Violent Behavior: Absence of Social Conditioning of Drives during Neurodevelopmental Stages

Violent behavior is initiated intentionally or impulsively.  Awareness of intention or need to act is different from awareness of action.  We consider that all actions and responses have origin in the brain without awareness.  The neural origin of the intended acts may take place seconds before the neural activity for the initiation of respective motor act starts in the motor cortex.  However, individual can become aware of a need state and even build the drive to act. The paper presents a review of the findings of processes related to the origin of actions within the brain, proposes a model explaining initiation of action, and discusses the need to have greater understanding of the drive to act, and most importantly the need to learn to control the drive, which initiates actions. The model proposes that actions are initiated when the drive reaches certain critical level of potentiating (CLP).  The only way to master control over initiation of actions is by learning to control the drive within.  Socialization is a process that trains one in learning either to take the drive to critical levels, so that the linked actions are initiated, or to inhibit the drive so that the action is not initiated. This conditioning process takes place during the neurodevelopmental stages of a child, if such control processes are present in the society, and the child is provided with opportunity to be trained.  Emotional arousal is the fuel within each person that provides the individual with the drive to live, by acting and responding. Drive control and associated ‘response inhibition’ ability are important outcome of socialization processes that take place during the neural development of the brain of a growing child.