Psychology of aggression Flashcards
What’s aggression?
Any form of behaviour intended to harm or injure another living being (Baron & Richardson, 1994)
Three defining features of aggression?
Intend to harm or injure someone
Aggression has to have awarness of adverse effects
Target of the aggression must want to avoid the harm
Violence vs. aggression
Violence is intention or threat of causing serious physical harm
All acts of violence are aggression
Not all aggression is violence
Hostile vs. Instrumental Aggression
Hostile - intention to harm
Instrumental- achieving a goal , harm is a side effect
How can we study and measure aggression?
Archival (Official) records or in a LAB
Theories of Aggression
Biological approach - behavioural genetics, hormonal explanations
Psychological approaches - affective and cognitive reactions to aggression eliciting stimuli
frustation- aggression hypothesis - all frustration leads to aggression,all aggression comes from frustration
frustration is a blockage of a goal-directed activity
Catarsis - aggression driven by a goal to neutralise the feeling of frustration (very little evidence of that)
Extinctional trasnfer model - builds on Schachter & Singer’s two-factor theory of emotion - emotion basd on physiological arousal and cognitive label
Zilman & Bryant (1974)
Participants physically non-arousing task and arousing task
2 mins later : provocation in the form of aversive noise
6 mins later: shout at the person who provoked them
What variables (factors) increase aggression?
Alchohol, Heat, Music lyrics
Effects of mysogynistic music on behaviour and affect (Fischer & Greitemeyer, 2006)
Men more likely to act aggressive if the confederate was a woman and they were exposed to a mysogenistic song
Aggression and Heat?
Postiively correlated (Andreson, 2001)
Link between hotter climates and violance rates
