The Psycho Aggressive Stages of Psychological Development in an Authority-Based Socialization Process

In his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality , Freud presented hypotheses that formed the conceptual framework of the psychoanalytic description of what he called “psychosexual” development. He indicated a biological source for an instinctual sex drive. He later proposed that aggressive impulses come from a second instinctual drive, the death instinct, but there was no further theoretical elaboration on how this instinctual drive affects psychological development. The term “death instinct” seems an inapt choice of words for what may be better described as the “self-preservation instinct” or the “individual survival instinct.” Certainly both the instinctual sex drive and the instinctual aggressive drive have worked together to insure the survival and perpetuation of the species.

Although there is continuing debate among various investigators about whether or not mankind is innately aggressive, the world-renowned ethologist, Konrad Lorenz, has contended that aggression is an instinctual function of the human animal which has definite survival value and is not necessarily related to predatory behavior as seen in some animals (Lorenz, 1966).

In one of their books, The Story of Civilization, the American historians and philosophers, Will and Ariel Durant, assert: “What we are up against is the simple fact that man is still an animal. That is the deepest thing in his nature—the survival instinct and the hunting instinct. Those were necessary at one time, when self-preservation was the rule rather than the pressure of society. So morality was an uphill battle against these two inheritances. You have to recognize the enormous difficulty in making an animal and hunter into a citizen, a civilized man.” In another of their books, The Lessons of History, they proclaim: “Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew. If the transmission of civilization through education should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we