Chapter 12 Flashcards
What are analogues?
Device or measure intended to faithfully mimic the ‘real thing’.
What is instinct?
Innate drive or impulse, genetically transmitted.
What is ethology?
Approach that argues that animal behaviour should be studied in the species’ natural physical and social environment. Behaviour is genetically determined and is controlled by natural selection.
What are releasers?
Specific stimuli in the environment thought by ethologists to trigger aggressive responses.
What is fighting instinct?
Innate impulse to aggress, which ethologists claim is shared by humans with other animals.
What are biosocial theories?
In the context of aggression, theories that emphasise an innate component, though not the existence of a full-blown instinct.
What is the excitation-transfer model?
The expression of aggression is a function of learned behaviour, some excitation from another source, and the person’s interpretation of the arousal state.
What is social learning theory?
The view championed by Bandura that human social behaviour is not innate but learned from appropriate models.
What is learning by direct experience?
Acquiring a behaviour because we were previously rewarded for it.
What is learning by vicarious experience?
Acquiring a behaviour after observing that another person was rewarded for it.
What is modelling?
Tendency for a person to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real-life or symbolic model. Also called observational learning.
What is catharsis?
A dramatic release of pent-up feelings; the idea that aggressive motivation is ‘drained’ by acting against a frustrating object (or substitute), or by a vicarious experience.
What is cathartic hypothesis?
The notion that acting aggressively, or even just viewing aggressive material, reduces feelings of anger and aggression. It is related to the arousal states explanation of aggression.
What is the general aggression model?
Anderson’s model that includes both personal and situational factors, and cognitive, arousal and affective processes, in accounting for different kinds of aggression. Leading to either a thoughtful or impulsive encounter.
What is desensitisation?
A serious reduction in a person’s responsiveness to material that usually evokes a strong emotional reaction, such as violence or sexuality.
What is a neo-associationist analysis?
A view of aggression according to which mass media may provide images of violence to an audience that later translate into antisocial acts.
What is aggressive behaviour?
Behaviour directed towards the goal of harming/injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment
What are the three components of aggressive behaviour?
- Harm (actual/potential)
- Intention to do harm
- Norm deviation - aggression is an evaluation term
Intention to do harm and norm deviation are subject to interpretation
What are some factors to consider before labelling behaviour as aggressive?
There are perspective-specific differences between the actor and the victim, labelling a harmful act as an initial action or a reaction and situational pressures may question intention to do arm (like collateral damage)
What are the biological explanations for aggression?
Aggression is seen as an instinct that is functional for survival - urge to aggress being innate and expression being conditional to environment < often defended by evolutionary social psychologists, although it is a circular argument
What are the bio-social explanations for aggression?
That a state of arousal is necessary for aggressive behaviour to occur. Frustration-aggression hypothesis and excitation transfer model of aggression fall under this.
What is the frustration-aggression hypothesis?
Theory that all frustration leads to aggression, and all aggression comes from frustration. Used to explain prejudice and intergroup aggression.
What is the Excitation-Transfer model of Aggression?
The expression of aggression is a function of learned behaviour, some excitation from another source, and the person’s interpretation of the arousal state.
What are the learned behaviour explanations for aggression?
Aggression is learned through rewards and punishment and also through modelling
