Module 2 Flashcards
Sigmund Freud saw aggression as an occasional response to a specific stimulus, not an organic feature of human nature.
False
Death instinct
Aggression is not a reaction to stimulus but a constantly flowing impulse
We have an impulse to destroy our selves and each other
Analyze organism as a whole, but no evidence
McDougall defined instinct as a “rigidly fixed motor response.”
False
Instinct was a craving
Functions with independence of cognitive and motor
Instincts can be learned and affected by culture and experiences
Fromm’s view is that aggression is NOT a biologically given and spontaneously flowing impulse.
True
Proves it in chapter
Gives evidence that Freud is lacking in
Fromm says many people “prefer” to believe that violence and the dangers of nuclear war spring from uncontrollably biological roots.
True
Since it is so horrible, people don’t want to believe themselves capable
Social, political, and economic circumstances of our own making
Fromm says that population density in the Paleolithic era sharply intensified competition between tribes for food and space.
False
Population density was low so no need to compete for food or space
Common misconception
Lorenz said that, if society reorganized itself to eliminate the major forms of aggression, the aggressive instinct would fade away.
False
Aggression is an energy flowing inside of us and will come out eventually even if there are no stimuli
Appetite behavior
Freud and Lorenz agree that aggressively letting off steam is healthy.
True
Keeping in aggression is unhealthy
Freud says repression can lead to mental illness
Lorenz says men today suffer because they don’t let it out enough
Lorenz says that damming up aggression is especially dangerous among people who know, understand, and like each other.
True
Fish exert healthy aggression on others so that they are kind towards their own mate
Redirect aggression
The better men knew each in the analogy of prisoners of war, the more dangerous aggression was
Lowering of threshold values
Fromm doubts that a goose or fish has a “self” in the human sense.
True
Wrong to compare geese to American and Soviet political leaders
Says we can’t prove it, even looking at Lorenz’s analogies, those cannot be universal
According to Lorenz, friendship is found only in species with highly developed intra-species aggression.
True
Stronger bonds = more aggression
Thinks there is no love without aggression
Lorenz says that instinctive inhibitions are unalterable.
True?
Because of evolution, we have these instincts, but they can lose power
Freud’s letter to Einstein in 1933 was critical of pacifism and immodest about Freudian theory.
False
Freud called himself a “pacifist”
Not critical of Freudian theory
Fromm agrees that the best antidote to aggression is personal acquaintance with your potential enemies.
False
Acquaintance and friendship cannot be expected to lower aggression because they represent superficial knowledge about one another (object from outside)
Nonjudgemental understanding can lower aggression, but not superficial friendship
Fromm says that one way to reduce or even eliminate aggressiveness is to reduce insecurity, greed, and narcissism.
True
This comes from a deep understanding of one another and no judgement
Different from amount of information one has on another, which does not reduce aggression
Lorenz calls himself a patriot, loyal to his home country.
True
Says this in his writings
Claims he has feels aggression towards other countries but does not wish for their downfall
Fromm praises humanistic educators in Germany for their efforts to promote peace.
False
Said it was ineffective since most educators were war minded
Only very different and radical humanism that valued life and mankind could have an influence against war
For Ross, the term “psychocultural” refers to patterns of behavior which are essentially cultural (rather than psychological) in nature.
True?
In terms of cross-cultural differences in conflict behavior in terms of motives for actions that are rooted in culturally shaped images of the world
Patterns rooted in culture
Who we like and disklike in other ethnic groups is determined by culture
Ross says infancy is viewed by current psychoanalytic theorists as an active and socially interactive phase in early development, in contrast to the views of classical Freudian psychoanalysis.
True
Pick up mundane behaviors
Versus infant being attached to mother (Freud)
Inner world building impacts future relationships
After a few days infants can link sounds to images (picking up stimuli)
Ross was the first researcher to notice or explore the relationship between harsh socialization and aggressiveness.
False
Ross said that harsh socialization makes it difficult to make bonds and causes repressed anxiety and guilt
Volkan and Fornari noticed relationship before Ross
Studies can provide data for this, ex social learning theory, cross-cultural studies
According to Ross, Montagu provides good ethnographic evidence for the claim that warm and affectionate childrearing produces lower conflict both within one’s society and in dealing with outsiders.
True
Affection is shown towards children often, security enforced
When aggressive, children are removed
Now aggressive people for child to imitate
Ross explores problems that affect children in conditions of what he calls “diluted marriage.”
False
Slater and Slater call it a “diluted marriage”
Women make strong bonds with their children but often lash out towards them
Males develop ambivalent feelings towards women and fear intimacy
Narcissism is common
Ross reports that, according to Whiting & Whiting, children develop unusually authoritarian and aggressive tendencies in societies where fathers play comparatively remote and unsympathetic roles in child rearing and family life.
True
Distant fathering is associated with boys learning to be warriors and developing aggressive tendencies
The 90 nonindustrial societies that Ross studied are without exception agricultural societies with large and powerful states.
False
Some societies have no state or authority
One fifth are large states
Some of the societies have about one hundred people while others are large
More than a quarter practice no agriculture while half do
Ross explored more than 40 variables associated with conflict and other key phenomena in the societies he studied.
True (41)
Measured authority, conflict, and community
13 compare conflict behavior across communities
In nearly three quarters of Ross’s sample of 90 societies, local conflict is either “moderate” or “mild” in character and violence directed at local community members is “disapproved.”
True
Numbers say so
In nearly three quarters of Ross’s sample societies external warfare is frequent or common.
True
About 68% have frequent of common external warfare
Ross finds that most societies in his sample are “low” in individual “compliance with community norms and decisions.”
False
Most societies (50%) are rated as “high”
Ross denies that high levels of “cross-cutting ties” in some societies tend to minimize levels of internal violence in those societies.
True???
High cross-cutting ties increase levels of violence?
Ross regards the Buganda as an exception to his general observation that high levels of conflict are most often found in societies in which authority is harsh and authoritarian.
False
Buganda is not an exception
Internal conflict suppressed and pushed externally
Authority maintained through rewards and fear
Fathers authoritarian and distant
Ross credits the peacefulness of the Lepcha to the high level of warmth and interactivity that Gorer observed between Lepcha parents and children. See the discussion of this question that appears in the syllabus.
False?
It is credited to mastery of environment
Economic security unknown to Lepcha
Have methods for resolving quarreling and have set sexual relationships
Early extinction of self assertion, impersonal attitude
Ross’s research shows that affectionate socialization practices play a leading role in reducing both internal and external conflict.
True?
Leads to less political conflict and violence
Ross is surprised to find that polygyny is positively related to external conflict.
False
Product of common mistrust from outsiders?
Polygyny is negatively related
Males competing for women makes it hard for them to form a strong unit
Could be a luxury societies cannot afford
