Chapter 13 - Aggression Flashcards
1- Define aggression and distinguish between hostile and instrumental aggression
(be prepared to identify examples)
- Aggression: physical or verbal behaviour intended to harm a person
who does not want to be harmed - Hostile aggression: motivated by anger/hostility
Primary goal is to injure - Instrumental aggression: motivated by considerations other than anger/hostility
Goal is to injure, but only in as a means to some other end (e.g., accumulating resources or enhancing one’s social status, advancing
political or ideological causes)
2- Describe the evolutionary view on aggression, and explain how evolutionary theory accounts for higher rates of violence in men compared to women.
- Aggression is part of our basic
programming—results from evolutionary
pressures - Purposeful aggression improves odds of
survival and reproduction - If you don’t compete for mates and the
resources you need to survive, won’t get
to pass on your genes - Evidence of this programming can still be
seen in our modern-day behaviour
Across cultures & across time, men dramatically more likely to engage in physical aggression than women - E.g., 79% of violent crime committed by men (BJS
- Evolutionary view: men’s greater propensity towards violence derives in
part from their historically greater need to compete for mates
Experimental study (Ainsworth & Maner, 2012): - Male Ps primed to think of sexual desire more willing to deliver
painful blasts of noise to a same-sex partner - No such effect for women
3- . Describe the frustration-aggression hypothesis.
a. Define frustration and displaced aggression
b. What research evidence supports the frustration-aggression hypothesis?
c. How can the frustration-aggression hypothesis account for the link for poor
economic conditions and/or income inequality and aggression?
d. In what situations is frustration-driven aggression most likely to be
observed?
- Frustration: blocking of goal-directed behaviour
-Frustration-aggression hypothesis: frustration increases likelihood of aggression - E.g., Ps give stronger shocks to a partner
whose incompetence prevented them
from winning a desirable prize (Buss, 1963)
-Displaced aggression: aggression directed
towards a target other than the source of
one’s frustration - E.g., the vending machine eats your money
and you snap at your friend
c. May help in explain link between aggression & poor
economic conditions
* Not just complete deprivation—also the gap between what you expect and what you get
* Relative deprivation: perception that one is less well off than others with whom one compares oneself
* You live in a hut and so do all your neighbours VS.
* You live in a hut but your neighbours live in a
mansion & own a yacht
* Higher levels of income inequality positively associated with violent crime
* Ps made to feel less well-off compared to others exhibit
more aggression (Greitemeyer & Sagioglou, 2016)
d. * Link between frustration & aggression stronger in some conditions than
others
* The closer the person is to the goal, the more frustrating it is to have the
goal blocked & thus greater the likelihood of aggression
* E.g., when waiting in long line to purchase a movie ticket, people
nearer to the ticket window are more likely than people at the back
of the line to be aggressive towards a person cutting in line (Harris,
1974)
* Aggression more likely to result from arbitrary vs. non-arbitrary
frustration
* Is your progress toward the goal blocked for a good reason or on a
whim? (display Kit Kats example)
- Explain why physical pain is associated with aggression.
Pain often signals the presence of a serious, proximate threat to
survival (acts like an alarm system)
* In some cases, may be able to flee the threat—but often fighting is your best chance
* Thus, pain triggers a defensive state that may facilitate survival
* However, can also lead to aggression against those
who are not the source of the pain
-Pain promotes aggressiveness in humans as
well (perhaps you can remember lashing out
at your roommate after stubbing your toe)
* Lab study (Berkowitz et al., 1981):
* Had Ps immerse hand either in bucket of
lukewarm water OR freezing-cold ice water (physical pain condition)
* Ps experiencing pain administered greater
number of loud noise blasts to confederate (measure of
aggression)
Also psychological
pain (Papini et al., 2015)
* Get smaller reward than expected
* Don’t get the reward at all
* Barrier placed between individual and
reward
* Pigeons trained to expect grain reward after
pecking at disk exhibit aggression if reward is
omitted (Potegal, 2019)
- Describe social pain theory
a. Identify the brain regions related to processing social pain
b. Summarize the research on rejection and aggression
c. Explain why aggression often occurs in response to social rejection
- Social pain: aversive emotional reaction to
experiences of social loss (e.g., breakups or
bereavement), rejection, ostracism (being left out),
or relational devaluation (feeling less valued as
romantic partner, friend, etc. than you might
want)
a. * Pain experience can be divided into two, dissociable components
* Sensory-discriminative component: what, where, how intense is it?
Involves primary somatosensory cortex (strip of parietal lobe containing a “map” of your body)
* Affective component: how unpleasant is it? Involves dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula
* The affective component of pain gives it its motivational force
Captures attention (alarm system)
Motivates action
b. Twenge et al., 2001:
* Ps who had received fake feedback that i) they had been rejected by others, or ii) they were destined to end up alone in life, exhibited higher
levels of aggression (e.g., blasting noise)
* Showed aggression even towards targets not
involved in rejection episode
* Like physical pain, experience of social pain may contribute to a defensive stance that promotes aggression
c. By-product of tapping into a defensive system designed to deal with threat in
general (MacDonald & Leary, 2005)
* Pain may activate aggressive
impulses fairly automatically—similar to crying urge
- Explain why hot weather is associated with increased aggression
Studies:
Violent (but not nonviolent) crimes more frequent in hottest regions of countries & during hottest time of year (Anderson et al., 1989)
* Baseball pitchers more likely to hit batters with the ball as the weather gets hotter (Reifman et al., 1991)
* Road rage higher on hotter days relative to cooler days (Kenrick &
MacFarlane, 1986)
Why?
* Misattribution of arousal: ascribing arousal resulting from one source to a different source
* E.g., may be unpleasantly aroused by the heat but unaware of the source of arousal—instead attribute it to some other source, like
one’s romantic partner
Excitation transfer theory: leftover arousal caused by an initial event
can intensify emotional reactions to a second event (Zillmann et al.,
1972)
- Describe cognitive neoassociation theory
a. Describe the weapons effect and summarize the research showing this
effect
Coginitive neoassociation theory: Aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behavioural tendencies are linked
together in memory in networks
* When one concept or node is activated, this activation spreads to related concepts and increases their activation as well
a. Weapons effect: First manipulation:
* Ps given either small or large number of electric shocks
* Then given chance to retaliate against person who shocked them
* Second manipulation:
* Handgun on the table
* Badminton racquet on the table
* Nothing on the table
* Ps gave confederate more shocks if there was a handgun on the table
* Especially if had been angered first
- Describe how exposure to media and video game violence is related to aggression
- Controversial topic with mixed evidence
- Some discrepancies may be due to subpar methods
- Third variable problems, tension b/w internal & external validity
- Moderating factors—personality differences, exact nature of the
content, recency of exposure, etc.
How might exposure to violent media increase aggression? - Weapons effect
- Recall that frequent activation of a concept results in it becoming
more chronically accessible - Learning of aggressive scripts
(check textbook)
- Explain how social and cultural factors influence aggression
a. Describe social learning theory
i. Define vicarious reinforcement and vicarious punishment
b. Describe how differences in aggression between men and women can be
explained from a gender socialization perspective
a. * Social learning theory: we learn aggressive behaviour by observing others
(Bandura, 1983)
b. Children mimic an adult’s aggressive
behaviour without being instructed to
do so
* Vicarious reinforcement: An increase in
a behavior due to the observer
witnessing the model being reinforced
for that behavior
* Vicarious punishment: A decrease in a
behavior due to the observer witnessing
the model being punished for that
behavior
c. Startled baby more likely to be seen as angry if male, fearful if female
(Condry & Condry, 1976)
* Starting early in life, men are socialized to value and exhibit dominant
aggressive behaviour while women are socialized to value and exhibit
empathy & compassion
* (Relational aggression: harm is caused through damage to social relationships or social status, rather than through physical injury
* Form of aggression more likely to be shown by women
* Also thought to be influenced by social norms)
- Define culture of honour, and explain why aggression is more common in these
cultures
Prevalent in U.S. South
* Characterized by 1) strong concerns about
one’s own reputation, as well as the reputation, and 2) willingness to defend
one’s honour after injury or insult
* Thought to derive from history as herders
* More likely to respond with anger and aggression to insult (Cohen et al., 1996)
* More accepting of violence in the defense of
one’s honour (Cohen & Nisbett, 1997)
- Describe how personality may shape propensity toward aggression
a. Explain why people high in rejection sensitivity may be prone to aggression in certain contexts
- Person factors include all the characteristics a person brings to the situation, such as personality traits and genetic predispositions
- Personality can be thought of as the sum of a person’s knowledge structures (schemas, scripts, and so on) (Mischel, 1999)
- Certain types of people may be more likely to aggress because of tendency toward hostile, negative attributions, construals, & expectations
- Additionally, certain traits may make people more likely to certain kinds
of threats—e.g., - Narcissism
- Rejection sensitivity
Rejection sensitivity:
* Dispositional tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and strongly react to social rejection
* Social experiences are filtered through prior expectations
* Perceive intentional rejection in ambiguous behaviour of others
(negative construals)
* Automatic link between rejection- and aggression-related cognitions
* Quicker to respond to words like “hit” after being primed with words
like “abandon”
* Vicious cycle: perceived or anticipated rejection triggers aggressive
responses, which are likely to elicit rejection from close others
- Describe how genes may interact with environment to shape propensity toward
aggression
- The evolutionary view is predicted on the
idea that certain genes will promote aggressive tendencies - Aggression is a highly complex behaviour,
with no single gene acting as a determinant - Further, genetic & situational factors interact
to predict aggressive behaviour - E.g., MAOA gene & childhood environment interact to predict aggressive & criminal behaviour in men
(Caspi et al., 2002)
OPRM1 gene: affects how effectively a class of chemical messengers called endogenous opioids can bind to their receptors
* Endogenous opioids are the body’s natural painkillers
* People who carry a particular variant of the OPRM1 gene (118G) more
sensitive to physical pain, require more physical pain medication post-surgery, etc.
-Not surprisingly, people feel less secure when their partner does something
hurtful
* But this was especially true for the G allele carriers
Thus, may expect to see contributions of many genes—genes that shape how sensitive we are to rejection, how much physiological arousal we experience, how good we are at exercising self-control, etc.
* Genes interact with environment
* In some cases, a gene that leads to negative outcome in negative social circumstances may also lead to positive outcome in positive social
circumstances (differential susceptibility hypothesis)
- Define dehumanization, explain how it contributes to aggression, and identify
when it is likely to occur
Dehumanization: stripping of other people of human characteristics (Black
Mirror example)
* Feelings of social connection may increase dehumanization of outgroup
members (Waytz & Epley, 2012)
(read textbook)
- Describe the factors that may inhibit reappraisal following provocation.
-Automatic vs. Effortful Cognition:
Recall the dual-process model of cognition and its implications for the
kinds of attributions we make in ambiguous situations
* According to Gilbert (1989), we rapidly & automatically characterize people based on their behaviour
* Only after do we consciously ponder what we know about the situation
& adjust our initial inference
* IF we have sufficient mental resources
-Implications for Aggression
Behaviour in a provocative situation can be based either on a relatively automatic appraisal or a more deliberate reappraisal (Anderson & Bushman,
2002)
* “He’s such a jerk!” (initial automatic appraisal)
* “He just had a bad day” (more deliberate reappraisal)
* Must have sufficient cognitive resources available
* Fatigue, cognitive overload, lack of sleep
* Alcohol
* Diet?
* Biological factors (e.g., prefrontal cortex damage—Phineas Gage)
* Some strong threats (e.g., physical or social pain) may make it more difficult to reappraise because they shift us into a highly reactive, defensive state
* Note that in some cases reappraisal may actually be more likely to lead to
aggression
-Self-Awareness & Moral Standards:
Hold moral standards that contribute to selfregulation of behaviour
* Factors that reduce self-awareness or override our moral standards should
contribute to aggression & violence
* Deindividuation processes
* Moral justifications: “it’s for their own good”, “it’s for the good of society”
Dehuminization
