aggression

Question 1

what are the three factors that can affect aggression

Answer 1

cultural factors, physiological factors, and social and situational factors

Question 2

explain the difference between cultural and social and situational factors

Answer 2

cultural factors are partly social as well, but they are those that are present in the culture without specifically identifying them in any situation or interaction

Question 3

why are studies in aggression hard to do

Answer 3

because you do not want to actually harm someone, but there are ways to experimentally manipulate aggression and the experimental studies match the correlational studies

Question 4

what are two of the main measures used to assess aggression

Answer 4

Noise Blasting Task and Hot Sauce Paradigm

Question 5

what is the noise blasting task

Answer 5

participants play a game with another participant, competitive game in each round whoever wins gets to blast static noise at their partner and can choose what decibel level to expose the other person to and the duration, told highest levels can affect someone’s hearing, game is rigged so that participants always win the first round so it cannot be considered retaliation, look at the first decibel level given to partner

Question 6

what is the hot sauce paradigm

Answer 6

• exposing a person to an experience they find unpleasant
• taste testing study where the participants are told they have to make something for another person, the other person says they do not like hot sauce and measure how much they put in the recipe

Question 7

what is a culture of honor and where is it prevalent

Answer 7

Cultures of honor are associated with aggression

• Specifically, a person’s reputation is considered critical, particularly men’s reputation and their masculinity
• People react with violence when someone insults their honor

In US, the southern states have a strong culture of honor compared to Northern and Western states

Question 8

what is the Cohen et all study about cultures of honor at University of Michigan (hallway study)

Answer 8

• Participants raised in two different parts of US exposed to insult
• Happened at University of Michigan and all participants were male
• Participants were either born in southern states or northern states
• Participants were exposed to insult or not exposed to insult and then multiple dependent variables were recorded
• Participants filled out a survey and took the survey to the end of the hall to drop it off (narrow hallway) and in the hallway had a filing cabinet and a person organizing the filing cabinet with the drawer open so no one else could pass through the hallway when the cabinet was open, confederate who had to close the drawer seemed annoyed and when the person asked to get though, and when the participant dropped off the paper and walked back they also had to close the drawer again
• Insult: slammed the drawer shut the second time and says “asshole!” and then runs away
• Control: just walk down the hallway
• When participants return to the main room a number of measures happened

Question 9

what were the depending measures in Cohen’s study (hallway)

Answer 9

cortisol levels, testosterone levels, aggressive expectations and dominant behavior

Question 10

explain the results about cortisol levels and testosterone levels

Answer 10

• Measured cortisol level (saliva sample)- stress hormone
• Measured testosterone level- linked to aggression, increases right before competition (sports game) and challenge and threat
• *Also has been shown to decrease when men become fathers**

Results: those from the southern states when insulted showed an increase in cortisol and testosterone compared to the control group, those from the northern states showed no difference in cortisol and testosterone as compared to the control group

Question 11

explain the results about aggressive expectations

Answer 11

(looking if they had aggression on their mind) had participants read different scenarios and said how the person in these scenarios should respond (ex. a couple was at a party and the boyfriend went to get his girlfriend a drink and came back and another man was talking to the girlfriend and laughing with her)
-Measured if there was an aggressive response (no: excuse me, do nothing, etc. yes: throw drink, yell, shove him, etc.)

Results: in northern states no difference in aggressive expectations between groups, in southern states there was more aggression in the insult condition as compared to the control condition

Question 12

explain the results about dominant behavior

Answer 12

-Measured dominant behavior (“Chicken”), see who backs down first, participant had to go back into hallway with a different confederate there (very tall and wide man) who was walking down the hallway taking up the whole hallway, the confederate was told do not step to the side no matter what even if they crash into the participant, measured how close (how many feet between participant and confederate) participants would get before they stepped to the side

Results: northerners stepped away at about 5 feet regardless of condition, in the control condition the southerners stepped away at 9 feet, in the insult condition the southerners did not step away until three feet
-Being insulted made them want to display dominance

Question 13

what is more common in southern states

Answer 13

domestic violence, women are even more likely to say that men should be able to harm their wives if they get cheated on

Question 14

so, what is it about a culture of honor?

Answer 14

• In the southern states there was a greater use of herding animals from one area to another, if you herd animals there are dozens at a time and you have to take them long distances and it is not difficult for people to take/steal some animals from the back
• People had to have the reputation that if you steal my animals I will find you and hurt you so it does not happen

In the northern states, agriculture was common and it is a lot harder for people to take things that you are farming

Question 15

what also could be related to herding

Answer 15

collectivism, rice growing

Question 16

what are the physiological factors that can increase aggression

Answer 16

alcohol, testosterone and heat

Question 17

what is the idea behind alcohol

Answer 17

alcohol increases aggression

ex. bar fights, why are people more likely to get in fights here than in a restaurant?

Question 18

what is the study design that measured how alcohol affects aggression

Answer 18

2 (actual beverage: alcohol vs. placebo) x 2 (belief: drinking alcohol or not drinking alcohol)

• Drink something heavily flavored so you cannot tell if there is alcohol in it or not
• Control group is not drinking alcohol and thinking you are not drinking alcohol
• the group that is not drinking alcohol but think they are shows us about the effect of expectations (what do beliefs do?)
• group that is drinking alcohol but does not think they are shows the true physical effect of alcohol, removed effect of beliefs
• group that is drinking alcohol and thinks they are drinking alcohol looks at true effects and beliefs

Question 19

what were the results of the different conditions of the alcohol study (of actual alcohol and expectations)

Answer 19

• alcohol reduces inhibitions (if someone has aggressive impulses already then drinking alcohol will relax their self-control and increases the likelihood that they will act on these inhibitions, moderated by someone’s personality)
• alcohol disrupts information processing (when people are given cognitive tasks and a person has consumed alcohol their ability to process information gets worse), related to aggression because they might think someone has insulted them or provoked them when they actually have not
• “think drink” effect, expectations alone are related to aggression as well, in the expectations group behavior is different than the control group, expectations actually have a stronger effect than the group that just has the physical effects
• expectations about the effects of alcohol influence behavior more than amount of alcohol drank!

Question 20

what is the evidence related to testosterone

Answer 20

experimental and correlational evidence that testosterone is related to aggression
-found in both men and women and varies by person

Question 21

what is the correlational evidence that exists for testosterone and aggression

Answer 21

• individuals who are incarcerated and have engaged in more violence and physical disobedience while incarcerated had higher levels of testosterone than those who did not have altercations
• in a study looking at juvenile delinquents who had committed physical assault, they had higher testosterone than traditional college students

Question 22

what is the experimental evidence that exists for testosterone and aggression

Answer 22

can give someone testosterone supplements which increases aggressive behavior

Question 23

what did the correlational evidence about heat and aggression look at

Answer 23

looks at aggravated assaults and the temperature that day and the time of day it occurs

Question 24

what was the correlational evidence about heat and aggression

Answer 24

• linear relationship between heat and number of assaults at night, curvilinear relationship between temperature and number of assaults in the day (increases only up to a certain point)
• more crimes at night in general and as the temperature goes up the number of crimes increases
• in the day time, crimes increase as temperature increases until it gets to a certain point (100 degrees)

so, heat increases frustration, but only up to a certain point when it gets too hot and people are too fatigued to do anything

Question 25

what is the experimental evidence about heat and aggression

Answer 25

found that aggression increases in a lab up to a certain point (when they increase the room temperature)

Question 26

what is the frustration-aggression theory and some examples

Answer 26

• frustration (being blocked from attaining a goal) tends to increase aggression, this has been supported in experimental research
• expectations matter, frustration comes when we think we can do something but we cant

Example: not getting candy from a vending machine (kicking it), or hitting a red light in a rush (cursing loudly)

Question 27

what is the study about young children and the frustration-aggression theory

Answer 27

• participants are young children, see if they take out their frustration on toys
• kids taken into room where they had window looking into other room (other room had a lot of fun looking toys)

manipulation: told they could play with the toys and immediately allowed to play (control) vs. told they could play with the toys and then told you might not be able to something came up (frustration condition-delay) all kids in both groups are eventually let in

child behavior observed when they went into the room with the fun toys by someone who was blinded

Results: found the children in the frustrated condition were more aggressive with the toys

Question 28

explain the study about making calls and the frustration aggression theory

Answer 28

o participants had to make a call to sell something

• one condition told the people tend to hang up, another condition told the people tend to be warm and nice
• then people hang up in both groups

Results: the frustration group (when they expected to succeed) were more aggressive with the phone, cursed and slammed it down
-frustrating because they expected to succeed compared to the group that expected they were going to fail

Question 29

what are the social situational factors that influence aggression

Answer 29

frustration aggression theory, remoteness, provocations, and weapons

Question 30

what does remoteness do

Answer 30

remoteness (physical distance) increases aggression

Question 31

explain the Rutchick et all study about remoteness and aggression (with ladybugs)

Answer 31

• Carefully designed and cleverly designed study for aggression to see if physical closeness influences how aggressive someone is
• Participants led to believe they were killing lady bugs in the study (no bugs were actually harmed), seated in a chair with equipment described as something that needed a usability test performed and could be used to create biological samples and dyes (conveyor belt, things move along it and smash them), told they were smashing ladybugs and practiced twice with ladybugs but could do more if necessary (up to 13), doing more would be beneficial

Manipulation: remoteness of ladybugs being killed, close: ladybugs were in the same room as participants, semi remote condition: same building but different room with live feed, extra remote condition: machine in California while they were in Virginia with live feed

Question 32

what were the results of the remoteness study with ladybugs

Answer 32

Results: measured how many lady bugs participants chose to kill (participants think they are killing ladybugs), participants killed more ladybugs when it happened remotely did not matter if different building or on different side of country, being close to victim decreases aggression

Question 33

what is remoteness relevant to (other concept in class)

Answer 33

Relevant to obedience, being close to victim decreases likelihood of harming them

Question 34

what are the real world implications of remoteness

Answer 34

warfare now tends to occur in drones, drones make killing like a video game and the distance affects (increases) likelihood to harm others

Question 35

what can provocations do

Answer 35

increase aggression

Question 36

what is the study that shows how provocations can increase aggression

Answer 36

have participants write an essay taking a position and a confederate critiques it

• insult condition: worst essay I have ever read, does not make sense and reasoning is stupid
• control: did not get any feedback

dependent variable: noise blasting task,

results: people who were insulted blasted the person with more noise

excuse condition vs. no excuse condition: person grading paper is upset because they received a low grade on test
results: if there was an excuse, aggression decreased

Question 37

what is the evidence about weapons and aggression

Answer 37

weapons prime aggression (correlational and experimental evidence)
-we have known this for decades

Question 38

explain “gun in the room” studies

Answer 38

Participants in a room with a lot of items (told to ignore the things in the room we just have to share this space) manipulate if there is an unloaded gun in the room
-Participants show more aggression when there is a gun in the room

Question 39

explain the driving stimulation with weapon study

Answer 39

Participants partake in a driving stimulation and go in room with stimulation and on the passenger seat there is an item
Control: tennis racket
Aggression: unloaded gun
-In the stimulation there are a lot of frustrating situations that occur (getting cut off, etc.)

Looked to see how people reacted, behavior during stimulation, if the participants tailgated the people who cut them off

Results: participants with a gun were more aggressive than those with a tennis racket on the passenger seat, people drive more aggressively when there is a gun in the car

Question 40

what is some correlational evidence about guns and aggression

Answer 40

• Other studies have done random digit dials and ask people about their driving behavior (road rage) and then asked if they own a gun and if they kept it in their car
• Correlational: those who own a gun and keep it in the car are more likely to show road rage

Question 41

what is the Anderson, Benjamin, & Bartholow (1998) study that shows how priming the idea of weapons can increase violence and aggression

Answer 41

Anything that is connected to a weapon (violence, aggression, etc.), when the weapon is primed, gets activated

• Had participants see images of weapons (guns, clubs and swords) on a computer screen (primed) or images of plants, had to categorize these pictures
• Then participants saw a list of words (neutral and words related to aggression) the words were all mixed up and had to read these words out loud

Dependent measure: how quickly they said this word, if we can respond to something quickly we know it is already on the mind

Results: participants primed with weapons were faster to read the words about aggression, thinking about weapons primes thoughts related to aggression

Question 42

what does the study about priming thoughts of aggression with pictures of guns lead us to

Answer 42

does this increase actual aggression?

found, it actually interacts with personality

Question 43

explain the interaction with personality study on priming guns/aggression

Answer 43

o Prime: associating aggressive words or neutral words (e.g. Knife and slash vs. floor, buy and gift vs. air), participants had to say which of the second words made more sense with the first word, made to think about weapons or control conditions with no weapons

• Measure: decibels of noise administered to “loser” in a game
• Participants agreeableness was also measured in a personality scale

Results: interaction with agreeableness personality, those who were low in agreeableness and had the aggression related prime gave a much higher noise setting to partner

Question 44

show the graph of the interaction with personality study on paper

Answer 44

on paper

Question 45

what is social learning

Answer 45

we learn social behavior by observing and imitating others

• how we learn aggression from others
• applied to behavior more generally (but Bandura’s first experiment focused on aggression) even without being provoked, people can develop expectations about aggression being normal and common

Question 46

how did social learning theory develop

Answer 46

Previous belief was that aggression used to be learned from conditioning (like everything else-behaviorism)

• Bandura realized that people can learn from other people’s behavior, we do not have to be rewarded or punished in order to learn a behavior
• People can engage in other people’s behavior just by watching others do it

Question 47

explain Bandura’s bobo doll study

Answer 47

• Study where kids had to watch adults being aggressive
• Bobo dolls are inflatable toys, they are tall and weighted at the bottom so if you hit it the doll comes back at you
• In this study, there were three conditions: 1) control: children had no exposure to adult role model, 2) aggressive role model: children watched adult behave aggressively to Bobo doll (kicked punched hit and threw the Bobo doll, also said aggressive things “Sock em in the nose!” “Hit him down!” etc.) to the doll), 3) second control, non aggressive model: adult role model played quietly and did not interact with the Bobo doll at all

-Children were watching male and female model through a window, looking into the room full of toys (blocks, dolls, legos, stuffed animals), the Bobo doll was new to kids (novelty could make it interesting to kids, but this does not mean they will interact with it in a certain way)

• Results: in the aggression condition kids imitated the adults, kicked, hit and attacked the Bobo doll in the same way the adults did, also said some of the same things that the adult did, also did some new aggressive things to the Bobo doll (kids used a toy gun on the Bobo doll)
• Kids are like sponges, we have to be careful with the behavior we model to them

Question 48

how can video games and media affect violence

Answer 48

• both priming and learning surrounding violence in media and video games
• decades of research showing that violent media and video games do have an effect on kids and also adults
• affects outward behavior and expectations about if the world is a violent or safe place

Question 49

what are some experimental studies that show how exposure to video games and media affect aggression (three studies: children on playground, noise blasting task, helping in movie)

Answer 49

1) Children are randomly assigned to watch 20 minutes of a TV show that is violent (police drama) or non-violent (sporting event)
- Children then observed playing on the playground and aggressive behavior is recorded by blinded people
- The children who watched 20 minutes of aggressive TV show were more aggressive on the playground

2) College kids who play violent video games for a few minutes behave more aggressively after
- College students who play a violent video game blast people with more decibels of noise on the noise blasting task
- Even at levels that can damage opponents hearing
- Exposure to violence can affect someone’s willingness to help someone

3) Looks at people in movie theatre, on different days, had confederate on crutches with a staged accident (fell and could not get up), one condition happened prior to entering the theatre and the other condition had them leaving the theatre, also had participants either watching a violent movie or not watching a violent movie 2x2 study
- If there was no difference between groups before the movie started, this shows that there is not a difference in personality, rather it is the violence itself (these results were not different)
- There was a difference after the movie between groups who had seen the violent and non-violent movie (those who had seen the violent movie were slower to help)

Question 50

what are the longitudinal studies / correlational studies that show media and video games correlate to aggression

Answer 50

-People who have committed mass shootings are more likely to consume more violent media and video games

• There is a scale that exists that measures people’s beliefs about the world “Belief in a Dangerous World” scale, asks people how often they think these things occur
• Found that both adults and kids, the more media they consumed overall, the more they believed the world is a dangerous place
• Watching television, even if we are not watching something violent, can lead us to start expecting the world is a dangerous place

Question 51

why do video games and the media affect violence

Answer 51

• Not just that we learn it is an option
• But, when we see violence in the media we assume that violence is more common in the world
• When we see so many examples of real violence in TV and movies, it changes our expectations
• Exposure to violence changes expectations about the world and the people we interact with

Question 52

Brown’s example of how expectations were changed by the media

Answer 52

• Watched mob dramas with her husband (ex. The Sopranos), all of these mobs had strong cultures of honor and violence
• Brown’s mom visited her and they stayed in a hotel in Philly, her mom woke up Brown and they both heard a woman screaming across the hall, Brown called the front desk and the police
• before help came Brown was looking through the peep hole, the security guard came and the door closed and did not open (Brown thought the man hurt the security guard or killed him, but he had just knocked and told them to be quiet)

-Case where someone was getting harmed, but the severity of the event was more extreme in Brown’s eyes because of her expectations

Question 53

explain the Bushman and Anderson study about how violent video games influence expectations about a situation

Answer 53

• Study where playing violent video games influences person’s expectations about a situation and what a person feels or thinks
• College students played violent or non-violent video games for 20 minutes
• Completed three ambiguous story stems: indicate what the main character will do or say, think and feel as the story continues

Example: Janet wanted to go on vacation but did not want to go alone. Shannon would go if she could, but she did not have enough money. So Janet decided to go to Shannon’s house to try and convince her to come
-Asked “what happens next? List 20 things that might occur next”

Example of responses from people who played the violent video game:

• Janet will take Shannon’s boyfriend
• Curse at her
• Speak to her with contempt if she disagrees
• Yell at Shannon for thinking of her self
• Drive car through Shannon’s house

Results: violent video game led to more violent expectations and more violent responses

• Those who played violent video games expected people to feel more aggression and anger in these scenarios
• Exposure to violence increases actual aggressive behavior

Question 54

what is catharsis

Answer 54

belief that venting anger towards another target reduces aggression towards the actual target of anger
-The idea that “blowing off steam” (verbally or physically) relieves built up aggression

Question 55

what does research show about catharsis

Answer 55

• does not work
• The opposite happens, when people show anger (even towards a different target) the connection between anger and the initial target still increases

Question 56

Bushman’s study about catharsis (writing essays)

Answer 56

• Iowa students told to write short essay about controversial subject, and then have to read partner’s essay and make comments, experimenter gives all people extremely controversial essay (written by experimenter, not the actual partner), and then gives everyone back very negative comments on their own essay (also written by experimenter, not from partner)
• One group then vents out anger by punching bag, the other group sits and waits quietly
• Then play the noise blasting game

results: The people who did catharsis blasted their partners with more noise than the people who sat and waited quietly

Question 57

so what does the catharsis study show us

Answer 57

When anger is connected to a physically aggressive response, the physically aggressive response is then connected to the initial target that made them angry
-Aggressive schema becomes accessible

Question 58

how can we make non-aggression normal (reducing aggression)

Answer 58

• social learning
  ex. Children watched another child get provoked on video, when they watch one child get provoked and respond without aggression, they are more likely to respond without aggression themselves

Question 59

how else can we make non aggression normal

Answer 59

building empathy

-Taking other people’s perspective in situations, this decreases the likelihood of aggression against the person who provoked them

Study: when participants are given one piece of information about a person’s life, they are less likely to aggress against the person who provoked them in a task where they could administer shocks to another person
-See human as a person with thoughts and feelings