8+9 Aggression Flashcards
Agg def
Any form of behaviour directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such teartment.
Must have intention, harm, and motivation to avoid
Methods of study agg
- observation = done with kids, ecologically valid, time consuming, ethics?-observe and not intervene?
- labs= electric shock or negative ratings, point subtraction paradigm, does it really represent real life violence?
- self report quetsionnaire= most common form, relies on honesty, large samples, valid?
Buss and perrys study
Asked ppnts to fill out questionnaire on ‘trait’ aggression, eg ‘ given enough probation, i may hit someone’ and another form on ‘actual’ agg, eg reports of hitting.
(However, nether include sexual violence)
Scales to classify agg
- verbal vs physical
- direct ( aggressor is identifiable, cam be counterattacked) vs indirect (aggressor remains hidden)
- instrumental (used to achieve a goal) vs expressive
Theories for expressive agg
- psychoanalytic ( weak ego, cant control id, so act out. Thanatos- death drive, drive towards destruction, needs to let out for catharsis).
- frustration agg
-enviro factors
Study for catharsis
It doesnt work.
Berkowitz found that shock giving after an ‘attack’ lead to increases in subsequent punitivemess, not decreases.
Spectator hostility increases during a match, not decreases (Russel)
Frustration agg theory
Dollard et al.
Agg is the outcome of being prevented from achieving a goal. (Reward). Agg always reults from frustration.
The level of agg depends on whether the agg will end the frustration ( ie is instrumental)-Buss.
‘Common sense argument’ states that frustrations produce agg because they are unpleasant. (Berkowitz). Eg if hot, angry. This is shown in studies, eg Anderson showed that violence peaks when temp is highest. -Misattribution of arousal?
Cognitive neo-associationist theory
By Berkowitz. Says an unpleasant event has 2 possible behavioural consequences; fight or flight.
It can activate the agg network, and cause rudimentary anger, or activate the fear network and cause rudimentary fear.
Cognitive neo-associationist theory
By Berkowitz. Says an unpleasant event has 2 possible behavioural consequences; fight or flight.
It can activate the agg network, and cause rudimentary anger, or activate the fear network and cause rudimentary fear.
Theories of instrumental agg
- social learning and media
- cultural factors
Social learning theory
By Pattersn. Eg mum nags boy to go to bed. He turns on her aggressively, so she stops nagging, so agg is negatively reinforced.
Bandura and MacDonald found that modelling is stronger than reinforcement, when kids copied moral judgements.
Bandura Bobo doll study.
Media= Johnstone et al, longitudinal study, found correlation of tv watching and agg, from ages 14-22.
Computer games- Anderson and Bushman- games decreased pro social behaviour and increased arousal and agg. ( but, agg ppl could be drawn to violent games)
Bushman and Gibson studied 126 students, they found that ppl who played violent game, then ruminated were the most violent. Rumination is key.
Cultural effects on agg
Nisbett’s Culture of Honour; settler mentality was culturally transmitted through generations. Homicides were 6x higher in southern states in US, because they endorse violence as a legitimate response to insult, and for protection.
Found that white males ‘accidentally’ bumped into and insulted by a confed, their cortisol rose, T rose, felt their masculine rep was threatened, engaged in dominating behaviour. -Cohen et al.
Felson introduced the Symbolic Interactionist Framework. ‘Face’ is a critical social currency, and convo requires cooperation and ‘mutual facework’. If this breaks down, conflict arises. Eg a slight can be seen as intentional attack, which will affect social identity, so requires retaliation, conflict. Used for individuals and groups.
Evolutionary approaches for men agg
Focus on agg as an outcome of a cost-benefit balance.
If the cost of injury is smaller than benefit of success, they will aggress. Focus on benefits to men and costs to women.
Archer found that most lethal violence is male-male. Sex differences are seen before 2 years old (before kids apply gender labels)
Daly and Wilson stated that mate competition causes agg. If you are high rank, = more access to mates. So physical agg has high risk, and high gain. Men have high willingness to be agg. It’s called Adaptive aggression- males are agg to secure resources and have high RS. Eg men with highest RHP, eg Monet, have higher status and mate choice.
This is shown when agg is highest in late teens, and single childless, unemployed men.
Agg cou;d be response to inequality too. Eg Schacter et al found that, although gun ownership rules are similar, more crime in US than Canada, because more inequality, so crime used to make up for inequality.
Evolutionary theories for women agg
Campbell. SHe focused on costs to women. Infant survival is most dependant on mothers, ie losing mother to child under 2 is catastrophic, but fine if dad dies -Hill. (Obligate caring)
Thus, physical agg is very high risk and low gain, because would be bad for kids. So women have aversion to agg.
Women have more blood and animal phobias, because of fear of injury (Marks), have more fear of attack.
So female agg is non-violent and indirect, and only used if anger spoils over fear threshold. It’s expressive, means is instrumental.
Heritability
Agg is v heritable. 40-50% of variance is explained by genes.
It’s very stable over time. Suggests genetic component.
Male T is highest when young, single and childless. Also, T levels are inversely relayed to fear. Van Honk found that you get more scared if you have less testosterone.
Van Goozen found that trans women who went anti-androgen treatment reduced agg and anger. Vice versa for trans men.
T rises in anticipation of male-male competition eg tennis matches- Both. It could be adaptive feedback loop too- T reinforced the behaviour that makes u successful (agg).
