CH12 Aggression Flashcards
Intentional behavior aimed at doing harm
or causing pain to another person.
Aggression
Aggression as a means to some goal
other than causing pain.
Instrumental Aggression
Aggression stemming from feelings of
anger and aimed at inflicting pain.
Hostile Aggression
Aggression is genetically programmed into men because it enables them to defend their group and perpetuate their genes; males also aggress out of sexual jealousy to protect their paternity. A hormone involved in male aggression is testosterone (which both sexes have in varying levels), but the aggression-testosterone link is modest, and each affects the other. There is substantial variation in the degree of aggressiveness among human males and also among our two closest animal relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. Even if aggressive behavior has survival value, nearly all animals have also evolved strong inhibitory mechanisms that enable them to suppress aggression when they need to.
The Evolutionary Argument
- Innate tendencies,
- Various learned inhibitory
responses - The precise nature of the social situation.
Whether or not aggressive action is actually
expressed depends on a complex interplay between:
Those in the American South and Southwest and in the Middle East, men are raised to respond aggressively to perceptions of threat and disrespect, a response that originated in economic conditions. In such cultures, the rate of physical abuse of women is often higher than elsewhere because such abuse is regarded as a male prerogative. Multiple factors shape whether or not a culture tends to nurture aggressive behavior, including the extent to which male aggression fulfills a central part of the male role and identity.
Cultures of Honor,
Aggressive behaviors are associated with an area in the core of the brain called
Amygdala
A chemical substance that occurs
naturally in the midbrain, seems to inhibit
impulsive aggression.
Serotonin
A male sex hormone is also associated with aggression.
Testosterone
The idea that frustration—the perception
that you are being prevented from attaining a goal—increases the probability of an aggressive response.
Frustration-Aggression Theory
Barker, Dembo, & Lewin (1941): Children who played with toys immediately played
joyfully. Children frustrated by waiting were extremely destructive: Many smashed the toys, threw them against the wall, stepped on them, and so forth.
Frustration-Aggression Theory
An object that is associated with aggressive
responses and whose mere presence can
increase the probability of aggression.
Aggressive Stimulus
The idea that we learn social behavior (e.g.,
aggression) by observing others and
imitating them.
Social Learning Theory
Holds that people often learn social behavior, including aggression, through observational learning—observing and imitating others, especially people or institutions they respect. But their actual behavior also depends on their beliefs, perceptions, and interpretations of what they observe.
Behave Aggressively Social-cognitive Learning Theory
Alcohol can increase aggressive behavior because it serves as a disinhibitor, reducing a person’s inhibitions. Alcohol also disrupts the way people usually process information so that they may respond to the most obvious aspects of a social situation and fail to pick up its subtle elements. But thanks to the “think-drink” effect, when people expect alcohol to have certain effects, it often does. When people are in pain or in a very hot environment, they are more likely to act aggressively.
Physiological Influences
The mere presence of a gun, an aggressive stimulus, in an otherwise neutral situation increases the degree of aggressive behavior, especially if a person is already feeling angry or frustrated. In a classic study, participants angered in the presence of a gun administered stronger electric shocks to their “victim” than those angered in the same setting in which a tennis racket was substituted for the gun.
Weapons as Aggressive Cues
Ways of behaving socially that we
learn implicitly from our culture.
Scripts
The notion that “blowing off steam”—by
performing an aggressive act, watching
others engage in aggressive behaviors,
or engaging in a fantasy of aggression—
relieves built-up aggressive energies and
hence reduces the likelihood of further
aggressive behavior.
Catharsis
If punishment is itself aggressive, it actually models such behavior to children and may engender greater aggressiveness. Punishment may also enhance the attractiveness of the transgression to the child, get the attention that the child is hoping for, or backfire by making the child anxious and angry. Punishment often fails to reduce aggression because it does not communicate what the target should do, only what he or she should not do. For punishment to serve as a deterrent to misbehavior or criminal acts, it must be both prompt and certain. For that reason, in the complex world of criminal justice, severe punishment is unlikely to deter violent crime.
Does Punishing Aggression Reduce Aggression?
Research participants who inflicted either
psychological or physical harm on an innocent person who had done them no prior harm then derogated their victims, convincing themselves they were not nice people and therefore deserved what they got. This reduces dissonance—and it also sets the
stage for further aggression.
Blaming the Victim of Our Aggression
When a nation is at war, its people are more
likely to commit aggressive acts against one
another. Being at war serves to legitimize violence as a way to address difficult problems.
The Effect of War on General Aggression
