We have suggested that aggression can be defined as the motivational aspect of behavior directed or intended to distance or destroy by modes of flight, fight, or reasoned repudiation. We assume that these modes all derive from a primitive "automatic" flight mechanism which is a part of the primary mental endowment.

Primitive flight responses as attention directed away from a primary region of imbalance are recurrently met, in the average expectable environment, by an object of satisfaction. The memory of this experience (however represented) and the anticipation of its recurrence establish the possibility of approach responses. The interaction, that is, allows the primitive flight response to find a goal and subsequently to become an approach aiming to resolve tension by dependent interaction with an object of satisfaction; the possibility of motivation we conceptualize as libidinal is thus founded.