Lecture Two - Aggression - Situational influences & factors Flashcards
- Define and discuss processes suggested to lead to collective aggression.
Situational influences on (group) aggression:
There are many:
-Political/social alienation – political uprisings (caused by people who feel they don’t have a voice); violence; indirect aggression (Rule et al., 1987).
- Evidence for +ve correlation between hot temperatures and aggression (Anderson et al., 2000; Bushman et al., 2005a, 2005b) - more riots happen during hot weather than any other times, e.g. London riots in 2011 – it mainly stopped as it started raining.
- Crowding/physical environment – put people in an environment they have no control over – more aggressive e.g. prisons
-Time of day e.g. more aggression at night e.g. alcohol
Can people act “out of character” in group aggression? – e.g. some accounts of people after saying things such as ‘I don’t know why I joined’, people with jobs like lawyers.
3 processes that can link to acting out of character:
- Disinhibition – a reduced ability to stop yourself doing something. inability to suppress a behaviour
- De-individuation – First coined in the 1950’s – “Prevented by situational factors present in a group from becoming self aware” (Diener 1980) – lose the feeling of being an individual. We stop ourselves froms topping doing something. Study – all dressed in grey smocks in dark rooms – more likely to provide more anonymous, rude, mean comments about their parents.
If your environmental conditions are: Anonymity, high level of arousal e.g. everyone’s angry around you, focus on external events, close group unity – this process is more likely to happen as it tends to lead individuals in the group to more reduced self-awareness (deindividuation)
This leads to weakened restraints against impulsive behaviour, increased sensitivity to immediate cues/states, lose the ability to be able to plan rationally what they might do next, inability to monitor/regulate own behaviour, lessened concern about evaluation by others, lowered ability to engage in rational planning, e.g. London riots.
- Dehumanisation – the scariest type of people acting out of character – thinking/behave to other people like they’re not even human anymore.
Insitituioanlsied aggression:
- A term we use when aggression is sanctioned by some form of authority e.g.. corporal and capital punishment; military action e.g. prison.
- ‘Aggression that is given formal or informal recognition and social legitimacy by being incorporate into group norms’ (Hogg & Vaughan, 2005, p.478)
- De-individuation a significant factor in such aggression, the individuals involved fail to perceive people as humans.
- Discuss research findings linking media representations of aggression to aggressive behaviour.
Mass Media & Aggression
-Bushman & Huesmann (2001): a meta-analysis - a study that takes other studies and uses statistics to squash them together - was on all studies that established any clear links claimed between exposure to the media aggression and ‘real world’ aggression.
TV: Watching violent TV as a child predicts aggressiveness and criminality in adulthood even when other factors were controlled for (Huesmann et al., 2003).
Video games: Emotional arousal affcetr goes up. After playing violent video games they are more likely to report thinking aggressive thoughts or even behave aggressively. Exposure to violent games linked to increases in aggressive behaviour, cognition, affect arousal, and a decrease in prosocial behaviour (Anderson et al., 2004). Could argue that a lot of people use things such as video games as a catharsis, so instead of doing it in real life you play the game to defeat your anger.
- Playing rather than just watching has stronger effects, heart rate goes up, etc, excitement, adrenaline, after they are more like;y to report thinking aggressive thoughts pr behave aggressively.
- Evidence seems unequivocal – media depictions of violence do have effects on real-world aggression - how?
- Describe three potential theories to account for these research findings
Theory 1 – priming/General Aggression Model
- Media aggression/violence can trigger aggressive and hostile thoughts
- E.g. Fischer & Greitemeyer (2006): Misogynistic song lyrics study.
- Some ppts in this group - Misogynistic songs: “Self Esteem” by Offspring; “Superman” by Eminem. Some ppts in this group - Control songs: “It’s my Life” by Bon Jovi; “Let Me Entertain You” by Robbie Williams. Had to prepare a sandwich, as part of their recipe they had to put chilli sauce in, they were told whether they were making a sandwich for a man or woman, people who listened to more misogynistic songs, more chilli sauce was put in the women’s sandwiches, more aggressive by listening to misogynistic songs.
Theory 2 – Desensitazation (Short- and long-term effects)
Carnagey et al 2007): Playing violent video games found to decrease physiological responses to real violence (short-term effect)
- Participants who had a long history of playing violent video games were less prosocial.
- Playing violent video games can reduce the fight or flight response
Theory 3 – cultivation
Suggest that our own aggressive behaviours and attitudes are nurtured
- Gerbner et al. (2006): mass media construct social reality in a way that people come to believe is real or true.
- This can make people more fearful, more distrustful, and more likely to arm themselves and behave aggressively in what they perceive to be a threatening situation (Nabi & Sullivan, 2001).
- Cultivation – the theory of why media might cause more aggression.
Gang and knife crime - carry knives because they hear other people carrying knives, then people hear they are carrying a knife so carry a knife.
List potential practical approaches for reducing aggressive behaviour.
Suggested solutions depend on how the problem is understood (individual Vs. socio-cultural/political)
- Multi-layered and complex phenomena.
‘the most effective strategies for reducing aggression recognize this complexity and work on multiple levels’ (Kassin, Fein &; Markus, 2011, p.475) may involve working with the individual around their own thoughts and behaviour, awareness of how media might affect them, talk to their family.
E.g. successful treatment for young people in the criminal justice system where there are concerns about violence = multi-systemic therapy (Borduin et al., 2009) - thinking about the individual as a system, surrounded by social systems, then cultural systems - tend to address lots of these at once - often used with young people in CAHMS or in the criminal justice system - where there might be complex individual factors why they’re acting the way they are or factors of their relationships or their families or social circumstances, etc. Expensive but has been shown to be effective, positive impact on young people who are at risk of bad consequence coming from aggressive behaviour for either themselves or others.
Reducing violence/Aggression
- Improving peoples living conditions as central? Contorl mass media, limit violent things kids see, limit kids getting access to violent video games - may affect overall this issue of aggression. E.g. social inequality, healthy living conditions, social support. Anti-social personality disorder - people with that diagnosis tend to talk or act in a violent, anti-social way. Using approaches such as “Nidotherapy” - nest therapy, building a nest around an individual - have less of those situational factors that lead them to be aggressive (Tyrer, 2005).
- ‘Weapons effect’ (Berkowitz &; LePage, 1967)
- Suggests reducing or eliminating weapons from the environment will also reduce aggression (sub-conscious cues and desensitisation).
- Fostering social values such as co-operation rather than competitiveness - we may see less aggression - cross-cultural studies suggest this
http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/aggr/Projects/MACS/description.html – this relates to a very high profile US intervention which was used in so-called “high risk neighbourhoods” in Chicago with the aim of reducing violence. Such neighbourhoods typically suffered much poverty. There were mixed findings from this intervention –
Some “early interventions” of this kind have been tried out in the UK.
