Hormone Explanation for Aggression Flashcards
What are hormones?
Chemical messengers that transmit information around the body carried in the blood, produced by glands
What is testosterone?
Androgen which influences areas of the brain e.g. prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hypothalamus
What does testosterone do to the amygdala?
Lowers activation threshold of amygdala so it takes less to activate it, making it more active
How does cortisol impact testosterone and aggression?
Cortisol inhibits aggression the same way testosterone increases it and low levels of cortisol have been associated with aggression
What is adrenaline?
Hormone linked to flight or fight reaction to a stimuli that triggers a need to be physically strong or fast
What are higher levels of oestradiol associated with?
Lower levels of aggressive behaviour in children and female offenders
How does Dabbs support the Hormone Explanation for Aggression?
Found
higher levels in violent offenders than in burglars and thieves (non-violent offenders) when measuring testosterone in saliva of adult prisoners so there is
evidence of a correlation between testosterone and aggression
How does Mazur conflict the Hormone Explanation for Aggression?
Playing a non-aggressive game, such as chess, increases the testosterone
levels of the winners and decreases the testosterone levels of the losers so seems to be more about dominance/success and is not a direct cause of aggression
How is the Hormone Explanation for Aggression empirical and objective?
You can directly measure the hormones in the blood so it is a credible explanation because you can directly see their relationship with aggression
Why are there cause and effect issues with the Hormone Explanation for Aggression?
Most of the research about hormones and aggression are correlational so we’re not sure whether testosterone causes increased aggression or whether increased aggression causes an increase in testosterone which means it may not be a cause but as a result
Why is the Hormone Explanation for Aggression good for society/individuals?
Explain why some people are more aggressive than others
through variations in hormone levels making it a more useful and credible explanation of where
aggression comes from because it accounts for how hormones might influence people differently
Why is the Hormone Explanation for Aggression reductionist?
Ignores other explanations such as Social Learning Theory says we learn through observing others and imitating them so questions the credibility of this explanation as
inherited genes aren’t the only cause of aggression
