Chapter 1 Flashcards
According to Pinker what is the decline of violence?
fractal phenomenon
PInker: 4 explanations why violence has declined.
- Anarchy (invade your neighbors before they invade you)
- Life was seen as “cheap”
- Non-Zero Sum game. “non-violence benefits both parties.”
- Circle “we now have empathy”
What 4 concepts are related to violence and aggression?
- Elusive 2. Ubiquitious 3. Transforming 4. Thrilling
Buss Definition 1961
Aggression is a response that delivers noxious stimuli to another organism
Dollard
Aggression…is an act whose goal response is injury to an organism
What does goal response mean?
Motivation and striving (intent)
Dollard 1939
Accidents are NOT aggression because there is no goal response.
Baron and Richardson
Aggression in any form of behavior direct towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment.
Cambridge Dictionary Definition of aggression
Spoken or physical behavior which is threatening or involving harm to someone or something.
Aggressive (non-negative)
Being determined to win or succeed and using strong methods to achieve victory or success.
Working definiton of aggression
Aggression is the delivery or an aversive stimulus from one person to another with intent to harm and with an expectation of causing such harm, when the other person is motivated to escape or avoid stimulus.
Forms of aggression:
Gossip, Damaging property, social snub
**It is customary to classify aggressive behavior into two categories.
- affective aggression 2. instrumental aggression
Affective aggression
in which harming the victim is the main motive for the action
Instrumental aggression
– which may or may not involve strong emotions but it is motivated by concerns more important to the aggressor than harm doing itself.
Delayed response
state of impulse, it disposes the person to action, it is often accompanied by bodily arousal. – It can be preoccupation that takes attention away from other matters.
Reactive aggression
aggressive behavior that is enacted in response to provocation, such as attack or an insult its manifested in both self-defense and angry reactions (Crick & Dodge 1996)
Proactive aggression
aggression that is initiated without apparent provocation, not evoked by anger, hostility, or the needs to defend oneself. Motive – Obtaining goods, asserting power, assuming the approval of reference groups and other goals.
Lorenz’s definition of aggression
Behavior triggers by specific external stimuli following a progressive accumulation of aggression specific energy within the person.
Three types of research methods
- Observation
- Correlation
- Experimental
Outcomes
Likely hood of aggression being rewarded
Self-effacy
If reinforced child also develops a sense of confidence in his or her ability to execute the necessary aggressive behaviors
Cerebral Cortex
(important part in aggression as a cognitive processes in relation of provocation and aggression.
organizing effects
Influence the bodily development and structure and function of the nervous system in the fetus prior to birth
Activating effects
CAN CAUSE CHANGES IN THE MOODS AND behaviors of animals after birth, outcomes that are called
A definition of aggression was presented that focuses on three aspects
namely harmful consequences, intention and expectancy of inflicting harm, and desire by the target person to avoid the harmful treatment.
Intention
inflicting harm on the target,
Anticipation
that the action will produce a particular outcome.
Baron and Richardson (1994) has three important implications:
Aggressive behaviour is characterised by its underlying motivation (to harm or injure another living being), not by its consequences (whether or not harm or injury actually occurs).
A necessary feature of the intention to harm is the actor’s understanding that the behaviour in question has the potential to cause harm or injury to the target.
Defining aggression as behaviour that the target would want to avoid means that actions that may cause harm but which are performed with the target’s consent, such as painful medical treatment, do not represent instances of aggression.
Direct aggression
Direct aggression involves a face-to-face confrontation between the aggressor and the target,
Indirect aggression
aimed at harming other people behind their back by spreading rumours about them or otherwise damaging their peer relationships
Hostile
primary motive for aggressive behaviour may be either the desire to harm another person as an expression of negative feelings
Instrumental
aim of achieving an intended goal by means of the aggressive act,
Coersion
is defined by Tedeschi and Felson (1994, p. 168) as “an action taken with the intention of imposing harm on another person or forcing compliance.”
Violence
intention of causing serious harm that involve the use or threat of physical force,
physical force
such as hitting someone over the head, or – in the ultimate form – taking another person’s life.
Geen/ Archer definition of violence
“the infliction of intense force upon persons or property for the purposes of destruction, punishment, or control” (Geen, 1995, p. 669), or as “physically damaging assaults which are not socially legitimised in any way” (Archer & Browne, 1989, p. 11).
6 functions of violent behavior
(1) change of, or escape from, aversive situations; (2) positive reinforcement (i.e., attainment of a particular goal); (3) release of negative affective arousal; (4) resolution of conflict; (5) gaining of respect; and (6) attack on a culturally defined “enemy,” (i.e., a member of a devalued out-group).
Structural violence
is seen as a latent feature of social systems that leads to social inequality and injustice
measurement reactivity
(i.e., people’s tendency to change their usual patterns of behaviour because they are aware that they are under observation).
Observational measures in natural contexts mainly come in two forms:
Naturalistic observation and field experience
Naturalistic observation
which the researcher records behaviour as it unfolds naturally without manipulating the situation in any way,
Field experience
systematic yet unobtrusive manipulation of certain variables to observe the effects of that manipulation on the likelihood of aggressive behaviour.
laboratory experiments. In this setting, situations can be created by the investigator to meet three essential criteria:
- that respondents are exposed to an experimental manipulation aimed at influencing their aggressive response tendencies
2.that they can be randomly assigned to the experimental and control conditions
3 that many factors which might influence participants’ behaviour over and above the experimental treatment can be controlled.
Goal direction
reactive (hostile) proactive (instrumental)
response quality
action vs failure to act
immediacy
direct vs indirect
visibility
overt vs covert
instigation
unprovoked vs retaliative
Types of damage
psysical vs psychological
duration of effects
trasient vs long term
social units involved
individual vs groups
