Aggression

Question 1

What’s physical aggression?

Answer 1

Behaviour intended to cause physical harm to another living being

Question 2

What’s social aggression?

Answer 2

Behaviour intended to cause harm to another person’s emotional or social wellbeing without inflicting physical harm

Question 3

What’s catharsis?

Answer 3

Harmlessly release pent up feelings of anger, less likely to take it out on someone

Question 4

How can the social learning theory explain aggression?

Answer 4

Vicarious reinforcement: learn by watching others being rewarded and punished
If an individual can escape a punishment, looks like they’re enjoying being aggressive or is rewarded for being aggressive, others watching may copy that behaviour

Question 5

What’s displaced aggression?

Answer 5

Aggression that is aroused at one source but directed at another

Question 6

What’s the mean world syndrome?

Answer 6

Normal citizens are paranoid about the risk of crime
After consuming violent media material
there may be exaggerated perceptions about the frequency of violent and antisocial behaviour

Question 7

What’s a culture of honour?

Answer 7

Particularly in men
Honour and reputation is important in that culture
Violence is seen as justified in defending one’s honour

Question 8

What’s the male war hypothesis?

Answer 8

Men who are effective warriors have had an advantage in accessing mates
Means they can pass on their genes
Men have a psychological makeup that predisposes them to warlike behaviour

Question 9

What’s the GAM (general aggression model)?

Answer 9

Describes situational and personality variables that combine to produce human aggression
Violent media changes personality over time
These situational and personality factors (e.g. drugs, pain, provocation) can affect the individual’s social experiences
They may seek more aggressive social encounters
They may respond to identical social encounters differently e.g. more aggressive thoughts, angry emotions
This affects their decision making e.g. engaging thoughtful or impulsively
People’s behaviour affects their personality and situations they find themselves in

Question 10

What’s the cognitive neo association model?

Answer 10

Aversive conditions will trigger aggression when people are angry
Anger (emotion) is associated with people’s minds with aggression
Makes aggressive responses more noticeable to them
More prone to act aggressively without thinking through the consequences

Question 11

What is aggression?

Answer 11

Physical or verbal behaviour intended to hurt someone
physical e.g. bruise
social e.g. damaged reputation
emotional e.g. hurt feelings
cultural e.g. defacing mosques/cemeteries

Question 12

What did John Jacques Roussaeu 1794 argue about aggression?

Answer 12

Human nature is gentle
Agriculture, technology and urbanisation fuel violence

Question 13

What did Thomas Hobbes 1651 argue about aggression?

Answer 13

Human nature is vicious, it’s curbed by modern society

Question 14

How does Darwin’s evolutionary theory explain aggression?

Answer 14

Expect within species aggression to be more common among territorial and social species
Supported by Gomez et al 2016

Question 15

What did Gomez et al 2016 find about aggression?

Answer 15

Stochastic mapping showing the estimated lethal aggression levels in mammals
Lethal aggression increases with intensity of the colour, from yellow to dark red
Light grey indicates an absence of lethal aggression
It’s in our nature to be aggressive

Question 16

Do we have an innate empathy and are empathetic people aggressive?

Answer 16

Some argue we have an innate empathy
Vachon et al 2014 looked across 100 studies, and find empathetic people are only very weakly less aggressive
Empathy only explains a small amount of variance in aggression

Question 17

What percentage of people would kill 1 to save 5 in the trolley and footbridge problem? And why?

Answer 17

90% said they would kill 1 to save 5
10% say they would kill one to save 5
People are emotionally and automatically averse to doing direct physical harm
Harm caused by action is worse than harm caused by omission
Harm involving physical contact with victim is worse than harm involving no physical contact
Could be hardwired as it’s seen across cultures

Question 18

What was Lorenz’s aggressive energy theory?

Answer 18

Biologically adaptive energy that continually builds up and eventually needs to be released
Combined Freud’s ideas (death instinct born out of frustration) and Darwin’s ideas (instincts are acquired through natural selection)

Question 19

What did Lorenz suggest about the aggressive energy? Can it be released or prevented?

Answer 19

Human aggression is inevitable, caused by biological programmed, hormonally regulated build-up of aggressive energy that needs to find a release

Question 20

What was Balyaev’s Russian Silver Fox experiment?

Answer 20

From 1959, researchers in Siberia bred from wild foxes, picking the tamest ones
Over time, foxes with ‘elite’ level of domestication appeared
Class 3 foxes – wild, will show fear, bite
Class 2 foxes – will be petted and handled but not friendliness
Class 1 foxes – show friendliness
Class 1E foxes – ‘elite’ foxes friendly, seek out human contact

Question 21

What did Raine find about convicts in a twin study?

Answer 21

Half of identical (monozygotic) twins had criminal records
1/5 of non-identical (dizygotic) twins had criminal records

Question 22

What did Tellegan et al 1998 find about levels of aggression in twin studies?

Answer 22

If one MZ twin reported higher levels of aggression, so did the other twin
This was not the case for DZ twins

Question 23

What are the issues with twin studies?

Answer 23

Twin studies are correlational, not causal
Potential confound: Genetic similarities tend to go hand in hand with environmental similarities
MZ twins’ aggression is not similar in lab settings

Question 24

What is the warrior gene?

Answer 24

MAO-A
‘switch off’ for neurotransmitters like serotonin which control aspects of our mood and behaviour
Related to depression
Low levels of serotonin associated with more levels of aggression
Linked to increased aggression and delinquency rates in teens and adolescents
Interact with environment to trigger and produce aggression/psychopathy
Specifically children who were maltreated can go on to develop psychopathy

Question 25

What are the issues with the warrior gene?

Answer 25

only found this effect among ethnically European participants
34% of White people have this gene
This gene has been used to explain higher violent offending rates, without any supporting evidence

Question 26

What did Delgado’s 1967 monkey study find?

Answer 26

‘remote controlled’ monkeys whose aggressive and defensive responses were controlled by remote controlled electrodes in their brains
Monkeys could control each other, found small monkeys would turn off the larger monkeys aggression

Question 27

How can testosterone explain aggression?

Answer 27

Facilitates aggression
found in both sexes of many animals, but in amounts 10 times higher in men than in women, which is associated with increased bone and muscle mass
High testosterone individuals may be more aggressive as they report feelings tense and restless, more likely to be put in prison for unprovoked violent crime

Question 28

What did Delgado’s 1963 bull study find?

Answer 28

Fighting a remote-controlled bull
Delgado put himself in ring with charging bull
Stopped charge with one of his remote-controlled devices

Question 29

How can serotonin explain aggression?

Answer 29

Regulation of sleep, appetite and mood
Suppresses aggression
Depressed serotonin function is associated with more aggression
Serotonin low in individuals who are depressed, in low socio-economic groups

Question 30

What did Berman et al 2009 find?

Answer 30

Participants who had taken paroxetine (drug that activates serotonin activity) less likely to administer severest possible shock to confederate who had shocked them with increasing intensity

Question 31

How can alcohol cause aggression?

Answer 31

Preferred by people who are violent when sober
These people are also more likely to become aggressive when intoxicated
In bloodstreams of 50% of offenders in rape, violent crimes
In bloodstreams of victims and/or offenders in 65% of murders
Reduces self-awareness, ability to consider consequences
Interacts with testosterone in mice and in men
Showing alcoholic images to kids increases their aggression
Fake alcohol produces powerful placebo effects, partly because of alcohol-related expectancies

Question 32

What’s an example of an honour culture?

Answer 32

American south is historically more violent than the American North
Southerners are more aggressive in situations were they must defend themselves and their reputation when they were insulted

Question 33

What did Cohen et al 1996 study on sociocultural factors find?

Answer 33

Men from US North and South brought into lab
While they were waiting, confederate bumped into them in hallway, verbally insulted them, and walked away
Southern men had an increase in testosterone, increase in cortisol, the confederate had harmed their reputation as a real ‘man’, more likely to be rude to the experimenter, wrote more aggressive stories, behave more aggressively in the experimental game

Question 34

What did Cohen and Nisbett 1997 study on sociocultural factors find?

Answer 34

Wrote fictional job applications to many retail shops across the US
In this application, they were a man who had been convicted of a crime.
In one application, the man had committed motor vehicle theft
In another, the man had committed a crime of passion were he was taunted by another man and committed manslaughter
Responses to vehicle theft were the same
In the south and west, responses to manslaughter were different than in the north

Question 35

What is the frustration aggression hypothesis?

Answer 35

Frustration is an aversive state
Frustration occurs when an individual is prevented from achieving a goal they want to pursue
Facilitates aggression especially if one or more of these applies:

1. The individual anticipated that they would feel satisfied when they achieved the goal that was eventually frustrated
2. The frustration is total, so that all hope of achieving that goal is lost
3. The individual is frustrated more than once
4. The individual was frustrated when they had nearly achieved their goal

Question 36

What is the revised frustration aggression hypothesis?

Answer 36

Participants work together in groups to solve problems
Male confederate caused group to fail its task because he did not take in some important information
Ostensible cause for confederate’s behaviour:
Hearing aid failed
Wasn’t paying attention
When they failed due to the hearing aid, members were irritated but didn’t act in aggression, when the man wasn’t paying attention, they acted aggressively
It matters if the person’s frustrating behaviour is controllable

Question 37

Can aversive conditions be associated with frustration?

Answer 37

Frustration can be described as aversive condition
Aversive conditions have been linked to aggression, e.g., uncomfortable levels of heat, feeling of being crowded, physical pain
Predicted increases in temperature due to global warming could result in more than 100,000 additional serious assaults per year in USA alone by 2050

Question 38

What is an aversive condition?

Answer 38

Any condition that an organism finds unpleasant and seeks to avoid, modify or escape where possible

Question 39

What did Berkowitz 1973 study find?

Answer 39

Boys were shown clip of violent ice hockey game in which some of the players were wearing toy radios
Boys were subsequently more aggressive when similar walkie talkies were in the room with them
Object appeared to cue possibility of violence akin to what they had just seen

Question 40

What are the issues with the social learning theory in explaining aggression?

Answer 40

Children may have only engaged in harmless play – if they do not intend to cause harm, they behaviour does not necessarily count as aggressive

Question 41

Does the exposure to media violence lead to increased levels of violence?

Answer 41

In meta-analytic studies, the observed link between media violence and aggression is two to three times as strong as the link between homework and academic achievement, and exposure to lead and IQ scores in children
By end of 1980s, average 13-year-old American child had seen 100,000 violent acts on TV

Question 42

How can the mean world syndrome increase violence unintentionally?

Answer 42

Mass consumption of mass media results in mean world syndrome
This paranoia can create more crime, as law-abiding citizens withdraw from public spaces and become less engaged in society

Question 43

What is desensitisation?

Answer 43

reductions in negative emotions to violence that ensue from repeated exposure to violent stimuli

Question 44

How can desensitisation lead to increased aggression?

Answer 44

In the social learning theory, negative emotions help deter people from aggression, desensitization can lead to increased levels of aggression
Exposure to violence in films and video games can reduce physiological responses to real life violence

Question 45

Can sport help reduce aggression?

Answer 45

Sport can be cathartic
Domestic violence calls to police and admissions of women spike after Super Bowl final
Cardiff hospital admissions increase after games at Millenium stadium especially after the home team wins

Question 46

What did Moore et al 2007 find about sports and aggression?

Answer 46

Winning makes home team fans feel more aggressive
This, rather than their happiness, was correlated with their intention to go out drinking

Question 47

What is a hate crime?

Answer 47

aggressive or illegal act against a person that is motivated by prejudice towards the group to which they belong

Question 48

How are lynchings an example of intergroup violence?

Answer 48

Archival study of lynchings (e.g., looking at postcards)
The more people attended, the more horrific the violence

Question 49

What did Payne et al 2001 find in a study about intergroup violence?

Answer 49

American participants shown either Black or white face (at times subliminally)
Immediately afterwards presented with image of handgun or hand tool (e.g., screwdriver)
If they had just seen the Black face, participants were faster at identifying the handgun
If they had just seen the white face, participants were faster at identifying the hand tool
This is called “weapons effect” and is due to stereotypes

Question 50

How can rape and domestic violence be seen as examples of intergroup violence?

Answer 50

Committed much more by men to women
Motivated by ideologies that support power and dominance over women
Even if women haven’t been raped, or experienced domestic abuse, all women are affected through the fear of experiencing rape/domestic abuse themselves

Question 51

Can group influences reduce aggression?

Answer 51

Being in a group and accountable can also reduce tendency to aggress, e.g., muggings, sexual assault, domestic violence are typically covert and occur in private settings
Groups are not straightforwardly good or bad influences on individuals

Question 52

What did Jaffe and Yinnon 1983 find in their study on group influences?

Answer 52

When angered by a confederate
Male university students gave stronger shocks when in a group than when alone