LG 10: Aggression

Question 1

What is reactive, instrumental, and displaced aggression?

Answer 1

Agression can be defined as: The intentional infliction of some form of harm on others. There are however different types of aggression.

Reactive aggression
- defines a response to being provoked.

Instrumental aggression
- defines behaviour that is aggressive in order to acquire a desired (often material) reward. Ex. A son murders his father for the inheritance.

Displaced aggression
- defines as the redirection of the aggression to a target other than the source of the frustration. Genreally the new target, is a safer or more socially acceptable target.

Question 2

What is the frustration-aggression hypothesis and what evidence speaks for and against it?

Answer 2

The frustration-agression hypothesis is the theory that frustration triggers a readiness to agress. Frustration can be defined as the blocking of goal-directed behavior.

Evidence for the The frustration-agression hypothesis:
- ???
Evidence agains the frustration-agression hypothesis:
-
Experimental example
- Preventing young children from playing with toys, leading to more aggressive behaviour.
- Brittish ferry travelers: showed more aggressive attitudes towards French people on days where French fishing boats was blocking the ferry port.

Question 3

How does Bandura’s social learning theory explain aggressive behavior?

Answer 3

Banduras social learning theory explains aggressive behaviour through his social learning theory on aggression. The theory points towards that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating others, and then by self-regulating our own behavior accordingly.

This is shown through his famous experiment “the bobo doll experiment” which showed that of children observed someone they looked up to display aggressive behaviour towards the bobo doll, the children themselves where more likely to mimick their actions.

Question 4

By which processes could heat/presence of guns facilitate the expression of aggressive behavior?

Answer 4

Heat/ presence of guns worked as a primer for aggressive thoughts. Its been shown that aversive elements, like heat, can lead to higher aggressive behavior. This can be because it triggers angry feelings, arousal and/or hostile thoughts and memories. Which again can trigger aggression.

The presence of guns works as a cue for hostile thoughts and memories but affected manly cognition.

Question 5

By which processes does violent TV or video game content seem to facilitate the expression of aggressive behavior?

Answer 5

Violent TV content and video games can facilitate the expression of aggressive behavior because:

-Desensitization: Affective response to an initially arousing stimulus decreases with repeated exposure.
-Priming: activation of aggression-related ideas
-Social script (Schemata)/ imitation: how to act in a certain situation.
-Altered perception: exaggeration of the frequency of real world violence

Makes you less sensitive to violent things. You will feel “less bad” with violent behavior.

Question 6

What is the catharsis hypothesis and is it currently viewed as correct or incorrect?

Answer 6

The hypothesis that you can reduce aggression by “letting out” in form of watching/ doing aggressive behaviour, and then being drained by afggression.

It is currently viewed as incorrect, and actually increases aggression.