ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Fish and Family: Struggles with Congested Aggression In and Beyond the Laboratory

• In Event: Behavioral Science Beyond the Laboratory: Social Environments, Animal Models, and the Politics of Experimentation

English Abstract

In the 1960s the world at large was presented with the “aggressive instinct”, a concept popularized by Konrad Lorenz and discussed by media far and wide. However, crucial aspects of this model had never been experimentally verified, one of them the idea that “aggressive energy” could accumulate if no appropriate outlet was present. It was only by chance that Anne Rasa, a pregnant PhD student at the University of Hawaii, came upon an experimental setup that promised verification of “aggression congestion” – in fish. Her findings gained weightiness in leaving the laboratory: from serendipity they transformed into both a token in academic power play and a case example for the instable boundary between laboratory and wider world. For in the politically loaded discussion surrounding “aggression”, Rasa’s data catapulted her into Germany and forced her to pick sides in an academic turf war. Her incidental findings continued to shape Rasa’s professional and personal life for thirty years to come.
Therewhile, not only the data but also the fish disproved the laboratory-world boundary: in follow-up experiments the aquarium’s outer environment gained a new role in bridging behavior and theory and added a new twist to the German aggression debate.
Rasa’s findings were crucial for the credibility of Lorenz’s theory on aggression and much referred to. Uncovering their history thus represents an important step on the way to understanding the dynamics of the aggression debate both in Germany and abroad.

Author

• Cécile Hauser, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich