Aggression

Question 1

Aggression

Answer 1

Physical or mental

Intention to harm

Question 2

Institutionalised aggression

Answer 2

aggression that is given formal or informal recognition and social legitimacy by being incorporated into rules and norms

Question 3

agentic state

Answer 3

a frame of mind thought by Milgram to characterise unquestioning obedience in which people as agents transfer personal responsibility to the person giving orders

Question 4

nature-nurture controversy

Answer 4

classic debate about whether genetic or environmental factors determine human behaviour.
Scientists generally accept that it is an interaction of both.

Question 5

psychodynamic theory:

Answer 5

aggression as a healthy release for primitive survival instincts

Question 6

biosocial: biological + social (learned)

Answer 6

frustration-aggression hypothesis

excitation transfer model

Question 7

hate crimes

Answer 7

A class of violence against members of a
stereotyped minority group

Question 8

Hostile aggression

Answer 8

behavior intended to harm another, either physically or psychologically, and motivated by feelings of anger and hostility

Question 9

Instrumental aggression

Answer 9

behavior intended to harm another in the service of motives other than pure hostility (for example, to attract attention, acquire wealth, and to advance political and ideological causes)

Question 10

Gender and aggression

Answer 10

men and women do not differ in aggressiveness; they differ in the form of expression
­Men express aggression through physical pain and injury
Women express aggression through exclusion, psychological and verbal abuse [relational aggression]

Question 11

media effects - film

Answer 11

Moderating Role

1. High trait aggressive individuals were more likely to choose a violent film
2. High trait aggressive individuals felt more angry after viewing the violent videotape
3. Videotape violence was more likely to increase aggression in high trait aggressive individuals

Question 12

Media effects (longitudinal) - TV

Answer 12

Children’s consumption of media violence early in the school year predicted higher verbally aggressive behavior, higher relationally aggressive behavior, higher physically aggressive behavior, and less prosocial behavior later in the school year.

Question 13

Measure of aggressive behaviour

Answer 13

1. Physical aggression subscale
2. Relational aggression subscale
3. Verbal aggression item
4. Prosocial behavior subscale

Question 14

Hostile attribution bias / social information processing

Answer 14

interpretation bias in which individuals are more likely to interpret ambiguous situations as hostile than benign

Question 15

media effects - songs

Answer 15

1. increased the proportion of word fragments that were filled in to make aggressive words
2. more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words
3. increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive vs. nonaggressive words
4. increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat
   * even for humorous violent songs

Question 16

media effects - video games

Answer 16

­1. Students who reported playing more violent video games in junior and high school engaged in more aggressive behavior

2. Amount of time spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower academic grades in college
   * even brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants

Question 17

A Moderator-Variable Time-Series Analysis

Answer 17

inverted u-shape

mildly high temperature - salient - misattribution (more likely to attribute heat-induced arousal to another person’s action (the insult).)

obvious high temperature - more likely to make a conscious effort to inhibit aggressive impulses if one knows that heat caused one’s discomfort.

Question 18

crowding

Answer 18

• a subjective state
• characterised by feeling that one’s personal space has been encroached
• urbanisation: elevated stress and potentially antisocial consequences
• more accurate measure: household density (persons per house) and neighbourhood density (detached housing vs high-rise housing)
  > positive correlation

Question 19

sports-related violence

Answer 19

“soccer hooliganism”: stereotyped images of football fans on the rampage
highly complex: ritualised aggression over time

Question 20

Belief in a just world

Answer 20

Belief that the world is a just and predictable place where good things happen to ‘good people’ and bad things happen to ‘bad people’
> victim blaming

Question 21

Gender and ethnic asymmetries

Answer 21

underlie partner abuse:

• men: sexual assaults
• women: self-defence
• diff ethnic groups: ‘do gender’ differently, inc. perceptions of when it is appropriate to use violence

Question 22

people hurt those closest to them:

Answer 22

1) abuse syndrome: factors of proximity, stress (source of arousal) and power (traditional nuclear families, favouring the men) that are
associated with the cycle of abuse in some families
2) learnt pattern of aggression
3) high alcoholic consumption

Question 23

General aggression model

Answer 23

Anderson’s model that includes both personal and situational factors, and cognitive and affective processes (+ arousal) in accounting for different kinds of aggression
(thoughtful / impulsive)

Question 24

Frustration-aggression theory

Answer 24

­Frustration leads to aggression
­Fear of retaliation can displace aggression
­Aggression reduces tension generated by frustration

Question 25

Frustration interference with goal-seeking at its proper time in a behavioral sequence, and is directly proportional to

Answer 25

1. Goal importance
   ­ Amount of satisfaction the person anticipates before a goal is blocked
   ­2. Severity of goal interference
   ­ The more completely the person is prevented from achieving the goal
   3.­ Frequency of goal interference
   ­ The more frequently the person is blocked from achieving the goal
   4.­ Goal proximity
   ­ The closer the individual is to achieving the goal

Question 26

Displacement

Answer 26

­ focusing aggression on something other than source of frustration
­
Unless frustration is intolerable, we delay aggression and direct that to some safe targets, which are similar to the source of frustration

Question 27

Cognitive neoassociationist view

Answer 27

Primary antecedents of aggression is aversive arousal or negative affect, e.g., anger, sadness
> ­ Frustration is only one source of aversive arousal
Can react to aversive arousal (negative affect) with either aggression or escape / withdrawal
­ > depending on cognitive appraisal (e.g., attribution) of the situation

Question 28

Excitation transfer theory

Answer 28

1. interpret ambiguous physiological arousal by searching for cues in the environmental cues to label the physiological state––to identify the particular emotion we are experiencing
2. Excitation (or arousal) that is evoked in one situation (from a given drug, action, or event) can transfer to later situations.
3. As a consequence, emotional reactions in a setting might be amplified because of leftover arousal from an earlier event.
4. Most likely to occur when we are not aware of our residual arousal and when we misattribute the source of the arousal.
5. The misidentification of arousal, or excitation transfer, causes a more intense response than would have occurred had you not been physiologically aroused in the first place.

Question 29

Social learning theory

Answer 29

Aggression does not necessarily stem from negative affect

All social behaviors are learned
­> Aggressive behaviors can be learned vicariously, without rehearsal or award
> learning by direct experience
Acquiring a behaviour because we were rewarded for it.
> learning by vicarious experience
Acquiring a behaviour after observing that another person was rewarded for it.

The Bobo doll experiment

Question 30

­ Weapon effect

Answer 30

Cues to aggression
­ Aggressive behaviors are learned in associations with specific cues

Because aggression is due to learning, aggressive behavior is susceptible to reinforcement or rewards
­> Children watching aggressive behavior being punished are less likely to imitate them

Question 31

culture of honour

Answer 31

a culture that is defined by strong concerns about one’s own and others’ reputations, leading to sensitivity to slights and insults and a willingness to use violence to avenge any perceived wrong or insult

Southern culture of honor

a violent response is “extremely justified”

Question 32

Evolutionary theory

Answer 32

Aggression helps reproduction
­ survival of the fittest favors aggressive men
­ More likely to get killed by non-blood related people (eg. spouse, step children, nonrelatives)
­ Step-parents are more likely than natural parents to kill their children

Aggressiveness can be transmitted genetically
­ e.g., can selectively breed highly aggressive mice
> aggression inhibition chemical

There are differences in rates of aggression among societies
­> if similar selection pressures exist across societies, should expect similar aggressiveness
Marked changes of rates of aggression within society over short periods of time
­> too short for genetic influence to take effect