Aggression Flashcards
Hostile aggression
- aimed soley at hurting someone
- motivated by the need to express negative feelings such as anger
Instrumental aggression
- used as a means to an end- may be self-defense or to attain something
- often planned and not impulsive
Positive aggression
-combating prejudice, self-defence
Pathological aggression
- violence for the sake of being violent
- may be associated with pathological personality
Overt aggression
- readily observable
- either reactive and impulsive or proactive planned aggression
Covert aggression
- more sublet- telling lies, spreading rumours
- often seen in girls
Hydraulic or build up models
- psychoanalysis theory
- evolutionary theory
- Territorial imperative
- Ritualisation
Psychoanalysis theory
-human aggression is due to the death instinct Thanatos. An instinctive biological destructive urge builds up in everyone and must at some point be released
Evolutionary theory
-through the process of natural selection, aggression ensures survival of the aggressors genes passing down the generations
territorial imperative
-aggression in relation to territory maintenance in animals- Lorenz
Ritualisation
- refers to a series of sterotyped fight scenes carried out by animals without actual physical harm to both the victor and the vanquished
- appeasement rituals or gestures form a part of such ritualisations in which certain behaviours can reduce aggression expression
Non-hydraulic models
- these models refuse the notion of ‘building up’ and ‘release’
- genetic theory
- social learning theory
- frustration-aggression hypothesis
- aggression-cue theory
- transferred excitation
- Festingers deindividuation theory
Genetic theory
- aggression may be inherited
- Baron and Richardson
Social learning theory
- Bandura’s Bobo doll experiement
- children learn aggression through observation
Frustration-aggression hypothesis
- Dollard
- frustration always results in aggression and aggression will not occur unless a person is frustrated
Aggressive cue theory
- weapons effect
- Berkowitz
- frustration actually produced a readiness to respond aggressively and cues from the environment such as weapons lead to them behaving aggressively
Transferred excitation
- part of general arousal theory
- arousal from one source may energise some other response
- Zillman
Festinger’s deindivduation theory
- people in group context act uncharacteristically more aggressive as a sense of identity and belongingness and diffusion of responsibility occurs in groups
- uniforms can reduce individuality, promoting expression of aggression
Media influences on aggressive behaviour
- TV can influence through modelling effects
- mediated by:
1. high arousal
2. disinhibition
3. imitation
4. desensitisation
5. priming- enhancing automatic associations of certain stimuli with a crime
Family background
- aggressive children tend to commit violent and non-violent offences in adulthood
- harsh and inconsistent discipline and absence of positive parenting may be a factor in aggression
Social dominance
- in animals, once dominace is established, the rate of aggression drops substantially
- females and males show similar aggression levels once dominance is established
Coping outlets for stress
- social support
- reconscilative behaviour immediately after competition may help to cope
- poor availability of this support with low presence of kin will increase stress among subordinates
Captivitity
- ability to avoid confronting dominant individuals will reduce stress levels
- subordinates show high cortisol in captivity
- dominant creatures have higher cortisol in the wild
