Week 12

Question 1

What are the 3 types of “social”

Answer 1

Prosocial: Altruism, helping behaviour
Asocial: Being on your own, not doing anything with anyone
Antisocial: Aggression, violence, hurtful, destructive behaviour

Question 2

What is aggression?

Answer 2

Intentional behaviour to physically, or psychologically harm another person (who is motivated to avoid harm).
Aggression is a behaviour
Not an emotion
Not a thought

Question 3

Does aggression have to physical?

Answer 3

No, it can be relational (bullying)

Question 4

What emotion and attitude create aggression?

Answer 4

Anger and hostility are the emotions(anger) and attitudes(hostility) underlying aggression

Question 5

What is violence?

Answer 5

aggression with the goal of extreme harm, including injury or death
Aggression taken to extremes
All violence is aggression, but not all aggression is violence.

Question 6

What are the types of aggression?

Answer 6

• Emotional aggression, “hot aggression,” reactive aggression
• Instrumental Aggression, “cold aggression,” proactive aggression

Question 7

What hormone is connected to aggression?

Answer 7

Testosterone

Question 8

What is cortisol?

Answer 8

A stress hormone

Question 9

What is the relationship with Testosterone and Cortisol correlation aggression?

Answer 9

If you have low T and high cort it inhibits aggression

High T and low Cort elevates aggression

Question 10

Is there a lot of evidence support the link between aggression and testosterone?

Answer 10

No, because Aggression persists because impulses are innate…

Question 11

Aggression is variable and malleable, how?

Answer 11

Aggressive environments (guns available) 
Aggressive individuals (ex. Mike Tyson)

Question 12

What is culture of honour?

Answer 12

Emphasizes honour and social status, particularly for men
Its ok to harm others to maintain your place is social hierarchy
Aggression acceptable in defending that honour

Question 13

Evidence supporting cultures of honour.

Answer 13

Violent behaviour toward wife
Participants listen to a man talk abt his violence towards his wife
One part talks about how he saw his wife talking to another man (jealuosy_
And another part no jealousy reason was shown
Canada vs. Chile
In chile, ppl thought it was more okay with aggression when the situation was threatening the mans dominance

Question 14

How to suppress the amount of violence in a country?

Answer 14

Have norms surrounding anti-violence

Question 15

Who Commits Violent Crimes and Against Whom?

Answer 15

Teenagers and young adults, aged 14 –24 years, are more likely to engage in violent crime and also be a victim of violent crime
That age group have underdeveloped brains, especially in the prefrontal cortex

Question 16

Aggression and Gender, who is more aggressive?

Answer 16

Men > Women: violence
Men get in fights more, do more crime (Buss, 2011)
Physical (overt) vs. Relational (covert)?
We have to examine type (Galen & Underwood, 1977)
Men engaged at an equal rate of relational aggression as women
Men > Women (Card et al., 2008)
Men gossip almost as much as women (if not equal), AND punch people
Overall men are simply more aggressive than women

Question 17

Why are people aggressive? (Evolution)

Answer 17

Evolution Theories of Aggression
Males: Combat is high risk/high reward
Females prefer high status males for mating
Aggression as a way of displaying and maintaining status over time

Question 18

Are we violent to those related to us?

Answer 18

No

Question 19

Do we learn aggressive behaviour?

Answer 19

Yes, We learn to use aggression through personal experience  and from role models/society
Personal Experience:
Want something: Try aggression
Success? -> Keep doing it
Failure? ->Adopt other  strategies

Question 20

Can agression be positively and negatively reinforced?

Answer 20

Positive reinforcement: Aggression is reinforced when it produces desired outcomes
Negative reinforcement: Aggression is reinforced because it prevents or stops undesirable outcomes

Question 21

Does spanking decrease punishment?

Answer 21

Punishment may lead to a decrease in aggression, but only when it…
immediately follows the aggressive behaviour
is strong enough to deter the aggressor
is consistently applied and perceived as fair and legitimate by the aggressor

Question 22

What happens 2 years after a child is spanked?

Answer 22

Antisocial behaviour increased as spanking continued

Question 23

Learning from others, bobo study.

Answer 23

Bandura (1961) and Bobo
Condition 1: Watched a confederate play gently with Bobo
Condition 2: Confederate punched Bobo around
DV: How aggressive the children were subsequently with Bobo
Kids who watched confederates punch bobo did the same if not worse

Question 24

Does violent media have a big effect on aggression?

Answer 24

Violent media has a (small) but (mostly) consistent effect on aggression

Question 25

What is desensitization?

Answer 25

People habituate to violent media
Reduced empathy for victims
Blunted physiological responses

Question 26

Does violent media increase aggression?

Answer 26

Exposure to violent media seems to increase aggression…
Modeling, priming
Desensitization
Possibly reduced empathy

Question 27

What is frustration.

Answer 27

Response to blocking of goal-directed behaviour

Question 28

According to John Dollard and his colleagues (1939), the frustration-aggression hypothesis states that:

Answer 28

(a) aggression is a response to frustration and

(b) all aggression is the result of frustration

Question 29

What kind of “drive” is frustration?

Answer 29

Frustration is said to be a psychological drive (like hunger is a physiological drive) that propels the individual towards action to decrease the drive

Question 30

What is displacement of frustration arousal?

Answer 30

If we can’t aggress against the source of the frustration, we aggress against another target, referred to as displacement of the arousal
Releasing the aggression through action is referred to as catharsis

Question 31

What is catharsis?

Answer 31

Process of releasing
Myth, it is not a good way to get rid of our aggression
Doing aggressive things leads to more aggression (Geen & Quanty, 1977)

Question 32

What increases aggressive behaviour?

Answer 32

Pain or any other aversive event: some experimental evidence with animals and students (Berkowitz, 1983, 1989)
Heat: evidence is correlational
Intensity of Arousal: referred to as Excitation Transfer
Idea of misattribution of arousal
Crowding: leads to aggression and fear of aggression, e.g., urban vs. rural settings
You feel boxed in
Aggression Cues: the presence of a gun versus a badminton racquet (Berkowitz & LePage, 1967)

Question 33

Will global warming cause additional crime?

Answer 33

Global warming will cause an additional 22,000 murders, 1.2 mil aggressive assaults, costing over $100 billion (this century)

Question 34

What influence does alcohol have on aggressive behaviour?

Answer 34

Alcohol myopia” - narrowing of our attention
Focus only on what’s salient
Someone spills their drink on you, while drunk you focus on the fact you are covered in the drink vs. they did it by accident

But alcohol does not directly CAUSE aggression!

Question 35

What is the weapons effect?

Answer 35

Mere presence of weapons

Question 36

Weapons effect study

Answer 36

Truck stalled at traffic light
Drivers honked more when truck had a gun rack
Even more when also bumper sticker said “vengeance” (Cahoon & Edmonds, 1985)

Question 37

How do you reduce aggression?

Answer 37

Reduce stressors such as frustration, discomfort, and provocation
Teach and model nonviolent responses to frustrations and social problems (especially for kids)
Emphasize cooperation over competitiveness
Change cost-reward payoffs associated with aggression
Change the rules of hockey
(actually kind of worked!)