Aggression

Question 1

Define aggression.

Answer 1

Physical or verbal behaviour intended to hurt someone.

Question 2

Define hostile aggression.

Answer 2

Aggression driven by anger and performed as an end in itself.

Question 3

Give another name for hostile aggression.

Answer 3

Affective aggression.

Question 4

Define instrumental aggression.

Answer 4

Aggression that is a means to some other end.

Question 5

What is instinctive behaviour?

Answer 5

An innate, unlearned behaviour pattern exhibited by all members of a species.

Question 6

Explain frustration-aggression theory.

Answer 6

The theory that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress.

Question 7

Define frustration.

Answer 7

The blocking of goal-directed behaviour.

Question 8

What is displacement?

Answer 8

The redirection of aggression to a target other than the source of the frustration.

Question 9

Give some characteristics of the new target when displacement occurs. (2)

Answer 9

The new target is generally safer or more socially acceptable.

Question 10

What is relative deprivation?

Answer 10

The perception that you are less well-off that others with whom you compare yourself.

Question 11

Explain social learning theory.

Answer 11

The theory that we learn social behaviour by observing and imitating, and by being rewarded and punished.

Question 12

What is catharsis?

Answer 12

Emotional release.

Question 13

What is the catharsis view of aggression?

Answer 13

Aggressive drive is reduced when you release aggressive energy, either by acting aggressively or fantasising aggression.

Question 14

What is prosocial behaviour?

Answer 14

Any behaviour that benefits or positively affects individuals or groups.

Question 15

What is the opposite of antisocial behaviour?

Answer 15

Prosocial behaviour.

Question 16

What is a social script?

Answer 16

Culturally provided mental instructions for how to act in various situations.

Question 17

What form of aggression is terrorism?

Answer 17

Instrumental aggression.

Question 18

Hostile aggression is ___, instrumental aggression is ___.

Answer 18

Emotional, rational.

Question 19

In analysing cases of hostile and instrumental aggression, social psychologists have focused on three topics:

Answer 19

There is a biologically rooted aggressive drive, aggression is a natural response to frustration, and aggressive behaviour is learned.

Question 20

What did Freud believe generated aggression?

Answer 20

The self-destructive impulse, or death instinct redirected at others.

Question 21

How did Lorenz view aggression?

Answer 21

Adaptive, not self-destructive.

Question 22

Give some of the differences in brain structure that heighten aggression. (3)

Answer 22

Stimulation of the amygdala can cause rage, the prefrontal cortex is 14% less active in murderers and 15% smaller in men with antisocial conduct disorder.

Question 23

Give evidence of nature and nurture interacting to generate aggression.

Answer 23

Children with a gene that causes altered neurotransmitter balance and who were maltreated generates an aggressive individual.

Question 24

Give evidence that alcohol causes aggression. (3)

Answer 24

Drunk people give stronger electric shocks and feel angrier; in 65% of homicides and 55% of domestic assaults either the victim or assailant were drinking; and violence in domestic abusers ceases after problem drinking is treated.

Question 25

How does alcohol enhance aggressiveness? (3)

Answer 25

By reducing people’s self-awareness, focusing their attention on a provocation, and the mental association of alcohol with aggression.

Question 26

Which hormone does aggressiveness correlate with?

Answer 26

Testosterone.

Question 27

Give evidence that testosterone correlated with aggression. (3)

Answer 27

As testosterone levels decrease, so does aggression, testosterone levels are higher in prisoners convicted of violent crimes.

Question 28

What are teenagers and adult men with high testosterone levels more prone to? (3)

Answer 28

Deliquency, hard drug use, and aggressive responses to provocation.

Question 29

How does low serotonin contribute to aggression?

Answer 29

The frontal lobe, which filters aggressive impulses, has many receptors for it.

Question 30

Who developed frustration-aggression theory?

Answer 30

Dollard.

Question 31

When does frustration grow? (3)

Answer 31

When our desire to achieve a goal is very strong, when we expect gratification, and when blocking is complete.

Question 32

When is displaced aggression most likely? (2)

Answer 32

When the target shares similarity with the instigator and commits a minor irritating act.

Question 33

Berkowitz theorised that frustration produces:

Answer 33

Anger.

Question 34

What is anger?

Answer 34

An emotional readiness to aggress.

Question 35

When does anger arise?

Answer 35

When someone who frustrates us could have chosen to act otherwise.

Question 36

What kind of parents do physically aggressive children have?

Answer 36

Physically punitive.

Question 37

Name four temporary climate variations that produce aggression.

Answer 37

Offensive odours, cigarette smoke, air pollution, and heat.

Question 38

Heat triggers what kind of actions?

Answer 38

Retaliative.

Question 39

If temperature goes up by 2 degrees, how many more assaults will occurs in the US?

Answer 39

50’000.

Question 40

Who conducted experiments using adrenaline to investigate arousal labelling? (2)

Answer 40

Schachter and Singer.

Question 41

What two interacting factors generate rapists?

Answer 41

Hostile masculinity and sexual promiscuity.

Question 42

Why does viewing violence cause aggression? (3)

Answer 42

It produces arousal, it disinhibits, and it evokes imitation.

Question 43

Give four ways in which television viewing affects thinking.

Answer 43

Desensitisation, social scripts, making the world seem scarier, and primes aggression.

Question 44

The more sexual content that adolescents view, the more likely they are to:

Answer 44

Perceive their peers as sexually active, develop sexually permissive attitudes, and experience early intercourse.

Question 45

What did Bastian find about playing video games and the perception of the self and others?

Answer 45

People who play violent video games think of their opponents and themselves as less human and more animalistic.

Question 46

Give Gentile and Anderson’s reasons for why violent video games have a more toxic effect than watching violence on television. (6)

Answer 46

You identify with a violent character, you rehearse violence, engage in the whole sequence of enacting violence, are engaged with continual violence and threats of attack, repeat the behaviours over and over, and are rewarded for aggression.

Question 47

Playing violent video games, compared to nonviolent games has the following effects: (5)

Answer 47

Increased arousal, increased aggressive thinking, feelings, behaviours, and decreased prosocial behaviours.

Question 48

Give five factors specific to repeated violent video game playing that contribute to increased aggressive personality.

Answer 48

Aggressive beliefs and attitudes, perceptions, expectations, behaviour scripts, and desensitisation.

Question 49

How do groups amplify aggressive reactions?

Answer 49

They diffuse responsibility.

Question 50

Massacres are social phenomena fed by what?

Answer 50

Moral imperatives.

Question 51

In both labratory and everyday contexts, what is increased aggression predicted by? (8)

Answer 51

Male actors, aggressive personalities, alcohol use, viewing violence, anonymity, provocation, the presence of weapons, and group interaction.

Question 52

Instead of ruminating, practising what helps to reduce aggression?

Answer 52

Self-control.

Question 53

What three methods did Wilson and Lipsey find effective in reducing aggression?

Answer 53

Problem-solving skills, emotion-control strategies, and conflict resolution techniques.