"Respect for the Rights of Others Is Peace": Learning Aggression versus Nonaggression among the Zapotec

This article examines differences in aggression between two Zapotec communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. An ethological study of three- to eight-year-old children (N = 48) reveals statistically significant intercommunity differences in children's serious and play aggression, corresponding to ethnographically observed intercommunity differences in adult behavior. The parallels between adult and children's conduct within the communities support the conclusion that different social learning environments contribute to the maintenance across generations of divergent ideologies, values, and patterns of social interaction related to violence or peacefulness. Social learning and socialization processes also can be viewed as interacting with economic, historical, and ideological influences. The findings suggest that studies of violence that neglect social learning influences may be providing only partial explanations.