「And how to realistically model such behavior in fiction . . .」
After losing an argument an individual follows you around and threatens to fight if you don't keep distance, saying you want to fight, but they are the ones following you around, while you try to keep away from them and have long ceased to speak.
I'm a writer and I think it best to write realistically and therefore convincingly. It's also good to know why this occurs when it occurs in reality. If you comprehend the psychological rules underlying your characters, you can write more gripping and tense and compelling situations in the fiction you write. The rules are like rules of chess. The game is more enjoyable if you follow the rules. Otherwise readers may feel something is off — not quite right.
The story may be fictional, but the drama must be compelling.
@Cheah suggests in a comment this occurs because people are not quite rational or these particular specimens of our species are not all there.
It's not that they aren't rational per se.
Rather all mammals have social dominance preprogrammed into them, and it results in odd behavior in this age.
Again, the individuals discussed above will, as you've noticed, loudly demand you to go away all while they approach you and then aggressively and closely follow you around. This as you try to keep away from them. Their behavior is actually worse if they are presently in a group. The behavior of whether they follow you or not and continue to attempt to threaten you or not depends on where they see you in their dominance hierarchy.
All this after they feel they lost an argument.
@Cheah suggests some persons cannot distinguish bruises to their ego from bruises to their body.
It's not so much that human brains cannot distinguish threats to body from threat to egos — which is somewhat true. The less intelligent they are they less their brain can tell the difference between an intellectual argument and a physical argument — and this in the context of position in a hierarchy of social dominance. Because when humans evolved there was no such distinction. (I refer you to this book: Satoshi KANAZAWA, The intelligence paradox, Hoboken: Wiley, 2011)
We live in an age where, despite everything, persons survive far more independently than ever before. In the past, when there was no significant production of anything — social group and therefore social dominance hierarchy — was survival — not distinguishable and therefore not selected to be always preconsciously distinguished.
You might be interested in these two classic papers on the subject:
The authors observed the behavior of a monkey group and then performed surgery on the cortex to inhibit learning social dominance hierarchy, memorizing social dominance hierarchy, and observed what changes in the group after that.
Understanding this work helped me significantly in writing gripping and realistic argument-leading-up-to-a-fight scenarios for my stories, on demand.
Understanding these resources is especially useful in preventing science fiction from becoming an information dump. Or from it becoming a didactic conversations with wooden character interaction which are, while interesting, entirely unconvincing.
The purpose of literature is, first of all, to entertain. After that it can provide information.
A paradox is that fiction — whose purpose is primarily to entertain — benefits from greater truth and realism. This can be considered especially a paradox for fantasy and science fiction. — It's both surprising and true that what aims neither at psychological truth nor psychological reality would significantly benefit from a broader and deeper knowledge and comprehension of psychological reality during its production.
The other major monograph is that by Konrad LORENZ (*Zur naturgeschichte der aggression, Wien: Borotha Schoeler, 1963). Lorenz was a friend of Pribram. He was also interest in this problem.
He argued, among other things, that species which evolved from species whose individuals are both more physically tough, less easily injured in the absolute sense, more robust, and also more dangerous when attacking, such as large predators, are far less aggressive. (Aggression is here famously defined as initiation of violence by members of the same species against each other, not mere predation.)
The fundamental issue of aggression, then, in his view, in species such as humans and monkeys, is that these mammals evolved from generally peaceful, weak, and harmless foraging ancestors. They can easily injure each other yet have little evolved psychology to limit aggression, and dominance hierarchy position.
Several other monographs and papers will be discussed. Possibly Today. Maybe Sunday.
I usually write stories which are 10,000–25,000 words . . . 40–100 pages.
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ABOUT ME
I'm a scientist who writes fantasy and science fiction under various names.
The magazines which I currently most recommend:
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Compelling Science Fiction
Writers of the Future
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FISHING — thinking about tools and technology
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License . . . . . . Text, illustrations, and images: @tibra. #thealliance symbol is by courtesy of @enginewitty.