Book Review: Passing Pains: Revenge, Retaliation, and Redirected Aggression in a New Light

Abstract

Reviews the book, Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression, and Take Revenge by David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton (see record 2011-10160-000). This book assertively reiterates the importance of the issue in the study of evolutionary psychology and behavioral biology. The book unfurls a kaleidoscopic diversity of instances of revenge, retaliation, and redirected aggression—the so-called Three Rs—in both animals and humans under a vast array of circumstances. Far more than reviving a topic in traditional ethology. This book is both enlightening and enriching to read for a wide range of scholars interested in animal and human behavior. Although concise and cohesive with many insights into major social issues, the book appears to raise more questions than it answers. If this is something unsatisfying about the book, I think it is mainly because behavioral research on The Three Rs is lagging. In this sense, evolutionary psychologists and other scholars interested in aggressive behavior will find a wealth of new and provocative ideas in the book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)