agonism, survivalist animal behaviour that includes aggression, defense, and avoidance. The term is favoured by biologists who recognize that the behavioral bases and stimuli for approach and fleeing are often the same, the actual behaviour exhibited depending on other factors, especially the distance to the stimulus.
Ethologists believe that the most general and probably the primary function of agonistic behaviour is to allow members of a species to regulate the spatial distribution of that species. It also may regulate access to both food supplies and mates.
In human societies, where verbal explanation is possible, agonistic behaviour can serve as a tool to bring about constructive activity as well as distinct antisocial, destructive acts. Some ethologists have suggested that many seemingly irrational human behaviours, such as war and murder, reflect the same instinctual mechanisms (territorial defense, for example) that leads to aggressive acts in many non-humans.
The view of human motivation as having instinctual components serves as a cornerstone for the controversial science of sociobiology. Agonistic behaviour, according to the sociobiologist, tends to occur only in those contexts where it improves the chances of the survival of an individual’s genes, either through the individual’s own efforts or those of his or her relatives. Thus, human competition may lead to the acquisition of more material resources which, in turn, may make a person a more desirable mating partner.
Agonistic behaviour, in both humans and non-humans, is greatly influenced by learning according to the general principles of classical and operant conditioning; agonistic behaviours are commonly learned through social modelling. See also social learning.