Neural and hormonal mechanisms AO3

Question 1

Supportive data in violent offenders

Answer 1

Raine et al (1997) - used PET scans to compare the limbic activity of individuals who had commited murder by reason of insanity with non-murderers finding reduced activity in limbic reigons in the murderer group.
However coccaro found that paitients with IED exhibited reduced activity in the OFC and amygdala when shown angry faces.

Question 2

Supportive data from case studies

Answer 2

Burns and Swerdlow (2003) - reported a case study in which pedophillia emerged following a tumor in the orbitofrontal cortex which resolved after surgery
Sumer (2007) - 14 yr old girl with extreme aggression was shown to be the result of a tumor pressing on her amygdala
these case studies might not allow extrapolation.

Question 3

strength - reduction of serotonin leads to less aggressive behaviour

Answer 3

Berman (2009) - conducted a study in which ppts were given either a placebo or a dose of paroxetine (a drug which increases serotonin activity). ppts then took part in a lab-based game where they adminstered shocks in response to prvocation. the findings revealed that ppts who recieved paroxetine consistently gave fewer and less intensive shocks particularily among those with a prior history of aggresive behaviour

Question 4

limitation - much of the research is correlational

Answer 4

correlational studies are neccessary due to ethical constraints as directly provoking aggression in lab settings would not protect ppts from harm. as a result researchers frequently rely on brain scans to observe correlations between aggresion and brain structures

Question 5

Limitation - weak operationalisation of aggression

Answer 5

researchers often measure aggresive responses through actions in controlled scenarios. such as Gospic who used the rejection of offers in the ultimatum game to indicate aggression whilst Berman (2009) guagwed aggression through the delivery of electric shocks between ppts in a lab game. these actions might stem from other motivations such as the artificual nature of the experiment instead of true aggressive intent.

Question 6

strength to hormonal explanaition - aggression increases when status is changed

Answer 6

Mehta and Josephs (2006) measured ppts testosterone levels before and after a comoetative game loss. 73% of those with increased testosterone chose to re-challenge the winners compared to only 22% of those whose levels decreased.
however this study implies a narrow definition of aggression as IRL aggression can be expressed in many different ways e.g. verbal, physical

Question 7

Limitation to the hormonal explanaition- testosterone is modelated by Cortisol

Answer 7

Carre and Mehta (2011) proposed a dual hormone hypothesis suggesting that high testosterone when cortisol levels are low. When cortisol is high it appears to inhibit testosterones influence on aggresion