress to promiscuity, pleasure-in-sex, group sex, temporary liaisons, and obsessions with genitalia and orgasm."

" … the paraphilias, at the moment they are performed, represent one of the least free modes of human expression … " [locked in by genetics]

" … David Barash (1979) says that rape is common among many animals, and it may be an especially effective adaptive strategy for bachelors who have been excluded from normal reproduction."

"It appears that human males, as the sexual seekers, are designed for both stronger sexual (Eysenck, 1982) and aggressive responsivity (Holliday, 1978) than human females, and a specific male predisposition to employ aggression for sexual access may be inbuilt as well."

"Rape reflects a breakdown of inhibitions over sexual and aggressive impulses in the human male … "

"What seems to be phylogenetically continuous from chimpanzee male to human male is not rape per se, but the readiness to use any available method, including force, to copulate with desired females."

"In regression, motive systems such as sex and aggression, which normally operate fairly independently in socialized humans, may temporarily regain their phylogenetic integrity in once-adaptive form."

" … the PRP model assumes that lower, once-adaptive or presently adaptive aspects of phylogenetic maleness are always a part of the picture, and often are the overriding consideration."

" … rapists have mixed motives, and part of that mixture is sex."

" … each male wants to "possess" the female both sexually and as a subject in his fantasied "kingdom." Each male wants to be an alpha male … "

" … many rapists reflect a falsely self-attributed alpha stratus that is enforced or 'proven' at any cost."

" … violent rapes are primarily anomalies of modern man."

"What inevitably remains unexplained, however, is why one male in sordid circumstances rapes whereas another in worst circumstances does not."

" … most men 'rape' at the fantasy level, a small proportion of men actually rape, and an even smaller proportion are likely to use pathological violence in commission of the rape."

.

.