aggression Flashcards
what is aggression?
Baron and Richardson, 1994 ‘aggression is any form of behaviour intended to harm or injure someone’
what is hostile aggression?
Hostile aggression = aggressive behaviour is motivated by the desire to express anger or hostility with the aim to harm the target
what is instrumental aggression?
Instrumental aggression = aggressive behaviour performed to reach a goal, but harm comes as a necessary side effect e.g hitting a child for bad behaviour
what are the two main methods used to measure aggression?
trivial measures
archival data
biological approach to aggression: main features (2)
- behavioural genetics (twin studies, adoption studies)
- hormonal explanations (testosterone)
psychological explanations to aggression: what are the two main psychological explanations for aggression?
- Frustration-aggression hypothesis
- Excitation model
biological approach to aggression: how do adoption studies explore genetic influences on aggression?
Compare how aggressive a person who has ben adopted is with the aggression levels of their adopted parents (environmental influence) and their biological parents (genetics)
biological approach to aggression: Rhee and Waldman twin studies research
Rhee and Waldman (2002) completed a meta-analysis of both twin and adoption studies – genes explain for 41% of variance, environment 59%
biological approach to aggression: research into the correlation between high testosterone levels and aggression (2)
Archer, Buring and Wu (1998) – highly aggressive men have higher levels of testosterone than non-aggressive men
Testosterone levels tend to be higher for convicts who have committed aggressive/violent crimes than prisoners who have not been convicted for such crimes (Dabbs et al., 2001)
biological approach to aggression: weapons’ effect on testosterone research
- Measured male testosterone levels
- C1: ppt asked to handle a gun for 15 mins
- C2: ppt asked to handle a child’s toy for 15 mins
- Men told to make a drink for another ppt and add as much hot sauce as they wanted (measure of aggression)
- Men who handled the gun added significantly more hot sauce to the water
- Men who handled gun has significantly higher levels of testosterone than they had at the beginning of the game
- Conclusion: just being exposed to an aggressive cue can increase testosterone levels and make people more aggressive – this is called the weapon effect
psychological approach to aggression: what is the frustration-aggression hypothesis? (3)
- All frustration leads to aggression and all aggression comes from some sort of frustration
- Frustration is caused by a blockage of achieving a goal
- Aggression is driven by a goal to neutralise feeling of frustration (‘catharsis’)
psychological approach to aggression: opposing research to the claims of frustration-aggression hypothesis
Does aggression lead to catharsis? Bushman research 2002:
- Ppt who were told to cathart anger actually became more angry and more aggressive than participants that were told to sit quietly and ‘let go’ of anger
psychological approach to aggression: what is the excitation-transfer theory? (2)
- builds on the factor theory of emotion - emotion is based off (1) physiological arousal and (2) a cognitive label (that we give that sensation)
- leads to aggression as when physiological arousal is present from a neutral activity, when a person encounters an anger-eliciting situation, the earlier arousal is transferred onto anger-related arousal and is falsely attributed as anger inc the likelihood that the person will behave aggressively
psychological approach to aggression: research into the excitation-transfer theory
Zilman and Byrant 1974 Research:
- Ppt had a perform either a physically non-arousing task and an arousing task
- 2 mins later: provocation in the form of an aversive noise
- 6 mins later: opportunity to administer blasts back to the person who had provoked them found those in higher arousal condition administered much louder noise blasts
state 3 situational variables that lead to aggression?
alcohol, heat, music lyrics
alcohol: how do individual differences impact how alcohol influences aggressive behaviour?
- alcohol-aggression link is the strongest for people that show higher levels of dispositional aggressivity (irritability, hostile behaviour etc) or lower levels of anger control, empathy and executive cognitive functioning (Krahe, 2003)
alcohol: how does ethanol lead to aggression? (2)
- influences certain cog functions - lead to higher levels of anxiety and brooding on negative thoughts
- alcohol myopia state - leads to aggressive behaviour
alcohol: what is ‘alcohol myopia’ and what are the 4 things it can lead to?
- alcohol myopia is a a narrowing of cognitive focus, making us short-sighted and not think of the LT consequences of our decisions
- also leads to: decreased self-regulation, reduction of anticipatory regret, increased reactivity, increased sensitivity to environmental cues
heat: what is the heat hypothesis?
Heat hypothesis = positive correlations between heat and aggression (Anderson, 2001)
heat: what are the 2 methods used to test the impacts of heat on aggression?
both naturalistic methods - geographic regions approach, time periods approach
heat: what is the geographic regions approach to measuring aggression? any limitations?
- Compares violent crime rates in hotter vs cooler regions
- Research is found to support the hypothesis Anderson et al found a link between hotter countries and violence rates
LIMITATIONS - There may be other variables which may influence – e.g north vs south US divide in terms of the ‘culture of honour’, cultural expectations of aggression, SES etc
heat: what is the time periods approach to measuring aggression? any limitations?
- Compares violence rates in the same region during cooler and hotter periods (addresses the cultural limitations which are involved with geographic regions approach)
- Supports heat hypothesis:
- Violent crime rates were higher in the summer period than during the winter period (Anderson, 2001)
- About 2.6% more murders in the summer than in the winter
- Violent crime rates were higher in hotter compared to cooler summers
LIMITATIONS - Other variables – because of summer weather is better there’s more opportunity for aggression/violence as we socialise more, go outside more etc
- Not the ‘heat’ itself is influencing behaviour
music lyrics: research into how lyrics influence aggression - any limitations?
Fischer & Greitemeyer
- Men more likely to act aggressively IF (1) the confederate was female and (2) they were exposed to misogynistic song.
- tells us nothing about LT influences on aggressive behaviour, might not have been the lyrics inducing change - might be beat, or singer etc
