Institutional Aggression Flashcards
What is institutional violence ?
Refers to violent behaviour that exists within-and may be a defining feature of -certain institutions or groups. It can also refer to other forms of collective violence between social groups based on the racial, national or religious characteristics of members of one group.
Who came up with the importation model?
Irwin and Cressey (1962)
What does the importation model claim ?
People who enter prison do so already possessing certain characteristics (I.e values, attitudes) that predispose them toward interpersonal violence within prison.
According to the importation model, is aggression a product of the institution ?
No, violent characteristics if the prison environment don’t play a part, but rather the characteristics of those violent individuals who enter such institutions.
Importation- what do statistics suggest about young inmates ?
They have a more difficult time adjusting to prison; thus are more likely to have confrontations with other inmates and with prison staff, and are more likely to view violence as an appropriate way to deal with conflicts in prison.
Importation - research in the US
Black inmates are more likely to be associated with interpersonal violence compared to white. Explanation typically offers for this is that more black prisoners enter prison from impoverished communities with higher rates of violent crime. As a result they’re more likely to bring (import) into prison the cultural Norms that condone violent behaviour.
Who came up with the deprivation model ?
Sykes (1958)
What does the deprivation model claim ?
It’s the characteristic of the prison itself rather than the prison population that accounts for violence in prisons. Proponents if this model argue that is is primarily the experience of imprisonment that causes extreme stress and frustration for inmates and this, in turn, leads to violence against other inmates or members or prison staff.
What did Sykes suggest are some if the prison experience factors that might be expected to contribute to interpersonal aggression as a response to these factors ?? (Worded really well m8).
Loss of freedom, boredom, discomfort and loneliness.
What does social psychological research suggest about other factors that would also be more likely to contribute towards violence around inmates ?
Heat, noise, overcrowding . For example the overcrowding crisis in UK prisons has forced many inmates to share cells, and this is linked to an increase in interpersonal aggression.
How can zimbardo’s experiment be used to back up the deprivation model ?
Situation can have a powerful influence on peoples willingness to inflict harm on others. Stanford prison experiments , institutional factors such as lack of external constraints and peer pressure led to the guards disregard for their actions against the prisoners. Suggests that individuals are at a greater risk of deviating from societal norms of acceptable conduct.
What did zimbardo also claim about the psychological process of SPE with regards to Abu ghraib?
Deindividuation, dehumanisation, group conformity and lack of supervision. Zimbardo believes that institutional aggression depends much on the circumstances, in partcular the external influences found in the SPE and Abu ghraib.
What did zimbardo believe about institutional aggression between groups? And what piece of research supports this ?
More likely to be aggressive when they dehumanise or label others in a way that removes the moral constraints that usually inhibit violent behaviour.
Bandura et al. participants overheard an assistant refer to students from another school as animals , while in other condition students were referred to as nice. When later requires to deliver what they thought were real electric shocks to other students, higher shocks were given to the ‘animal’ condition 🙀
In what real -life conflict is aggression from dehumanisation evident ?
Rowandan genocide in 1994, the influential Hutu- controlled hate radio station RTLM encouraged other Hutus to turn against their Tutsi neighbours by referring to them as inyenzi- cockroaches.
What is a piece of research support for the importation model ?
Harer and Steffensmeir (1996) analysed data from 58 US prisons and found black inmates displayed significantly higher levels of violent behaviour but Lower rates of alcohol and drug misconduct Compared to whites. Concluded that these differences reflected racial differences in these behavious in US society generally, supporting the claim that characteristics are imported into the prison environment.
