Is male more aggressive than female? Essay

It is generally thought that human males tend to behave more violently and aggressively than human females – and it seems true. In United States, most of the homicides during 1980 to 2008 are males, representing 90% of the total number (United States Department of Justice, 2010), and it is also the trend in the whole world. The reason of the difference between man and female in violence is always explained biologically – the testosterone level of adult males is 20 times to females, as testosterone would make people more aggressive (Terburg & Aarts & Honk, 2011). However, it is not a suitable explanation to the question as the testosterone level of boys and girl are same until they are about eight years old and boys actually acting more violently and aggressively since four-year-old. A more reliable explanation would be the different of size of corpus callosum, which is the part that connects the right and the left hemisphere in the brain. As boys are having a smaller co rpus callosum than girls, they are more difficult to work under trauma and neglect comparing to girls. Therefore, boys needs to receive more love and caretaking than girls in order to keep their corpus callosum. If their caretaker could not give them enough attention, their prefrontal cortices, which are the part of brain related to self control and empathy would be damaged. The amygdala, which is the part of brain forming the feeling of fear, would also be excited, and fears would be formed. As a result, their serotonin levels would be decreased and product more corticosterone, and these would led to the decrease of calming ability and the increase of stress hormone. Therefore, boys are more easily to have weaker selves, lower empathy, lower control on avoid to behave violently and more fears. However, the society is most likely to give less care and love to males as the society requests males to be brave, strong and independent. Males are hard to gain love and caring as they need to fit in a image of male in the society. The situation increase the aggressive of male further. These factors led to the difference of violent behavior and aggressive level between boys and girls (Demause, 2010). In other species, mainly mammals such as rat, would have a similar gender difference which male is more violently and aggressively than females. According to a study (Adams, 1991), males are much more easily to fright with another male than female when during the breeding season while in the  presence of females. However, the gender different of violent would only occur in this moment. Male and female are having no difference on aggressive level and behaving violent in other situation such as defending and offending according to the study. The reason of this difference is that males need to defeat other males to mate with female during the breeding season in order to reproduce the next generation. The violent of male during this period is base on the genetic setting, which creature needs to reproduce continuously. Although there are similar gender differences of violent behavior between animal and human, they obviously do not having similar theories. The gender difference of violent of human is because of the difference of brain structure and the pressure needed to bear. The difference is not just occurred because of biosocial reason, but also artificial reason. Although the brain structure could not be changed, the most importance reason to increase the violent behavior and aggressive level of male is still base on how the family and society treat them. Generally, people will not blame and punish non-human animals for their bad behavior including killing people because people consider that the behavior of animals are genetic and could not be controlled by themselves. Although some of these animals may be killed as they are considered to be dangerous to human, most of them would not be seen as guilty. Some may think that part of human personality had been also designed in the DNA before birthing, so it is not fair to blame human who had done something wrong as the personality had soon designed how he or she would behave and he or she is forced to do the bad behavior by the DNA. However, human is differing from other non-human species because human have the ability to control their behavior. Human have the ability to learn to behave good by considering the others and do something that would not harming and annoying others. Actually, genetic is not very importance for affecting human’s personality. For example, although the diff erence of violent behavior and aggressive level between male and female is partly related to the genetic different as mentioned, it could be changed by suitable nurturance. Male could build up a static and calm personality if they had received enough love and care from the society and family. The later and earlier generation of criminal are not inheriting the personality the genetic of behaving badly. It is obvious that  nurture plays a more importance role of shaping one’s personality than genetic factor. Therefore, human can and should avoid behaving badly. Human have developed a lot of way and system in order to teach human avoid doing something which would harm others and doing something that would benefit others and the society. Civilization and education are common way to teach people how to control their behavior and doing something that would be good for the society. Human build up moralities in order to set rules of how human act and behave. Human could learn how to behave good through moral education and taking the behavior of their family members, friends and society as example to learn how to behave good. It is also a big different to animals as animals would only living following their instinctive reaction. They do not have the ability to recognize what is right and what is wrong. They also do not have the ability to learn how to behave good and consider the situation of other.