Lecture 2 Flashcards
1
Q
Define aggression
A
- A behaviour that is intended to harm another person who is motivated to avoid that harm
2
Q
What are the 5 components of aggression?
A
- Aggression is a behaviour, thoughts of being aggressive are not included. Getting angry or having hostile attitudes are not aggression BUT can be a measure of aggression
- Behaviour must be deliberate/intentional
- Behaviour must aim to harm the recipient in some form = harm is physical and emotional
- Aggression must be towards another person e.g punching wall in private = not aggression, BUT used as intimidation = aggression
- Action aimed at a person who is motivated to avoid the harm = hard to discern but self-harm/suicide is not aggression
3
Q
What is the difference between violence and aggression?
A
Violence is subset of aggression = physical damage
4
Q
What are the terms for aggression?
A
- Reactive: hostile, hot-blooded vs Proactive: instrumental, cold blooded
- Direct: face to face, indirect: slightly more anonymous e.g social media
- Physical vs Verbal
- Domestic Violence: coercive controlling violence
5
Q
Elaborate Proactive vs Reactive:
A
- Major distinction is motivation in aggression
Proactive:- For gain e.g money/sex
- Unprovoked
- Planned/premeditated
- Predatory
- Little emotion - cold-blooded
Reactive: - Reacting to anger/frustration
- Provoked
- Impulsive
- Defensive
- Emotion - hot-blooded
Distinction is not binary and some acts are hard to classify
6
Q
How to study violence?
A
- Crime stats: using convictions BUT most acts are not reported
- Informants: professionals or others that know them well report on activities but this has ethical issues
- Lab behaviour: difficult to get people to be aggressive in lab, some studies provoke aggression outside the lab e.g bump into a student in the corridor and insult them
- Self-report: questionnaires for behaviour: issues of lying and self-awareness as well as ethics and pragmatics
7
Q
What did Cohen et al do? (South)
A
- Thought violence occurred more in the South of USA due to excess feuds = farm type places = need to defend territory = honour culture
- Students studying in a Northern State, divided them into the state of origin
- Examined reaction to an insult - just before experiment, a confederate bumps into them in the corridor and calls them an asshole
- Took a range of measures from levels of testosterone to strength of handshake
- Found those who had been bumped into shook hands more firmly and had higher testosterone levels
- Northern - T had gone up but handshake did not change a lot, South - T had a huge increase and handshake changed a lot
8
Q
What did Milgram do?
A
- How violent someone would be to someone else under instructions to do so: learning experiments and memory as a cover: multiple ppts thought they were shocking the learner to their death
- Now use noise blasts or hot sauce to look at levels of aggression
9
Q
What did Anderson and Bushman do?
A
- Lab experiments can test causal propositions e.g playing a violent video game increases aggression, and therefore discover theoretical relations among variables that are never sufficiently isolated in the real world
- Meta-analysed studies in real world and in lab = confirmed same pattern for both types of study
10
Q
What do video games do to aggression?
A
- Two groups: one played mortal combat and the other played golf for 10 mins
- Competed against a confed on a reaction time task
- Ppts received a punishment of a white noise blast
- First half of trial ppts told opponent set level of punishment but this was reversed in second half
- Confed was female
- Told purpose was to look at effect of video games on RT
RESULTS: - Video games do cause greater aggression AND effect is stronger for men
- Without the cue to violence (golf), men were no more aggressive than women
11
Q
What is the relationship between Gender and Aggression?
A
- Men are more aggressive/violent: mate selection, defending territory
- Homicide is carried out nearly exclusively by men (10:1)
- Field and Lab studies show males show greater physical aggression (especially unprovoked)
- No differences in verbal aggression
- Females may show more indirect aggression - at least young females
12
Q
What is the relationship between Drugs/Alcohol and aggression?
A
- In 50% of official recorded violence, person is intoxicated
- Even in lab studies with small amounts of alcohol, there is a clear effect of alcohol
- But alcohol does not cause violence in itself - magnifies pre-existing problems
13
Q
Genes/Env and aggression?
A
- Nature vs nurture
- Longitudinal study with children
- Looking at childhood maltreatment: no, probable, severe
- Looked at MAOA gene
- Interaction between high MAOA and mistreatment = has effect but not much
- Low MAOA and maltreatment = very antisocial and violent
- Expression of genes depends upon environment
14
Q
What are Aggression related cognitions?
A
- Refers to beliefs and attitudes to aggression/violence
- Implicit theories: individuals hold theories about how the world works
STUDY: - Analysed offense transcripts and walk through offense
- Used a grounded theory procedure - each statement is assigned to one or more categories, they found 4 main ones
15
Q
What are the 4 aggression related cognitions?
A
- Beat or be beaten: See violence as important in societal place and in hierarchy - vigilant for possible challenges to their self-image
- I am the law: see themselves as leaders and act as judge & executioner
- Violence is normal: means of solving problems and does not have any negative connotations
- I get out of control: views violence as inevitable because they cannot stop it
16
Q
What mental health problems is Aggression related to?
A
- Personality Disorders
- Psychopathy
- Psychosis
- PTSD
- Substance abuse/dependence
- Mood disorders
- Autism
- Frontal Lobe damage
17
Q
What is the relationship between Self-esteem and Violence?
A
- Popular belief = Low self-esteem linked to other problems
- High self-esteem especially if overinflated or threatened leads to aggression
18
Q
What was a study looking at self-esteem and narcissism?
A
- Measured global self-esteem and narcissism in 502 students in Wales and Malaysia
- Recorded violence by the RPQ and split into proactive and reactive violence
- Low SE predictive of reactive violence
- High Narc predictive of proactive violence
19
Q
Why is Amygdala important?
A
- Processes emotions and processing fear in particular
- Destroy amygdala = no emotional conditioning
- Patient SM = bilateral amygdala damage for 20 years = appears fearless
- She seems excited and showed no signs of fear but did show other emotions
- Showed exaggerated panic and fear when given CO2 to breathe
20
Q
What was a study looking at the amygdala and violence actions?
A
- Looked at size of amygdala
- Followed 503 boys since age 5 to age 26
- Measured amygdala volume at 26 in 20 chronic serious violence, 16 transient violence and 20 no serious violence
- People who are very aggressive have small amygdala for both proactive/reactive aggression
- People who were violent after the scan - those who had been violent had small amygdala, and those who had not had a bigger amygdala
21
Q
How is reactivity of amygdala reflect violence?
A
- Looked at responses of amygdala to pictures of fearful expressions in juveniles with conduct problems
- Also examined extent of Callous-unemotional traits (psychopathic type traits), and externalising problems (lashing out)
- More CU traits, amygdala reacted less to pictures BUT more amygdala activation = more externalising behaviours = acting strongly to pictures
- Too little = proactive aggression and lack of fear/empathy/punishment
- Too much = reactive aggression and things appear hostile/fearful
22
Q
What is the role of the prefrontal cortex?
A
- Divided into Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: executive function e.g working memory
- Ventrolateral Prefrontal: less known = response inhibition and direction of attention
- Orbitofrontal Cortex: represents emotion, reward and decision making
23
Q
Elaborate on the Prefrontal Cortex?
A
- Damage typically leads to a range of problems
- Neuropsych tests
- Inhibition of pre-potent response
- Damage linked to explosive anger and violent histories
- Slow to mature and quick to fade at older ages
- Childhood mistreatment = can stop it
- Other species struggle or have smaller cortexes
- Temporary lesions via alcohol
24
Q
What is damage to Orbitofrontal Cortex?
A
- Subtle
- IOWA gambling task: give ppt 4 decks of cards not told about rewards and punishments
- Turning Decks A/B gets $100
- Turning Decks C/D gets $50
- However occasional punishments - A&B £250, but only $50 for C/D
- Best to play C/D but initially A&B
- Most people start by playing decks at random and then move to playing C/D but cannot tell you why
- Patients with OFC play decks A/B = important in using emotion in guiding behaviour - even if we do not know it’s doing this
25
Q
What is Somatic Marker Hypothesis?
A
- Past events lay down somatic markers (feelings) that can guide decision making - sometimes we may not be conscious of these feelings
- Contrasts with logical cost-benefit analysis of situation
- May be faster and used when slow, cost-benefit is not available
26
Q
What are the top-down perspectives?
A
Suppression/regulation via OFC and ACG
27
Q
What are the bottom-up perspectives?
A
Signal and trigger via insula and amygdala
