Week 5-Aggression Flashcards
What is a ‘Type A’ vs ‘Type B’ personality? (Friedman & Rosenman, 1959)
-Overactive, achievement oriented competitive (A) VS quiet, easy going, relaxed (B)
-People with Type A personalities tend to be more aggressive (especially in competitive environments)
What evidence supports type A personalities?
- Type A more aggressive to competitors than those with a Type B personality (Carver & Glass, 1978)
- Managers who are type A were more in conflict with peers and those who work under them (Baron, 1989)
- ‘Type A’ personality linked to higher driving anger compared to ‘type B’ personality (Feng et al., 2017)
Is personality a dimension or a category?
-Dimension as people may possess traits from either Type A or B rather than have that personality fully
-Outdated research practices and measurement instruments in older research
Is personality a dimension or a category?
-Dimension as people may possess traits from either Type A or B rather than have that personality fully
-Outdated research practices and measurement instruments in older research
What is the Big Five?
Openess
Conscientousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
How have personality traits been linked to aggression?
*For example, Barlett and Anderson (2012) found that
Openness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism predicted self
-reported physical aggression and violent behaviours
*Overall, personality traits can be seen as individual dispositions or ‘risk factors’ for aggressive behaviours
How can alcohol affect our brain?
-effects cortical control where thinking and other cognitive functions are carried out
-Alcohol myopia: narrows our attention to provocative cues in our environment (Giancola et al., 2010)
-Affects emotional processing and increases activity in other more primitive areas e.g., areas that affect breathing, heartbeat
What’s the link between alcohol and aggression?
-There’s a causal link between alcohol consumption and aggressive behaviour (Bartholow et al., 2003; Bartholow & Heinz, 2006; Giancola, 2003)
-Non-regular alcohol drinkers become more aggressive when they drink (LaPlace et al., 1994)
Alcohol can even affect aggression through priming or placebo:
* Participants who thought they had consumed alcohol more aggressive even if they were given a non-alcohol cocktail (Begue et al., 2009)
* Priming alcohol-related words increased aggression (Pedersen et al, 2014)
Does alcohol always lead to aggression?
-Not every alcohol consumer will act aggressively
-Factors such as your expectancy effect when you consume alcohol (Beck & Heinz, 2013) OR cues in the environment (Giancola et al., 2011) are also important
What’s disinhibition?
A reduction in social rules that stop us from behaving anti-social, immoral, illegally (aka aggressively)
-one of the ways in which alcohol can be associated with aggression
How can disinhibition occur in online contexts aka the ‘online disinhibition effect’? (Suler, 2004)
- People often do and say things online that they wouldn’t ordinarily do in the face-to-face world
- Suler (2004) outlines six factors to explain online disinhibition
Suler’s (2004) 6 factors: What’s Dissociative anonymity?
-Online behaviour can be completely anonymous which can make people behave differently than they do in real life
-separation of offline and online identity
Suler’s (2004) 6 factors: What’s invisibility?
-Not feeling seen or heard amplifies the ‘online disinhibition effect’ and gives the courage to do things you wouldn’t normally do
-Online spaces means no eye contact or face-to-face visibility
Suler’s (2004) 6 factors: What’s Asynchronicity?
Emails or words online aren’t always immediately seen after you’ve sent them meaning you don’t have to cope with someone’s immediate response
Suler’s (2004) 6 factors: What’s Solipsistic introjection
-Feeling like you know people who are online merging theirs and your identity together
-You make up conversations with them and feel like you can tell them anything contributing to disinhibited behaviour
Suler’s (2004) 6 factors: What’s dissociative imagination?
- Feeling that one’s online persona lives in a make-believe dimension
- Online fiction separated from offline fact
- Seeing the online world as a game where social rules and norms don’t apply
Suler’s (2004) 6 factors: What’s Minimisation of authority?
- Online environment can feel as a peer-to-peer relationship
- Absence of authority figure may make people more willing to speak out and (potentially) misbehave
What’s deindividuation?
Situational changes that make people lose their identity and
therefore influence the level of aggression exhibited.
* Lowers the perceived likelihood of being punished
* Presence of others (other people won’t see me do it)
* Anonymity (they won’t know who it was)
* Diffusion of responsibility (I’m not
responsible)
* Group size (greater the group, the greater the DoR)
* Collective aggression such as crowd baiting (Mann, 1981)
What’s Dehumanisation?
Thinking of another person as
anonymous, without thoughts feelings or emotions.
* Changes the way the victim is
perceived, as opposed to deindividuation
* Denial of pain suffered by victim
* Provides a justification for violence
* Psychiatric units, prisons
* Torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad, Iraq; Mass killings in WWII; Rwandan genocide
What’s the association between temperature and aggression?
- Studies tracking physical assaults and suicide over time
typically report highest number of assaults when the weather
is hot (Cohn & Rotton, 1997; Harries & Stadler, 1983; Maes et al., 1994) - Participants responded more aggressively (horn honking) to a
car blocking the road when temperatures were higher (Kenrick
& MCFarlane, 1986)
But, is there a limit to the effect of temperature? - Aggression levels out at extreme temperatures
- Heat interacts with other variables For example, alcohol
What’s crowding according to Le Bon (1895)?
- 19th century – century of revolution
- The crowd is mindless, violent and irrational
- People feel anonymous in a crowd situation
- More suggestible to specific
behaviours - Idea that crowd behaviour is contagious
- “Mad Mob” view
How can crowding occur in urban environments: Toronto (Regoeczi, 2003)
- Population density can be linked to crime rate
- Household density & neighbourhood density correlated
with feelings of aggression and withdrawal from stranger interactions
How can crowding occur in prisons: UK (Lawrence & Andrew, 2004)
Feeling crowded = events and protagonists felt more aggressive, aggressors
Crowding: are crowds really
‘mindless’?: Reicher (1984)
- St Paul’s Riots, 1980, London
- Violence against individuals
and property - Police and camera operators
were only intentional targets - Rioters had a shared identity
which can guide collective behaviour - Overall, crowd behaviour is more sophisticated than Le Bon
suggested
What’s the Frustration – Aggression hypothesis:
Dollard et al (1939)
- Theory of contextual influence seeking to address lynching murders in Southern USA in 1930s
- Aggression is always caused by frustration (i.e. when we can’t achieve certain goals)
- Aggression directed towards the source of the frustration (retaliatory) or others (displaced)
Is frustration a good explanation
for aggression?
- Not clear how frustration leads to aggression
- Frustration does not always lead to aggression
- Some forms of aggression are not linked to frustration
What’s the social learning theory?
Human social behaviour is not innate but learned from
appropriate models
* Learning by direct experience: acquiring behaviour because we were previously rewarded for it (operant conditioning)
* Learning by vicarious experience: acquiring behaviour because another person was rewarded for it
* This means we can learn through observation (modelling and imitation)
* Some models (e.g. parents, siblings) are more appropriate than others
SLT: What is the Bobo doll study (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1963)?
- 4 & 5 year olds
- Watched a female or male adult play with an inflated Bobo doll
Four conditions: - Live: adult came into the room and was aggressive to the doll
- Videotape: same as above but video taped
- Cartoon: model was dressed like a cartoon character
- Control condition
How did Van Schie & Wiegman (1997) investigate the link between video games and aggression in the Netherlands?
- 10 – 14 year olds
- No relationship between
computer playing and aggression. - Significant negative correlation with pro-social behaviour (game players less likely to be helpful; r =
- 0.12)
How was Cooperation and Competition in peaceful societies investigated? (Bonta, 1997)
25 societies examined which were almost completely without violence – either inter-personal or inter-group:
* Chewong – Malay peninsula. No words for quarrelling, fighting, aggression, warfare
* Ifaluk – Micronesia. In 12 months one tiny act of aggression
* Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites – USA & Canada. Hutterites never a recorded murder
* Kadar – India. Crime totally absent according to local police
* Jains – India. Habitual criminality unknown. Competitive and join military.
What General themes were there in peaceful societies? (Bonta, 1997)
- Co-operation and group success rather than individual competition and achievement
- Children cherished to age 3, then ignored
- Positive interpersonal relations must be constantly re-enforced
- Competition is associated with aggressiveness and violence
- Self perpetuating – non-violence leads to non-violence
- Re-enforced by rituals emphasising co-operation and
individual humility
What are the Honour systems?
- The South of the USA has more homicides than North
- Particularly in males and amongst people who know each other
- One possible reason is cultural response to threats against social
status ‘honour’ - Minor conflicts can escalate very quickly
How did Cohen et al (1996) investigate honour systems?
Ran a study whereby participants needed to walk down a narrow
hallway
* A confederate bumped in to
them (they didn’t know they
were part of the study)
* Looked at how people responded
* Did they respond aggressively?
* How did they respond biologically?
How did Cohen and Nisbett (1997) investigate honour systems?
Sent letters to potential employers with two different stories
Story 1: to half the employers, the applicant reported that he
had impulsively killed a man who had been having an affair
with his fiancée and then taunted him about it in a crowded bar
Story 2: to the other half, the applicant reported that he had
stolen a car because he needed the money to pay off debts.
- Employers in the South were more likely to respond in an
understanding manner to the first story (killing someone out of
honour) than people in the North - Both sets of employers responded negatively to the car theft story as not related to honour
Why is there this difference between the North and South of the USA with regard to Honour Systems?
- Historical issues with levels of policing: There was little law enforcement in the south, so it was necessary to rely on reputation and honour
- Origins of settlers in these regions: People in the north
were farmers, People in the south were cattle herders
What traits consist of a collectivist individual?
- Interdependent construal of self
- Attend to others
- Rely on others and they rely on you
- Make less of a distinction between individual and group
goals - Obeys ‘in-group’ authority
- Distrust out-groups
What traits consist of an individualist individual?
- Independent construal of self
- Assert the self
- Exchange relationships
- Promoting own achievements and initiatives
- Links between members of society are weaker
- People want to stand out. Being ‘ordinary’ seen as negative
How does individualist-collectivism affect aggression?
- All cultures develop methods to regulate conflict and aggression
- These methods vary across cultures
- Individualism and collectivism an important variable here
- This influences what people view as justifiable and peoples’ aggressive behaviours
What did Fujihara et al (1999) find asking students from Japan,
Spain and the USA about past aggressive behaviours? (I-C)
- Indirect aggression seen as acceptable in individualistic cultures
- Direct verbal aggression seen as more justifiable in collectivist cultures
- Physical aggression seen as more acceptable in individualistic cultures
- Physical aggression seen as acceptable in collectivist cultures if defending yourself
What do individualistic cultures focus on?
-Personal desires
-Self-assertiveness is important
-The need to look after yourself
What do collectivist cultures focus on?
-Confucianism
-Emphasises importance of social harmony, avoidance of conflict and obligation to others
-Aggression viewed as shameful and socially damaging
-Self-assertiveness seen as selfish and antisocial
What are the limitations of I-C dimension?
- Independent dimensions (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005;
Kağitçibasi, 1994) - Not all members of a collectivist society will be collectivist (same for individualistic cultures)
- Depends on the situation: Are there situations in which you act an individualistic / collectivist nature?
- Researchers assume participants are either I or C without measuring first
- Qualitative differences between ‘collectivistic cultures’ (Dien, 1999)
- Chinese - Authority-orientated orientation
- Japanese – Peer-group orientated
What are In-groups and out-groups?
- In-groups: When a person psychologically identifies being a member (e.g., by interests, gender, occupation,age)
- Out-groups: When a person does not psychologically identify being a member (e.g., by interests, gender,
occupation, age) - Culture impacts in-group membership and out group treatment
What explanation did Tajfel (1978) give about in-groups and out-groups?
- A person chooses an in-group because it maximises positive social identity
- People are generally ethnocentric
about in-group - One way of improving status within your in-groups is by discriminating towards out-groups
- Some even actively promote
aggression towards out-groups (e.g.,sports teams)
How does culture influence in-group / out-group?
- Collectivistic cultures more focused on the distinction between out-groups and in-groups (Bell & Chaibong, 2003)
- Nearly all cultures restrict aggression against in-groups
- But observed more frequently in collectivist cultures
- Will try and deescalate conflict within in-groups
- But indifferent to out-groups
- Collectivists more aggressive towards out-groups (Brown et al, 1992)
- If values clash, more likely to be hostile
-AggreWhat occurs within collectivism and out-grouping?
- Extreme cases lead to out-casting
- e.g., Nazis and treatment of Jewish people
- Most likely when collectivist and other cultural values are present
- e.g. masculine societies, those high in uncertainty avoidance (e.g., Niedbala & Hohman, 2018)
