The Anger-Aggression Bidirectional-Causation (AABC) Model s Relevance for Dyadic Violence, Revenge, and Catharsis

In a recent article on family violence, Finkenauer et al.  invoked a host of distal factors (societal, structural, personality), but failed to address a frequent and potentially crucial proximal cause – the dyadic aggression sequence – of which the main components are provocation, anger, and retaliation. A detailed analysis of the aggression sequence, including the behavioral and physiological consequences of revenge, was, for perhaps understandable reasons, also missing in the recentadaptationist discussion of the revenge and forgiveness systems by McCullough,et al. 

Yet the culmination of numerous aggressionrelated exchanges between members of a dyad (consisting of a couple, parent and offspring, and other relations), repeated over protracted time periods, may be the particularly deleterious anger-free preemptive strikes. The ingredients of an aggression series, its specific content and form, may be at the core of intrafamilial violence and offer insightsregarding the possibilities of treatment tailored for dyads. Read more..........