Social Psychological Explanation Of Aggression

Question 1

What are the four cognitive conditions required for observational learning to take place.

Answer 1

Attention
Retention (remember)
Reproduction (ability)
Motivation

Question 2

Research into social learning of aggression

Answer 2

Bandura bobo doll (remember)

• children watched a model attack the doll live
• they were then put in a room to see how they’d behave
• they did virtually the same thing as the adult did

Question 3

De-individualisation

Answer 3

A psychological state in which an individual looses their identity and takes on the identity of the social group when e.g. In a crowd wearing a uniform.

Question 4

What is reduced when part of a croud

Answer 4

Private self-awareness - how much we pay attention to our own feelings and behaviour
Public self-awareness - how much we care about what other people think about us.

Question 5

Research into deindividuation

Answer 5

Dodd (1985)

• 229 psychology students
• asked them ‘if you could do anything at all without anyone knowing or being held responsible what would you do?’
• 36% of responses were antisocial behaviours, 26% criminal acts, only 9% pro social behaviours

Question 6

Frustration hypothesis outlined

Answer 6

OUTLINE
The hypothesis- dollard et al (1939), if a goal is blocked it creates frustration which causes anger.
Research- Geen (1968) 3 groups completed jigsaw puzzle. 1) impossible to solve 2) a confederate kept interrupting 3) were insulted when couldn’t do it. They then gave shocks to the confederate when they made a mistake on a task.
Findings- all did more intense shocks than control group.

Question 7

Outline- direct and indirect learning

Answer 7

Direct- operant conditioning involving positive and negative reinforcement.
Indirect- observational learning

Question 8

Outline- self-efficacy

Answer 8

The extent to which we believe out actions with achieve our desired goal.
- a child’s confidence in his ability to be aggressive grows when he learns that his anger can achieve rewards.

Question 9

Outline- the role of environmental cues in frustration

Answer 9

Even if we feel angry, we may not behave aggressively
Berkowitz (1989)
- suggests frustration creates a readiness for aggression but cues can make the likelihood of acting aggressive much more likely.
- students got shocked by a confederate and then had the oppourtunity to shock him back.
-level of shock depended on if there were guns in the lab (agressive cues)
- with gun no. Of shocks (6) without guns (4)

Question 10

Evaluation for frustration aggression hypothesis (s+w)

Answer 10

Strength: Marcus-Newhall
-meta analysis of 49 studies on displaced aggression
- displaced aggression occurs often when you can’t act aggressively towards the frustrating thing
Weakness:
Bushman (2002) found people who vented (released their anger) became more angry!
Very different outcome to the hypothesis casting doubt of validity on it.

Question 11

Evaluation of SLT (s+w)

Answer 11

Strength: poulin and boivin (2000)
- found most agressive young boys formed friendships with other aggressive young boys.
-the friendships mutually reinforced aggression and they would behave that way to get positive consequences from it.
-just as the model says
Weakness:
-doesn’t explain all aggression because a lot of people act aggressively to retaliate to others, not to achieve anything

Question 12

Evaluation of de-individuation (s+w)

Answer 12

Strength: McGarty (2001)
- found strong correlation between anonymity and agressive/threatening messages online.
Weakness: Gergen (1973)
- 8 people were put in a pitch black room and were told they could do whatever they wanted, and obviously no one could tell who was who.
-no one did anything bad to one another or aggressive