theory of agression: role of evolution and natural selection

Question 1

• Are genes are said to have come from a process of evolution through survival of the fittest. Genes that that produce behaviour that is successful will be carried on.
• Evolution is how inherited characteristics pass from generation to generation, through reproduction. To survive to reproduce requires certain characteristics that leads to certain behaviours and only the genes giving those characteristics will be passed on.

Question 2

Strengths of evolution / natural selection

Answer 2

:) there is evidence for the theory of natural selection eg Darwin, eg the differences in finches on different islands.
:) gathered using scientific methods, including reducing behaviour to something observable and gathering evidence carefully so that cause and effect conclusions can be made.

Question 3

weakness

Answer 3

:( By reducing behaviour that is observed ( eg to behaviour that would be inherited) the whole of behaviour of an organism is not studied. This can miss out important elements of complex activity that organisms display.

Question 4

• It has been shown that aggression, for example, links to various human brain structures like the amygdala. It could be that humans with an aggressive rather than a passive responsive to danger survived and so the amygdala as it is in humans today is one that helps survival.
• Aggression in response to an attack on offspring might have led to survival of the offspring and so the aggressive response survived.( or the brain structure and functioning that supported that response survived)

Question 5

evidence

Answer 5

there is evidence to support evolutionary examples of aggression. For example, brengden found gender differences between males and females this provides some support for the role in evolution in development of aggression.
- CA: that said, it is difficult to measure evolutionary mechanisms behind aggression because you would need to measure this over gens. this may mean that the explanation is less credible than other explanations such as brain structure.
this means that it would be difficult to est cause and effect when determining the impact of evolution on dev of aggression.

Question 6

Application

Answer 6

:) helps to explain gender differences in the rates of aggressive crimes committed by males.

Question 7

strengths / weaknesses

Answer 7

:) the theory of aggression can explain individual differences in the dev of aggression eg gender differences.
- CA: it can explain why some females are physically aggressive and why some males aren’t.

:( reductionist as it only explains aggression in terms of genetics. It does not look at other factors that can lead to it eg unconscious drives.
-CA: being reductionist allows researchers to focus on isolated variables leading to aggression at a greater depth.

:( the theory does not take into account the role of nature, eg social learning theory would suggest that aggression is learnt through modelling the behaviour of adults who’re aggressive.
This means that this theory is somewhat incomplete

Question 8

alternative