Exam 4 Chapter 12

Question 1

What’s the difference between aggression and violence?

Answer 1

Aggression: any behavior intended to harm a person who doesn’t wish to be harmed (intention to harm someone)

Violence: extreme form of aggression that has severe physical harm as its goal (harm done to person)

Question 2

What’s the difference between instrumental and hostile aggression?

Answer 2

Instrumental: a means to an end; helps achieve a goal (ex: football)

Hostile: an end in itself; results from anger (ex: Will Smith hitting Chris Rock)

Question 3

What’s important to remember about the causes of extreme aggression, like mass shootings?

Answer 3

It requires multiple causal factors to be present

Question 4

What is Freud’s instinct explanation for aggression, and how is it related to catharsis?

Answer 4

Freud says people are innately aggressive; it’s who we are. He believes in catharsis; you must release your aggression before you ‘explode’

Question 5

How could aggression have been evolutionarily adaptive for men?

Answer 5

It established dominance, which women chose for the protection of their offspring. So, aggressive men had more children and passed on the trait

Question 6

How can evolution create both a
drive to be prosocial and a drive to be aggressive?

Answer 6

These behaviors are tools we can use when the situation demands it.
Constant, indiscriminate helping and aggression would not be adaptive

Question 7

How does culture influence aggressive behavior?

Answer 7

Behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions are transmitted from one generation to the next

Question 8

What is the Southern Culture of Honor and why does it exist?

Answer 8

Culture consists of knowledge and beliefs that a group found to be helpful in the past, which were then passed through generations (ex: U.S. southerners are more aggressive bc they used to be herders and had to protect their animals from being stolen)

Question 9

Cohen (1996): What were the methods? What were the major findings?

Answer 9

Studied male Northern and Southern students to see how they would react to someone insulting them. Southerners were more aggressive and had higher testosterone levels

Question 10

How is aggression related to gender?

Answer 10

Men and women have different role models for aggressive behavior. As a result, our culture encourages different kinds of aggression for men and women.

Question 11

What differences in aggression do we find between men and women?

Answer 11

Men are more likely to be violent and inflict serious injury, whereas women are more likely to engage in relational aggression (manipulating relationships), gossiping, shunning, or spreading rumors

Question 12

How do strong or unpleasant sensory experiences (like pain or heat) influence aggression?

Answer 12

Physiological discomfort contributes to aggression.

Question 13

How and why does alcohol influence aggression?

Answer 13

Intoxication makes people more likely to act aggressively. Aggression inhibits cognition, make you lose self-awareness, inhibitions, and people expect to be aggressive when drinking, so they are

Question 14

What is social learning theory? How did it differ compared to the classic behavioral approach to learning?

Answer 14

It suggests that behavior is learned by observing and imitating the behavior of others.
It differs bc the classic behavioral approach to learning says people learn by directly experiencing rewards or punishment

Question 15

Bandura (1961): What were the methods and results of the study?

Answer 15

Children observed an adult playing with an inflatable doll (Bobo) aggressively or not, then were observed to see if they would behave the same way. If the adult was aggressive, the child was also aggressive

Question 16

Why is media violence a significant problem?

Answer 16

Watching violent media makes a person more likely to act aggressively or violently

Question 17

Johnson et al (2002): What were the methods and results of the study?

Answer 17

They tracked 700 families for over 17 years to see how violent media affect people.
Time spent watching TV during adolescence and early adulthood predicted violent acts later in life.

Question 18

How does exposure to media violence increase aggression?

Answer 18

Priming occurs: seeing something makes you more likely to think about it in the future, making you more likely to do that as well

Question 19

What are scripts, and why do aggressive scripts lead to more aggressive acts?

Answer 19

They are expectations for how events typically occur; they develop through observation and help you predict how people act.
If you have aggressive scripts, you’re more likely to predict that a confrontation will lead to aggression or violence.

Question 20

What is desensitization, and why are desensitized people more likely to aggress?

Answer 20

Frequent exposure to something makes it seem less severe. This makes it a more comfortable behavioral choice.

Question 21

Anderson and Dill (2000): What was the methodology? What were the major findings? How did they measure aggressive behavior?

Answer 21

Participants played a violent or non-violent game and then play a ‘competitive’ game with a partner where you could blare loud noise in their ear if you won. Participants that played violent games were likely to be more aggressive

Question 22

What is unique about violent video games that makes them likely to increase aggression compared to violent movies or TV?

Answer 22

They’re more interactive

Question 23

What do we know about the cause-and-effect relationship between violent media and violent people?

Answer 23

Violent media has an impact on people but has the greatest impact on those who are already prone to violent behavior

Question 24

What is Dollard’s (1939) Frustration-Aggression hypothesis? What is displacement? What factors influence how frustrated you become?

Answer 24

The theory that frustration increases the probability of an aggressive response.
Often can’t aggress against thwarter, so we find an easier target to take out anger on

Question 25

When are you more likely to aggress when frustrated?

Answer 25

If you can safely retaliate against the person causing your frustration, that person can’t retaliate, and the person is not physically near

Question 26

When are you less likely to aggress when frustrated?

Answer 26

If frustration is understandable, legitimate, or unintentional

Question 27

What is the difference between absolute and relative frustration? Which is most strongly related to aggression?

Answer 27

Relative: when people think they have less than what they should have
Absolute: not having something (ex: being poor)
Being poor (absolute deprivation) won’t necessarily cause frustration, but being poorer than you think you should be (relative deprivation) will - relative deprivation causes frustration more often

Question 28

What is provocation? Under what conditions are provocations more or less likely to lead to
aggression?

Answer 28

Someone or something annoying you.
If someone actively provokes you, you may reciprocate with aggression.
Less likely to reciprocate if the provocation was unintentional or there were mitigating circumstances

Question 29

What is the hostile attribution bias and how does it contribute to aggression?

Answer 29

The judgment of intent of provocation
If it was intentional, you’re more likely to be violent. If it was unintentional, you’re less likely to be violent

Question 30

What is priming? How are aggressive cues and cognitive priming related to aggression?

Answer 30

Witnessing something makes it more accessible to you
Cognitive priming is the repeated view of something that causes scripts. This is caused by aggressive cues - objects associated with aggression

Question 31

Berkowitz & LePage (1967): What was the methodology? What were the major findings?

Answer 31

Angered people (by shocking them) in a room with either badminton equipment, or a gun lying around
When a gun was present, people gave more intense shocks

Question 32

What is narcissism, and why is it related to aggression?

Answer 32

Where someone has a high view of self-importance. They typically don’t care about people. If they are provoked, insulted, humiliated, etc., they are likely to act aggressively

Question 33

What is antisocial personality disorder, and why is it related to aggression?

Answer 33

A disorder where someone doesn’t care about others and has no regard for whether their behavior is right or wrong
They have few inhibitions against aggression, either moral or emotional and are likely to end up in prison

Question 34

What is the dark triad, and why is it related to aggression?

Answer 34

3 personality traits that occur together - narcissism (inflated self-esteem), psychopathy (antisocial personality), and machiavellianism (manipulation)
Each contributes to aggressiveness

Question 35

How is catharsis supposed to relieve aggression? Is it actually effective?

Answer 35

Releasing your anger is supposed to make you less likely to behave aggressively
It is ineffective; it tends to lead to more aggression over time

Question 36

What did Geen et al (1975) find about acting aggressively that failed to support catharsis?

Answer 36

They conducted an experiment where participants were angered by being given shocks. Half were allowed to shock someone else, and half were not. Then everyone was allowed to give shocks. Those who had already given shocks gave more intense shocks

Question 37

What are effective methods for reducing aggression, and why do they work?

Answer 37

Teach kids new skills/strategies to use instead of violence, model nonaggressive behavior and show that things can be solved in a calm manner, and allow the anger to dissipate by counting to 10 or distracting yourself

Question 38

What’s the best method for dealing with someone who makes you mad?

Answer 38

You should talk to them and explain in a calm way what made you angry

Question 39

Why do psychologists not encourage violent punishment for violent behavior? What kind of punishment does work, and why does it work?

Answer 39

Harsh punishment usually backfires.
1) The child might stop for now but will likely become more aggressive and antisocial over time
2) If yelled at, they might respond with anxiety/anger rather than realizing they were wrong and should fix their behavior
3) Extreme punishments, like spanking, can cause a child to develop depression, low self-esteem, violent behavior, etc
4) It tells the child what not to do, but doesn’t tell them what they should do
Mild/nonviolent punishment works

Question 40

What is the dual-hormone hypothesis?

Answer 40

States that testosterone only relates to dominance-seeking behaviors when the stress hormone, cortisol, is low

Question 41

What is the challenge hypothesis?

Answer 41

States that testosterone and aggression are only related when opportunities for reproduction are high

Question 42

What are sexual scripts, and how can they contribute to sexual assault?

Answer 42

Sets of implicit rules that specify proper sexual behavior for a person in a given situation and vary according to the person’s gender, age, religion, social status, and peer group
American sexual scripts are mixed regarding the meaning of the word no

Question 43

How can we counter dehumanization using empathy?

Answer 43

Building empathy helps aggressive acts to become more difficult to commit