The Role of Hormones in Human Behaviour

Question 1

Outline 6 points about the role of hormones in aggressive behaviour

Answer 1

• Hormones are chemical messengers that travel in the blood stream
• Testosterone - regulates sex drive
• Men commit 50-70% of all violent crimes. This is due to how much testosterone they produce as it is a male hormone and so it is more present in men than women
• Crime rises in the early teens due to the rise in testosterone as a result of puberty
• Cortisol - responsible for waking us up as well as regulating changes in the body as a response to stress
• High levels of cortisol = high levels of aggression

Question 2

How does Barzman’s (2013) research relate to cortisol as an explanation of aggression?

Answer 2

He found that the amount of cortisol in the saliva of 17 boys aged 7-9 taken 30 mins after waking up correlated with the number of aggressive incidents recorded by nurses

Question 3

Give 2x strengths

Answer 3

P- Hypothalamus + limbic system in humans + rodents similar enough for generalisations to be made
E- Share 90% of their genes and attack centres are found in the hypothalamus
E- Studies using rodents are representative to humans so are useful

P- Studies tend to use careful controls
E- Methods are scientific, meaning there is credibility in conclusions
E- Findings tend to support each other too so there is inter-rated reliability

Question 4

Give 2x weaknesses

Answer 4

P- Research on relationship between testosterone and aggression is difficult
E- Only reliable measurement of brain testosterone is by a lumbar puncture, which is not done for research purposes. This is where a needle is inserted into lower parts of the spine to look for evidence of conditions affecting the brain, spinal cord or other parts of the nervous system
E- Have to use more unreliable measurements from blood or saliva

P- There may be another variable involved in the link between cortisol and aggression
E- Stress hormone so said that stress and aggression is related but could be another variable causing both stress and aggression
E- No cause and effect relationship, lowering internal validity