Week 12 Flashcards
What are the 3 types of “social”
Prosocial: Altruism, helping behaviour
Asocial: Being on your own, not doing anything with anyone
Antisocial: Aggression, violence, hurtful, destructive behaviour
What is aggression?
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
Does aggression have to physical?
No, it can be relational (bullying)
What emotion and attitude create aggression?
Anger and hostility are the emotions(anger) and attitudes(hostility) underlying aggression
What is violence?
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.
What are the types of aggression?
- Emotional aggression, “hot aggression,” reactive aggression
- Instrumental Aggression, “cold aggression,” proactive aggression
What hormone is connected to aggression?
Testosterone
What is cortisol?
A stress hormone
What is the relationship with Testosterone and Cortisol correlation aggression?
If you have low T and high cort it inhibits aggression
High T and low Cort elevates aggression
Is there a lot of evidence support the link between aggression and testosterone?
No, because Aggression persists because impulses are innate…
Aggression is variable and malleable, how?
Aggressive environments (guns available) Aggressive individuals (ex. Mike Tyson)
What is culture of honour?
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
Evidence supporting cultures of honour.
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
How to suppress the amount of violence in a country?
Have norms surrounding anti-violence
Who Commits Violent Crimes and Against Whom?
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
Aggression and Gender, who is more aggressive?
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
Why are people aggressive? (Evolution)
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
Are we violent to those related to us?
No
Do we learn aggressive behaviour?
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
Can agression be positively and negatively reinforced?
Positive reinforcement: Aggression is reinforced when it produces desired outcomes
Negative reinforcement: Aggression is reinforced because it prevents or stops undesirable outcomes
Does spanking decrease punishment?
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
What happens 2 years after a child is spanked?
Antisocial behaviour increased as spanking continued
Learning from others, bobo study.
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
Does violent media have a big effect on aggression?
Violent media has a (small) but (mostly) consistent effect on aggression
What is desensitization?
People habituate to violent media
Reduced empathy for victims
Blunted physiological responses
Does violent media increase aggression?
Exposure to violent media seems to increase aggression…
Modeling, priming
Desensitization
Possibly reduced empathy
What is frustration.
Response to blocking of goal-directed behaviour
According to John Dollard and his colleagues (1939), the frustration-aggression hypothesis states that:
(a) aggression is a response to frustration and
(b) all aggression is the result of frustration
What kind of “drive” is frustration?
Frustration is said to be a psychological drive (like hunger is a physiological drive) that propels the individual towards action to decrease the drive
What is displacement of frustration arousal?
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
What is catharsis?
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)
What increases aggressive behaviour?
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)
Will global warming cause additional crime?
Global warming will cause an additional 22,000 murders, 1.2 mil aggressive assaults, costing over $100 billion (this century)
What influence does alcohol have on aggressive behaviour?
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!
What is the weapons effect?
Mere presence of weapons
Weapons effect study
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)
How do you reduce aggression?
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!)
