Lecture 2: Violence & Aggression Flashcards
What is aggression?
Refers to behavior that is intended to cause harm or pain
Can be physical or verbal
Need to be intentional and involve intimidation (according to the HCR-20)
What are the distinctions between types of aggression?
Reactive aggression: Violence as a response (hostile, hot-blooded)
eg., assault
Proactive: pre-planned violence (instrumental, cold)
eg., most sexual aggression, armed robbery
What did Gray et al., (2019) study? (TriPM)
Measured how diff. forms of psychopathy relate to diff forms of aggression
-looked at boldness, meanness, disinhibition
Results from Gray et al., (2019) (TriPM)
Boldness related to proactive aggression
Disinhibition related to reactive & proactive aggression
How can we study violence?
Crime statistics
Self-report
Laboratory
Informants- professionals, parole officers, teacher
Issues with studying violence
-Crime statistics: many crimes don’t get reported (DV, sexual assault, etc…) & homicide is rare within the general population
-Self-report: bias, ambiguity, the person has to have good personal insight
-Difficult to measure violence/aggression in a lab
-Informants: ethical issues, confidentiality, etc
What is Cohen’s (1996) study?
Examined ppts responses to an insult just before someone bumps into them in the hallway
Divided ppts into North & South states
Aimed to test South’s Honor Culture
Tested handshake firmness & testosterone % levels
What did Cohen’s study show?
Southern ppt’s had higher testosterone levels & firmer handshakes
Demonstrates Southern states have an honor culture (feel strongly about protecting their reputation)
May explain higher murder rates in the South
What did Milgram’s (1960) study measure?
Measured obedience by seeing how far ppts would go when administering shocks to ppts
What did Milgram’s study find?
65% of ppts went up to the highest level of shock (450W)
Demonstrates willingness to comply even when it results in aggression
Many factors involved in obedience
How can lab studies measure violence & aggression?
Able to test causal propositions e.g., initiating aggression from violent video game
-From meta-analyses; patterns from the lab & real world were similar for gender, trait-aggressiveness, alcohol, media, temperature
What did Bartholow & Anderson et al., (2002) study? (video games)
Violent video games on aggression
Two groups of UG students played either “Mortal Combat” and other played “PGA golf”
Competed against the confederate on a reaction time task
Ppts received a “punishment” of a white noise blast (1/2 of trials ppt told that opponent set level of punishment, other 1/2 reversed)
What are the results from Bartholow & Anderson., (2002)?
Those who played violent video game displayed more aggression
Stronger effect for men
What are some differences in aggression between genders?
Men show more aggression (90% of murders are by men)
Females (younger) show more indirect aggression (Bjorkqvist et al., 1992)
No differences in verbal aggression
Prevalence of domestic violence (DV) & gender
Women face more abuse but there is a smaller gap than people think
Huge issues of reporting DV; more stigma for men
COVID-19 has led to increase in DV
What is the impact of drugs & alcohol on violence & aggression
Alcohol can magnify existing problems & lower inhibition but does not cause violence itself
50% of recorded violence shows the person to be intoxicated
Bushman & Cooper., 1990: small amount of alcohol had an effect on violence in lab study
What are aggression related cognitions?
Refers to beliefs & attitudes of aggression & violence
What did Polaschek et al., (2008) measure?
Analyzed offence transcripts (what people thought & felt about the offense
Assigned statements from the offense to 1 or more categories (Grounded Theory Procedure)
Enabled identification of several implicit theories of violence
What are 4 violence related implicit theories?
1) Beat or be beaten (violence is a hierarchy)
2) I am the law (see themselves as leaders)
3) Violence is normal (violence is a way of problem solving)
4) I get out of control (violence is inevitable)
What did Donnellan et al., (2005) find? (self-esteem)
Self-esteem is negatively correlated with self-report aggression (Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire)
Narcissism is positively correlated with aggression
What did Baumeister view about self-esteem & violence
Argued self-esteem (if over-inflated) if threatened leads to aggression & violence
What did Amad et al., (2020) measure?
Measured global self-esteem & narcissism in 502 students in Wales & Malaysia
Recorded violence by the RPQ (Reactive & Proactive Aggression Questionnaire)
What did Amad et al., (2020) find?
Low self-esteem was a predictor of reactive violence
Narcissism was a predictor of proactive violence
What is the relation between patient SM & fear?
SM has bilateral amygdala damage & is unable to fear fear but can express fear
Older research focuses on the amygdala being associated w/ fear
Feinstein et al., (2011) study of SM
Put SM in real fear-inducing situations (handling snakes, haunted house, muggings)
SM showed NO signs of fear but did show other emotions
Demonstrates SM has awareness of fear but is not able to process it
Pathway we use to detect fear in the environment but doesn’t appear to produce fear w/ amygdala lesions
What did Pardini et al., (2014) study in the Pittsburgh Youth Study?
Followed 503 boys since 1st grade (30% selected for their antisocial behavior)
Measured amygdala volume at age 26
Findings from Pardini et al., (2014) amygdala
Smaller amygdala’s showed more violence
Big differences in levels of amygdala volume between violent & non-violent groups
Stronger relationships between aggressive behavior & impulsive & pre-meditated behavior
What did Lozier et al., (2014) study?
Looked at the responsiveness of the amygdala to images of fearful expressions in juveniles w/ conduct problems
Examined “callous-unemotional traits” & “externalizing behaviors”
Findings from Lozier et al., (2014)
Ppts with CU traits were negatively correlated to amygdala activation
Externalizing behaviours were positively correlated to amygdala activation
What is the prefrontal cortex divided into?
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC)
Ventrolateral PFC (VLPFC)
Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)
What is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)?
In the PFC
Related to “executive function” such as working memory, planning, inhibition, abstract reasoning
What is the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC)?
Typically involved in response inhibition
BUT much less is known about it
What is the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)?
Thought to represent emotion, reward & decision making
Most famous lesion - Phineas Gage
involved in aggression
What problems occur when PFC is damaged?
Explosive anger
Slower maturity
Sensitive to socioeconomic factors
Inhibition of responses
What did Bechara et al., (1994;1999) study?
Gave ppts 4 decks of cards (turning certain decks resulted in rewards or punishments)
Slowly ppts learn what deck is for reward or punishment
Bechara’s study findings
Damage to the OFC - ppts don’t show that learning of which decks to use for reward or punishment (play set of decks that initially look good - not able to learn rules over time)
OFC appears to be important in using emotion (reward & punishment) in guiding behaviour - “gut feeling”.
What is the somatic marker hypothesis (SMH)?
Emotions influence future decision making processes by creating biomarkers (somatic markers) - change in body/brain (emotion)
What is Siever’s model?
Susceptibility to Aggression and Psychiatric Diagnosis
Stimulus (provocative) - > Sensory Processing - > Info processing (cognitive appraisal) - > top-down OR bottom-up
Top-down processing: suppression/regulation (OFC) (‘brakes’)
Bottom-up: trigger (amygdala, insula) (‘drive’)
