The Human Appetite for Aggression

One of the first research projects I worked on as a PhD student was about the allure of violence.

I had just been awarded a two-year grant to study how people make meaning out of witnessing violent interactions. As part of that project, I also organized a one-day conference that brought together scientists, philosophers, and artists who studied violence from very different angles.

That project ended up shaping much of what I’ve worked on since. It was also the intellectual seed for my research on morbid curiosity.

In working on this project, I stumbled upon a body of literature looking at the effects of exposure to extreme violence. Many of the studies involved field studies with members of violent militias that had been brought up as child soldiers; some of the harshest conditions one could imagine.