Aggression Flashcards
Aggression
Any physical or verbal behaviour that is intended to harm another person or persons (or any living thing); harm can be physical or psychological
Intent and Aggression
Aggression requires an intention to harm, either as a deliberate action or a deliberate failure to act
Violence
Acts of aggression with more severe consequences
Two Types of Aggression
- Affective Aggression and Instrumental Aggression
- They are not exclusive from one another, both can be done at the same time (instrumental aggression, but driven by emotion)
Affective Aggression
Harm-seeking done to another person that is elicited in response to some negative emotion (emotion-driven bhvr/aggression)
Instrumental Aggression
Harm-seeking done to another person that serves some other goal (aggression to get smth done)
Trust Game
- First round P1/investor can give money to P2/trustee
- Money increases
- Trustee can give back some (investor profits) or none
- The rational choice is to invest zero dollars and trustee should never return money
- What actually happens tho is money IS invested and trustee DOES return profit
- This is because we value trust and cooperation
Trust Game and Striatal Activation (De Quervain et al., 2004)
- Used the trust game
- Previously, Striatal activation had been observed during Trust Game
- Trustee had increased caudate activation after investor showed trust behaviour
- The caudate is related to reward processing, so its activation meant that trust was being learned as a reward and it was signalling an intention to trust back
- Donating and observing donation to charity also activates striatum
- De Quervain wanted to see what happened if investor inflicted punishment: the caudate was also activated when doing so, showing that punishment felt just as rewarding as trust
Origins of the Aggressive Unconscious (Psychoanalytics) - Eros and Thanatos
- Eros (God of love, life) was Freud’s term for what he proposed is the human inborn instinct to seek pleasure and to create
- Thanatos (God of death) was Freud’s term for what he proposed is the human inborn instinct to aggress and to destroy
- Both are rewarding, but Thanatos is not something we like to admit as a part of ourselves and so we use displacement (deflection) and catharsis (letting steam out) to hide it
Origins of the Aggressive Unconscious - Jung’s Shadow
- Jung did not see our darkness as 100% negative
- The dark side of personality can be positive, but is mostly negative because it is hidden and an unwanted part of ourselves
Origins of the Aggressive Unconscious - Projection
Used to destroy this unwanted side; the destruction of things embodying those unwanted aspects
Origins of Learning to Aggress (Behaviourism)
- Counter to psychodynamics, aggression can be learned when it leads to rewards
- When aggressive actions result in desired attention, specific rewards, or alleviating negative feelings, they become more likely
- Aggressive actions can create dissonance, which leads to attitude shifts that justify actions
- If you’re not an aggressive person, yet you just punched someone in the face, you’ll shift to you’re not an aggressive person, but you are when someone deserves it or pushes you to react, so it’s okay
Origins of Learning to Aggress - Social Learning Theory
People learn by watching the actions of others, like in Bandura’s BOBO doll study; opposes Catharsis or displacement, by showing that the more you see aggression, the more likely you are to engage in it
Awareness
- We are aware that in the grand scheme of things (life on planet earth, in the galaxy, in the universe) which is why existence is a bummer
- Existence unmoored from meaning (we are nothing) and religious authority is undermined
- Yet, we have the capacity to be aware of our existence, and this capability and struggle for meaning elevates and unites us (Know Thyself)
Origins of Existential ‘Bad Faith’
- To escape from the dilemma of existence, we don’t worry about the meaning of life, try to think for ourselves, or examine our life, rather doing what society, convention, peers, etc. tell us to do
- Living in bad faith means ignoring the existential questions and ignoring our moral imperative
Bad Faith according to Erich Fromm and Theodor Adorno
There are three steps to escape from angst of freedom:
1. Impersonal identity (less aggression based, but means conforming to a social ideal which removes the burden of choice)
2. Authoritarianism (submission to external power, Nietzsche’s herd mentality)
3. Destruction (simple, the source of angst is the world, therefore eliminating that world or parts of it that are not liked, just trying to upset the order)
Origins of evolutionary basis for aggression
- Male aggressors are more likely to obtain resources and attract mates through higher status, thereby increasing odds of reproductive success
- Females from an evolutionary perspective protect offspring and therefore use indirect means
- Social animals can coordinate against other groups (like chimpanzees to violently takeover territory)
- Increased aggression is found in step families, with children younger than 2 years being 100 times more likely to suffer lethal abuse in hands of step parent than genetic parent even controlling several factors
Behavioural genetics basis for aggression
- Ex. identical twins show greater overlap in aggression than fraternal twins or siblings
- However, twin studies reveal overlap in physical but not relational aggression, so it may be moreso learned
- Meta-analysis suggests that genetic factors account for an important portion of the variance in aggression
Origins of Neurobiology of Aggression
- Research confirms physiological mechanisms involved in the detection of social threat, the experience of anger, and engaging in aggressive behaviour
- Brain regions activated include:
- dACC, which is involved in detection of social threat and unjustified wrongdoings
- Hypothalamus and Amygdala, which are involved in anger and fear
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex (dACC)
- This brain area is active when ppl detect actions and outcomes that interfere with their goals, including social threats; it is specifically related to conflict
- If we see frustration (or smth wrong), aggression is linked (need to respond to it, even later)
- Seen in trauma lab with trauma response association
Hypothalamus and Amygdala
- Two brain regions that play a key role in people’s emotional experiences of fear and anger and prepare them for a fight-or-flight response (fighting especially when there is no means to escape)
- Adrenaline (epinephrine) and Noradrenaline (norepinephrine) are involved in this process
Impulse regulation
The dlPFC and mPFC help regulate impulses, share connections with the limbic system, and contain serotonin receptors (particularly when in a sense it knows better)
Origins of Aggression with Testosterone
- Testosterone is a sex hormone, involved in development of primary and secondary male sex characteristics, and is ~10x higher in men
- Link with aggression is complex, although the association is mostly positive
- Plays a role in control and inhibition of aggression and sexuality
- Best described as an energizer that accentuates existing behavioural tendencies
In Utero Testosterone Exposure and Aggression (Reinisch, 1981)
- Divided children based on whether mothers had used testosterone therapy for pregnancy complications or not and gender
- Compared them based off of their aggressive approach coping
- Found that w/o testosterone exposure, boys had a much higher tendency than girls to respond aggressively
- With exposure, both had a higher tendency to respond aggressively, although boys more than girls
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and “Boys Toys”: In Utero Testosterone and Active Play Preferences (Berenbaum & Hines, 1992)
- Divided two groups based on CAH Intrauterine Testosterone Exposure or absence thereof and gender
- Compared Preference for stereotypically boys toys (more violent)
- Other than girls with no exposure, all other groups had same scores, and were twice more likely to prefer such toys than none exposed girls
2D (index finger) 4D (ring finger) Ratio
- High 2D:4D is when the index finger is longer than the ring finger
- Equal 2D:4D is when both fingers are equal in length (typical female)
- Low 2D:4D is when index finger is shorter than ring finger (typical male)
Lower 2D:4D
Correlates with a good visual and spatial performance, athletic achievement, dominance and masculinity, sensation seeking, and psychoticism
Higher 2D:4D
Correlates with verbal fluency, emotional problems, and neuroticism
Situational Triggers of Aggression - The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
- OG version says aggression is always preceded by frustration, and that frustration inevitably leads to aggression
- The revised version suggests that frustration produces an emotional readiness to aggress (ie. does not INEVITABLY lead to aggression but higher emotional reaction increases chance of aggression)
- The hypothesis has received cross-cultural support
Situational Triggers of Aggression - What are they?
Context, Priming, Culture, Physical Threat, Psychological Conflict
Situational Triggers of Aggression - Context
- Did a study where looked into the discomfort associated with hot temperatures and aggressivity of pitchers players
- As temperature went up, so did the aggressivity of players
- But also, there was a second trigger: whether the other team hit first; the more teammates got hit by opposing team’s pitchers, the more they responded accordingly
- Therefore, as discomfort from heat increased and frustration from opposite teams hitting them, the more aggressive and likely the pitchers were to hit batters
Situational Triggers of Aggression - Priming
- Situational cues which prime hostile concepts and feelings can lead to aggression
- Ex. Weapons effect (the tendency for the presence of firearms to increase the likelihood of aggression, especially when people are frustrated
Weapons effect (Berkowitz and LePage, 1967)
- Had a treatment group in the presence of a gun or rifle vs control group in the presence of a badminton bat; then randomly assigned either to angered condition or not angered condition
- Showed that participants became the most aggressive when they were in a condition in which they were both angered and in the presence of a gun and a rifle, administering an especially large number of shocks to another person
The Weapons Effect and Gun Ownership
- For some people (ex. sport hunters), guns are not cues to aggression, but most Americans are not recreational hunters
- Gun-related homicides occur at a much higher rate in the US than in other industrialized nations, even Switzerland, where gun ownership is very high acquired through mandatory military service
Situational Triggers of Aggression - Culture
- Culture influences the extent of aggression within a society
- Among national cultures, like the US, murder rate is double the world average; there, aggression is seen as a valid tool to use when solving interpersonal conflict, firearms are widely available and culture is individualistic
- Within nations, culture of honour (status protection, a need to protect the sense of who you are) can be found especially in South and West US and in gangs
Culture of Honour Study
- Ps involved northern and southern male subjects
- Engage in mock study and when they leave it, those in insult condition get shouldered pretty bad by a confederate
- Southern subjects get more increased testosterone levels after such an insult
- Afterwards, another unrelated confederate (big in size) walks down the hall
- Southern subjects had decreased distance from confederate, demonstrating aggressive (get-in-your-space) behaviour
Situational Triggers of Aggression - Physical Threat
Perception of imminent, intentional physical or verbal attack is the most reliable provocation of an aggressive response, presumably as it is directly related to Fight-or-Flight system
Situational Triggers of Aggression - Psychological Threat
- Insults and social rejection can arouse anger and the impulse to aggress to protect SE (cyberball rejection responses of anger and frustration)
- People high in rejection sensitivity are more likely to expect/look for it, readily perceive it, and overreact to rejection with aggressive responses (narcissism and unstable SE AND very sensitive to aggression)
Kurt Lewin’s Push and Pull Forces: B = (P, E)
- Equation of behaviour, where behaviour is a function of personality and environment
- Believed individuals are either pushing or pulling towards stimulus outcome
- Looked at toddlers, where these push and pull forces can clash
- Toddlers like to sit on rock and are pushed to go towards rock, but to sit down they must turn around and look away, pulling away from rock
- They want to sit down but that is potentially problematic
Psychological Conflicts - Drives
- Drives towards things we want (Approach) and drives away from things we don’t want (Avoid)
- Drives can conflict (Approach-Avoidance conflict), leading to a blockage, a freezing response as we are unsure what to do, and anxiety increases
Psychological Conflicts - When drives are blocked
- Brings back to Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
- Aggression after frustration has utility, as it can help remove the block or obstacle
- However, it is not always appropriate to do so
Psychological Conflicts - Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
- Displaced aggression is directed toward a target other than the source of one’s frustration (fight w someone -> punch a wall)
- Triggered displaced aggression occurs when someone does not respond to an initial frustration but later responds more aggressively than would be warranted to a second event (get yelled at by boss at work, go home and stub toe -> kick the table)
Triggered Displaced Aggression (Pederson et al., 2000)
- Ps get provoked or not
- Then are either triggered by experimenter assistant who is bad at job and fumbly or not
- They then rate the assistant
- Those provoked and triggered rated the assistant VERY harshly
Narcissism and Noise Blasts Study
- Ps w narcissistic traits were either rejected or accepted in cyberball, while fMRI monitored neural activations
- Then played against (fake) partner and whenever partner did anything wrong, could blast noises (max 105 db, lawnmower or motorcycle loud)
- Narcissism and rejection increased dACC activation and increased the noise blasts volume used
Greater Theory of it all
When there is goal conflict (you want smth, but there are signals that you cannot get it), anxiety is increased, so you engage in activity to help make you feel better
Emotion and Motivation
- Categorizing emotions as positive or negative seemed quite limiting, so considered it as avoidance vs approach emotions
- Anger is clearly negative, people don’t like it
- It engages the left PFC which is related to approach and sensitivity
Morals
- Largely concerned with reducing harm and promoting prosocial behaviour
- However morals violations seem to unleash increased aggression (like in culture of honour study)
- Question remains of whether morals are based on rational, logical prepositions and conclusions (ex. utilitarianism allows discovery of moral bhvr through rationality and observation)
Morals and aggression
- Morals are largely based in emotion, preceding cognition
- Should be intimately linked with anger and aggression, in a couple of ways
Morals as a cause for aggression
As an observer what we want is violated by another individual causing us to feel frustrated, leading to aggression which is turned on the transgressor
Utility of Aggression - Proximal vs distal function
- Ppl respond w aggression when they see smth wrong
- Proximal function: aggression is emotion-driven, irrational, harmful, bad for relationships, others, etc.
- Distal function: Aggression serves to help groups or societies cohere (it is turned on those who might hurt the group)
Altruistic punishment
- Punishment that has no direct benefit but has significant cost for the punisher (time, effort, resources, etc.)
- People usually do this when anger is used as a proximal cause
- Free riding or not helping the group should make ppl angry
- Anger should then cause increased altruistic punishment
Proximal: Free Rider and Anger
- “You decide to invest 16 vs 5 francs to the project; the second group member invests 14[3] and the third 18 [7] francs; suppose the fourth member invests 2 francs to the project; you now accidentally meet this member; please indicate your feeling towards this person.” (They are investing MUCH less but got a lot more since everyone gets the same amount of money.)
- Results: Increased anger, increased punishment (at an abstract level, its a good thing: they felt more anger and desire to punish person)
Distal: Altruistic punishment and functioning society
- In a decay of cooperation keep revisiting belief on what to give, as does everybody else, until everybody collectively does less and overall contribution decreases
- Cooperation works if sustained by punishment of defectors (free riders) and those who did not punish defectors (ppl not upholding social norm are just as guilty as those actively going against social norms)
Morals as a constraint for aggression
- As an actor, we feel angst and guilt as our behaviour conflicts with morals and values we cherish and motivates us to:
a. preemptively avoid the behaviour altogether (“better not, I’ll feel bad about this”, pre-sanction)
b. repair or address the harm done
Three methods considered to question whether muting emotion increases aggression and violence
- Moral disengagement (cognitive)
- Oxytocin (anxiolytic)
- Personality (impaired emotion systems)
Moral Disengagement
- Albert Bandura
- Internalized moral codes and values guide us away from aggression and violence
- Aggression and violence conflict with morals, causes self-sanction (negative emotions like guilt and shame that motivate behavioural change)
- We can cognitively disengage our morals to allow for immoral acts
Moral Disengagement - Reprehensible Conduct
- Moral Justification
- Palliative Comparison
- Euphemistic Labeling
Moral Disengagement - Reprehensible Conduct + Detrimental Effects
- Displacement of responsibility
- Diffusion of responsibility
Moral Disengagement - Detrimental Effects
Minimizing, ignoring, or misconstruing the consequences
Moral Disengagement - Victim
Dehumanization, attribution of blame
Moral Disengagement and Aggression
Reduces guilt and restitution, which enhances aggression; enhances aggression also by itself; associated with higher criminal behaviour/delinquency
Oxytocin
- Hug drug, love drug, moral molecule, trust drug, generosity hormone
- Increased by pregnancy, birth, breast-feeding, cuddling, hugs, sex, sharing, giving (prosocial aspects/bhvrs)
- Can be administered intranasally (although some neuros disagree with this)
- Increased trust in trust game
- Increased generosity in the Ultimatum Game by 80% (but no effect in dictator game)
- Improved mind-in-the-eyes
Oxytocin and its other ‘Mother Bear’ side
- Mechanism appears to be that anxiety is decreased by oxytocin and approach motivation is increased, particularly for valued social stimuli and objects
- So, sometimes, this means increased trust, cooperation, affiliation
- But, it might reduce self-sanctioning emotions and risk-sensitivity, increase prioritizing and aggressively protecting valued vs non valued social stimuli
Oxytocin and Aggression in animals
- In praire voles, oxytocin treatment after birth, enhanced aggression
- In mice, oxytocin decreased aggression towards pups, but increased aggression towards intruders
- In squirrel monkeys, oxytocin is associated with enhanced territorial aggression
- In rats, aggressive tendencies correlate with oxytocin receptor density
Oxytocin and Dishonesty: Coin-toss benefits self vs ingroup Study (Shalvi and De Dreu, 2014)
- Potential for (-) side of Oxytocin
- Had ppl assigned to oxytocin injection or placebo and looked at how likely they were to lie
- Oxytocin seemed to have an effect on ppl’s willingness to lie to get more money, particularly when money went to in group, not self
Oxytocin and outgroup aggression in PDG (De Dreu et al., 2010)
Oxytocin associated with higher protectionism of resources and higher exclusion of outgroup
Oxytocin and ingroup bias: ERP Study (Sheng et al., 2013)
- Ηad Ps look at caucasian face and east asian face neutral and in pain
- Injected some w oxytocin, others with placebo
- Oxytocin increased sensitivity to faces in pain but only for the ingroup
- For the outgroup, there is no difference
Oxytocin and partner violence (De Wall et al., 2014)
- Oxytocin has both positive and negative effects
- Hypothesized to promote relationship goals, including typical strategies for affiliation and social maintenance (can be both positive and negative)
- Oxytocin lead to higher inclination toward violence against intimate partner, if they were already willing to do it
Personality (impaired emotional systems)
- Morals are largely emotion based (we feel that smth is wrong, build the rationality later)
- Disengagement from moral emotions should increase aggression and violence, similar to moral disengagement (reduced self-sanction, ie., guilt, shame, anxiety, etc.)
Personality (impaired emotional systems) - Dark Triad
- Personality cluster called the dark triad centres on low self-sanctioning
- Includes narcissism (selfishness, lack of empathy, high sensitivity to rejection correlated w increased aggression), machiavellianism (self-regard, exploitation, disregard for accepted morality), psychopathy (harmful to others, impaired empathy, more impulsive)
- Three personality variables that lead to low sanctioning (self > others)
Psychopathy - Ted Bundy
- Serial killer
- Highly charismatic ability to verbalize right from wrong but with little to no effect on behaviour, absence of guilt or shame
- Chameleon-like appearance (would look different times, making it difficult for ppl to pin him down)
- “Guilt doesn’t solve anything, really; I guess I am in the enviable position of not having to deal with guilt” (Bundy would change answer every time with journalists & interviews giving them what they want to hear)
Psychopathy - Psychopathology
- General populations 1% reach that line
- Wall Street 10% of ppl there hit that line
- Ex. hedge fund manager Martin Shrekli (did what everyone else was doing by taking Daraprim)
- Daraprim took this drug (only life saving drug), bought the licensing of the drug & jacked up the prices like crazyyy
- Life-saving drug in HIV, some cancers
- One-of-a-kind drug
- 13.5 -> 750/pill (5455%)
- Super unapologetic
Neuroscience of Psychopathy
- Impaired emotional system (hard to take a life saving drug & profit off of ppl dying)
- Self-report low levels of negative affect
- Reduced reactivity to negative stimuli (Faces, sounds, images, negative feedback, etc.)
- Abnormalities in insula (body sense, disgust) and amygdala (fear, threat, salience)
Shane & Groat, 2018 study
- Impairment or just not using it
- Most studies were passive task studies
- Passive viewing of empathy inducing images vs. instruction to increase or decrease emotion
- Is there smth broken/missing OR they are not processing it/using it
Neuroscience of Psychopathy “All you had to do was ask” (Shane & Groat, 2018)
- First asked to look at pics of socially distressed indivs, then asked to enhance how they feel and take in how it makes them feel, etc.
- In passive condition, people with mid psychopathy had less activation in areas involved in empathy, but still some; people high in psychopathy had no activation in tpj, amygdala, etc.
- When instructed to empathize, people high in psychopathy showed same pattern of activation as everyone else in areas involved in empathy
- Showed they are able to do it, they just lack the motivation or not caring to use those areas
Religion and Aggression - The four horsemen of atheism
- Four authors with four books addressing this
- Main point was that religion relies on supernatural and irrationality
- Therefore, religious ppl have an irrational way of looking at morality, causing increased aggression in regards to in- vs outgroup
Religion and Aggression - Scholars of Religious Fields
- Saw religion more as an inhibitor to aggression
- Religion is a corrupted system, either from the start or having evolved as such throughout history
- However, at the core of religion is the golden rule and that is what people are attracted to, preventing them from harming others
Religion and Aggression - What does Religion Promote
- Divisions between groups and dehumanizing outgroups
- Illusions of moral superiority and invulnerability (God is on my side, how can I lose)
- Irrational thinking
Religion and Aggression - When God sanctions killing
- There were two studies, with people who believed in God (Brigham Young, 99% belief) first and people who did not (Amsterdam, 50% belief) second
- Read biblical passages of God Sanctioned violence vs No mention of God in violent passages
- Measured Noise blast in RT comp. for aggressivity
- Ps who believed in God and read God Sanctioned violence showed increased aggression
- Ps who did not believe in God were lower in aggression no matter the passage read
Religion and Aggression - When religion decreases aggression
- Armstrong saw the core of religion as the golden rule, in Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, Buddhism, and Taoism
- But research wanted to see when ppl go towards this core goal
- If, when not being told where to read (religion without corrupted aspects), would ppl go towards a benevolent God to follow or towards a punitive God to obey
- They found that they could study this through personal prayer (increases personal connections) and primes of religion
Religion and Aggression - Prayer and aggression (Bremner et al, 2011)
- Participants were either provoked or not, then told to either pray or think
- In one study, they measured noise blast in RT comp and found those who prayed and were provoked had significantly less of an aggressive response than those asked to think
- In another study, they measured angry appraisals when blaming others for bad outcomes and found that when provoked, Ps who prayed were less angry, but when unprovoked, those who prayed were more angry than those asked to think
Religion and Aggression - Content-free: Religious Primes before Threat
- Primed religion, then RA Ps to threat or not and after measured aggressive response (revenge against unethical company)
- Past research demonstrates that primes drive reactions after threat
- Core of compassion (when primed with religion, as people go towards what is salient, therefore prosocial) reduced defensive reactions
- Without prime, aggressive response was increased by threat
Religion and Aggression - God is good (Ginges et al., 2016)
- Religion is supposed to promote intergroup conflict by cementing tribalism and devaluing non-believers
- Religion emphasizes God as universal (Moral laws for all); either primed ppl with universal view or not
- Muslim Palestinian Youth sample (self vs God’s perspective)
- The trolley problem(s) asked to save jewish or Palestinian children (ingroup vs outgroup)
- Measured ingroup preference
- Those primed with God as universal had a reduced ingroup preference in regards to a bias towards saving the ingroup vs the outgroup
Religion and Aggression - God is watching: Priming God and Dictator Game (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007)
- Those with a neutral prime offered the lowest amount of cash
- Those with religious prime offered the most money, showing increased generosity
- Of note, the group that received a secular prime was very close behind the religious primed group, showing that priming good from humanist effect had the same effect
