Origins of Human Agression

Question 1

main message of film

Answer 1

children do not just suddenly become aggressive in adol – they’ve had a longstanding hx of aggressive behaviour throughout their life, predisposing factors can be introduced as early as pregnancy; we need to invest in younger children

Question 2

these factors have a role in child development and potential for agression

Answer 2

prenatal environment
early life experiences
temperament
parenting
language development
play
(also: prematurity, birth complications, head injuries)

Question 3

prenatal environment

Answer 3

• consumption of toxic substances and poor diets may be harmful to infants
• mothers who smoke more likely to have children that grow up to be antisocial, criminals (d/t too much nicotine exposure damages the brain in certain ways)

Question 4

early life experiences

Answer 4

• victims of shaken baby synfrom have brain damage in the PFC that will make them less ablet o control their emotions it will not function well – more likely to be agressive and antisocial
• have 6 main emotions ID’d that they express from birth on

Question 5

most likely to resort to violence at age

Answer 5

2

Question 6

“exploratory agression”

Answer 6

when they begin crawling

Question 7

(early life) at 15 mos:

Answer 7

children develop self-awareness; they know theyre different from other people and begin to develop new emotions (pride, shame - which leads to expression of anger from new emotions); this is important** because children are ruled by their emotions d/t neural circuits not being matured yet

Question 8

(early life) age 2:

Answer 8

sudden explosions of rage begin

Question 9

(early life) 3rd birthday:

Answer 9

physically able to engage in aggressive behaviours that older children and adults do

Question 10

(early life) age 4:

Answer 10

physical agression tends to decrease, they begin using a more social form of aggression (indirect aggression requires a certain social skill); declines further into adol.

Question 11

memory relates to aggression as:

Answer 11

the older the child gets, the more experiences they have and the more they remember solutions and what has happened in the past or what they have learned before

Question 12

temperament

Answer 12

• as the brain develops, there’s a gradual increase in ability to suppress anger and aggressive drives
• temperament is determined by ones genes
• each person has 2 systems: the accelerating vs breaking system vary and one is more dominant than the other in people (BIS/BAS)

Question 13

parenting

Answer 13

• if you hit, then the child wonders when it is okay to hit, and then will do it too
• children who are hit are more likely to be hitting others later on and is a good predictor of future crime
• some children do not reviece the parenting, attention, cognitive help/learning, etc., necessary to develop ways to solve problems without lashing out

Question 14

language development

Answer 14

around the same time as terrible 2s, they are also able to start to express themselves through words and the less the need to express themselves through crying and hitting

Question 15

play

Answer 15

through contact with others, they learn the pleasure of hitting someone is followed by the pain and consequences that come frommit and that physically aggressive children usually get excluded by their peer group

• when they recieve strong messages of disapproval, their neural circuits against aggerssive behaviour get stronger and they get better anger regulation in their brain regions
• play fighting can be very useful to a childs development: by competing with others the child learns who is stronger, what others’ limits are, and it teaches them to control their aggressive behaviour. it also tells them that they will often have to let the other child win or else they will be without a playmate.
• when violent kids are removed from being around non-violent kids, they don’t get to learn proper/normal social behaviour which has major consequences