Why do people engage in intense acts of interpersonal aggression, such as hitting a flight attendant on an airplane, assaulting baseball player who just hit a home run, murdering their spouse, or engaging in mass shootings? There is a lot of research from multiple fields which provides considerable insight into this question. This article looks at affective spikes leading to violent acts, and some specific examples, from the perspective of social science research on rejection, a psychological perspective on a pathway to violence, and with attachment theory from the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM). All three perspectives dovetail nicely to provide a useful framework.
Executive Summary
Intense use of violence is often associated with an affectively-oriented and intense pattern of information processing. Social and psychological science identify relational rejection and loss as potential triggers to violence. Attachment theory identifies adult patterns of information processing, which involves the defensive exclusion or over-reliance of certain types of facts. One information processing pattern is affectively-oriented such that intensely affective experiences, or spikes of emotion, are common and may not be well controlled. In these patterns, a spike of emotion and the emerging affect can provide the dominant facts and information to guide behavior while excluding logical and sequential information such as “I would be arrested when the plane lands.” Attachment science highlights that danger drives self-protective strategies, and that what constitutes relational danger depends on the information processing pattern a person primarily utilizes.
To clarify terminology, using Jaak Panksepp’s Affective Neuroscience model, primary process emotions are the most basic instinctive emotions emanating from the brain stem. As the energy from the primary emotion expands throughout the neural system, emotions become more nuanced and complex. They become feelings, a broader emotional experience. The actual expression of the emotions and feelings, what people do, is the affect.
Intensity and frequent expression of negative emotions are associated with self-protective C-strategies in DMM attachment theory. Dangerous affect spikes, sudden bursts of strong emotion, are often associated with higher strategies in DMM attachment theory, in both A and C strategies. Research from many disciplines show that intense affect spikes can lead to aggression and violence, and very intense spikes can lead to extreme outcomes such as assault and murder. Long term aggression, such as life-long grudges and parental alienation, may be examples of long term affect spikes in response to ever-present danger.
Does the DMM help us identify triggers, mechanisms, or patterns which may help us better understand the source of danger leading to intense affect spikes and thus help us predict the potential for aggression and ways to intervene? What is the nature of the ending to an affective spike with an extreme act of aggression?
Yes, DMM attachment theory does give professionals insight into these issues, sometimes very clear insight. For example, it helps us understand subjectively perceived rejection in terms of subjectively experienced danger. For people using primarily C-strategies, peace and compromise are relational dangers, and ongoing struggle is comfortable and safe. Asking them “Can’t you just get along and compromise?” can be a triggering question. This finding of DMM attachment research is remarkable, and powerful. Can we take it further?
What about the shooters? Reid Maloy’s pathway to violence theory
Forensic psychologist and researcher Reid Meloy (not specifically an attachment theorist) describes a pathway to violence often seen in shooter cases.
The pathway to violence starts with a personal grievance, which is often a major loss, which heavily impacts the shooter’s day to day life. The grievance phase, he says, involves loss followed by “humiliation, anger and blame, and then what follows is the person deciding that there is only one solution to this grievance, and that is to carry out a violent act.”
Attachment theory adds an extra layer of understanding to Meloy’s ideas.
Loss is a key issue in attachment theory. Loss of a person’s primary attachment figure is the classic example (which kick started attachment theory in the 1940’s). That loss could be death of a loved one, separation at the border, or an intense rejection by someone important in the person’s life. Loss is more broadly the loss of an important relationship status.
A relational trigger to aggression
Is it possible to combine Meloy’s work, attachment theory, and rejection research into a helpful definition?
Aggression can be motivated by a dramatic and sudden devaluation of status in an important relationship. Interpersonal rejection as a determinant of anger and aggression. Personality and social psychology review, 10(2), 111-132 (2006). This is especially true for people with an affectively oriented attachment pattern, and where the actual or potential for loss heavily threatens the person’s source of relational comfort.
The DMM’s finer contributions
At a finer level, humiliation is an emotional experience the DMM suggests is strongly triggering for people using (higher?) C-strategies. (Shame is the opposite to humiliation and is strongly triggering for people using (higher?) A strategies.)
One of the hallmark indicators of affect-based attachment patterns (C strategies) is an unresolvable struggle. Conflict and struggle go on and on, in part because conflict is comfortable and peace is dangerous for people primarily using C-strategies as a defense mechanism. This dynamic is often seen in interpersonal relationships where one person never seems to let go of some slight from years ago. However, that does not mean struggle over a specific issue is never resolved. Often, when the issue over which struggle loses value, or others have opted out of the struggle, or the issue has been clearly resolved, the struggle switches to another issue.
Meloy’s description nicely describes what some often see in divorce, parental alienation, at least some domestic violence allegations, and even some interpersonal relationship situations. It involves an intense affect spike which leads to an unassuageable anger and a campaign of violence which may abate upon the infliction of serious harm, all based on highly transformed (if not delusional) information. (Does Johnny Depp offer an example in his relationship with Amber Heard?) Do you see such patterns and if so, in what contexts? Is this dynamic related primarily to C-strategies? If so, how does it differ in A and AC strategies?
Is the grievance unassuageable, or are there points at which it could be toned down? When it seems impossible to help the aggressor tone down, what are victims, the people experiencing the wrath, to do? How often are aggressive counterattacks helpful, and what about the timing? What insights does the DMM teach us which might be helpful to prevent or reduce an intense-and-stuck-affect-spike (ISAS)?
I don’t know if this is helpful to our questions about non-shooters, but Meloy details the pathway to mass shooting and terror attacks. The personal grievance is followed by a violent ideation where they make a decision to intend to be violent. That is followed with research on how to make the attack. The fourth element is preparation and a fifth is typically probing for weaknesses. The last stage is carrying out the attack. Over the course of the pathway there is commonly “leakage,” the disclosing of intent to act to someone or on social media.
Baseball pitcher tackles runner. The very short video in the following link seems like a nice example of a quick affect spike, that ramped up in perhaps three quick but discernable phases. It involves a baseball pitcher who assaults base runner who hit homerun and then taunted the pitcher as the runner rounded 2nd base. Is this video useful to show clients to help them get a sense of how quick an intense spike of affect ([isa], as opposed to [ina]?) can happen, as seen from someone else’s perspective.
Video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5i7DWj7yebM
Story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/04/21/pitcher-tackles-batter/
Gabby Petito and Brain Laundrie update. This link is to an article about Brian Laundries thoughts expressed in his notebook about why he killed Gabby Petito. Are his reasons a delusional justification?
DMM Coffee House #111: Examining spikes of intense emotion and affect
We will discuss all this in the DMM Coffee House. Please join us to share your experiences, questions, thoughts, challenges.
Session details
Date: Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Length: 2 hours
Price: Free
Session information: Host Mark Baumann, open discussion, not recorded
Session for: Any professional and DV advocate interested in DMM attachment theory and science.
Platform: Zoom meeting
Sponsor: Conflict Science Institute
Session times: (US/EU/Africa/India): Tuesday, 9:00 a.m. Seattle (UTC -7) (11:00 a.m. in Dallas; noon in Miami; 5:00 p.m. in London; 7:00 p.m. in Cape Town; 9:00 p.m. in New Delhi; midnight in Bangkok. For Sydney Australia, the session is at 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday.)