Is it time to pull the plug on hostile versus instrumental aggression dichotomy?

Abstract

Psychologists have often categorized human aggression as hostile or instrumental. Hostile aggression is "hot," impulsive behavior that is motivated by a desire to hurt someone; instrumental aggression is "cold," premeditated behavior used as a means to some other end. This dichotomy was useful to the early development of aggression theories and continues to capture important features of nonhuman aggression, but it has outlived its usefulness as a descriptor of fundamentally different kinds of human aggression. It is confounded with the automatic-controlled information-processing dichotomy, and it fails to consider aggressive acts with multiple motives. Knowledge structure models of aggression easily handle these problems. Taking extreme measures to preserve the hostile-instrumental dichotomy will delay further advances in understanding and controlling human aggression. Therefore, this seems a proper time to "pull the plug" and allow the hostile-instrumental aggression dichotomy a dignified death.

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