Have you ever been attacked by a crow or similar large bird?
Fishes do it; reptiles do it; birds do it; mammals do it; monkeys do it; we do it. It is not about food or sex; it is about passing pains: A hurts B, B vents on C, and so on, until the last one in the chain, be it the omega individual in the hierarchy or an inanimate object, absorbs the entire grudge.
In contrast to sexual selection, research on redirected aggression, a major topic in classical ethology, has been a haphazard sidekick in recent decades, despite occasional bright spots.
David Barash and Judith Lipton’s recent book, Payback, assertively reiterates the importance of the issue in the study of evolutionary psychology and behavioral biology. (…) Payback 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.
