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{{Short description|Form of emotionally charged angry behavior}}{{Redirect|Hostile}}

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{{Emotions}}Hostility is seen as a form of emotionally charged aggressive behavior. In everyday speech, it is more commonly used as a synonym for anger and aggression.It appears in several psychological theories. For instance it is a facet of neuroticism in the NEO PI, and forms part of personal construct psychology, developed by George Kelly.

Hostility/hospitality

For hunter gatherers, every stranger from outside the small tribal group was a potential source of hostility.J Diamond, The World Until Yesterday (Penguin 2013) p. 50 and p. 290 Similarly, in archaic Greece, every community was in a state of hostility, latent or overt, with every other community - something only gradually tempered by the rights and duties of hospitality.M I Finley, The World of Odysseus (Pelican 1967) p. 113-4 and p. 116-7Tensions between the two poles of hostility and hospitality remain a potent force in the 21st century world.K Thorpe ed., Hospitality and Hostility in the Multilingual Global Village (2014) p. 2-7

Us/them

Robert Sapolsky argues that the tendency to form in-groups and out-groups of Us and Them, and to direct hostility at the latter, is inherent in humans.R Sapolsky, Behave (London 2018) Ch 11 384-424 He also explores the possibility raised by Samuel Bowles that intra-group hostility is reduced when greater hostility is directed at Thems,R Sapolsky, Behave (London 2018) p. 45 something exploited by insecure leaders when they mobilise external conflicts so as to reduce in-group hostility towards themselves.E Smith, Social Psychology (Hove 2007) p. 493

Non-verbal indicators

Automatic mental functioning suggests that among universal human indicators of hostility are the grinding or gnashing of teeth, the clenching and shaking of fists, and grimacing.D Maclean, The Triune Brain in Evolution (London 1990) p. 460 Desmond Morris would add stamping and thumping.D Morris, The Naked Ape Trilogy (London 1988) p. 109The Haka represents a ritualised set of such non-verbal signs of hostility.R Sapolsky, Behave (London 2018) p. 17

Kelly's model

In psychological terms, George Kelly considered hostility as the attempt to extort validating evidence from the environment to confirm types of social prediction, constructs, that have failed.D Lester, Theories of Personality (1995) p. 52 Instead of reconstructing their constructs to meet disconfirmations with better predictions, the hostile person attempts to force or coerce the world to fit their view, even if this is a forlorn hope, and even if it entails emotional expenditure and/or harm to self or others.D Lester, Theories of Personality (1995) p. 52-4In this sense hostility is a form of psychological extortion - an attempt to force reality to produce the desired feedback,G Claxton, Live and Learn (Bristol 1984) p. 132 and p. 250 even by acting out in bullying by individuals and groups in various social contexts, in order that preconceptions become ever more widely validated. Kelly's theory of cognitive hostility thus forms a parallel to Leon Festinger's view that there is an inherent impulse to reduce cognitive dissonance.D Lester, Theories of Personality (1995) p. 76While challenging reality can be a useful part of life, and persistence in the face of failure can be a valuable trait (for instance in invention or discovery {{citation needed|date=October 2012}}), in the case of hostility it is argued that evidence is not being accurately assessed but rather forced into a Procrustean mould in order to maintain one's belief systems and avoid having one's identity challenged.D Lester, Theories of Personality (1995) p. 52-3 Instead it is claimed that hostility shows evidence of suppression or denial, and is "deleted" from awareness - unfavorable evidence which might suggest that a prior belief is flawed is to various degrees ignored and willfully avoided.G Claxton, Live and Learn (Bristol 1984) p. 14 and p. 19

See also

• Antisocial personality disorder
• Death drive
• Narcissism of small differences
• Righteous indignation
• Cook–Medley hostility scale

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

• {{Wiktionary-inline}}

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