12 - Aggression Flashcards
Various lenses used to define aggression?
- behaviour causing personal injury or destruction of property
- behaviour intended to harm another of the same species
- behaviour directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being
- intentional infliction of some form of harm on others
- behaviour directed towards another individual carried out with the proximate intent to cause harm
Aggression’s key components?
Harm, intention to harm and deviation from the norm
Values?
A higher order concept though to provide a structure for organising attitudes
Aggression’s operationalisations?
- Analogues of behaviour
- Signal of intention
- Ratings by self or others
- Indirect aggression
Analogue?
Device or measure intended to faithfully mimic ‘the real thing’
What characterises an instinct?
- goal directed
- beneficial
- adapted
- shared
- developed
- unlearned on the basis of individual experience
Instinct?
Innate drive or impulse, genetically transmitted
What are the three approaches to aggression?
Psychodynamic theory, Ethology and Evolutionary social psychology
Psychodynamic theory?
Human aggression arises from an inherent death instinct, Thanatos, in opposition to life instinct, Eros
Neo-Freudians?
Psychoanalytic theorists who modified the original theories of Freud
Ethological point of view?
Human aggression’s instinctual basis is compared to animal behaviour
Ethology?
Approach that argues that animal behaviour should be studied in the species’ natural physical and social environment. Behaviour is genetically determined and is controlled by natural selection
Releasers?
Specific stimuli in the environment thought by ethologists to trigger aggressive responses
Fighting instinct?
Innate impulse to aggress, which ethologists claim is shared by humans with other animals
Evolutionary social psychology perspective?
- complex social behaviours as adaptive for the individual, kin and species survival
- limited utility in aggression prevention and control
Biosocial theories?
In the context of aggression, theories that emphasise an innate component, though not the existence of a full-blown instinct
Frustration-aggression hypothesis?
Theory that all frustration leads to aggression, and all aggression comes from frustration. Used to explain prejudice in intergroup aggression
Excitation-transfer model?
The expression of aggression is a function of learned behaviour, some excitation from another source, and the person’s interpretation of the arousal state
Hate crimes?
A class of violence against members of a stereotyped minority group
Social learning theory?
The view championed by Bandura that human social behaviour is not innate but learned from appropriate models
Learning by direct experience?
Acquiring a behaviour because we were previously rewarded for it
Learning by vicarious experience?
Acquiring behaviour after observing that another person was rewarded for it
Factors influencing aggression according to Bandura?
- previous experience of other’s aggressive behaviour
- how successful this behaviour has been in the past
- the current likelihood that an aggressive person will be either rewarded or punished
- the complex array of cognitive, social and environmental factors in the situation
Modelling?
Tendency for a person to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real-life or symbolic model. Also called observational learning
Script?
A schema about an event
Catharsis?
A dramatic release of pent-up feelings; the idea that aggressive motivation is drained by acting against a frustrating object (or substitute), or by a vicarious experience
Cathartic hypothesis?
The notion that acting aggressively, or even just viewing aggressive material, reduces feelings of anger and aggression
General aggression model?
Considers personal and situational factors, as well as cognitive and affective processes in explaining aggression
Desentitisation?
A serious reduction in a person’s responsiveness to material that usually evokes a strong emotional reaction, such as violence or sexuality
Neo-associationist analysis?
A view of aggression according to which mass media may provide images of violence to an audience that later translate into antisocial acts
Priming?
Activation of accessible categories or schemas in memory that influence how we process new information
Weapons effect?
The mere presence of a weapon increases the probability that it will be used aggressively
