week 9 Aggression Flashcards
How is aggression defined and measured, and what should be considered when doing so?
- intentional infliction of some type of harm to others
- Difficult to define as shaped by cultural and social norms.
- emotions influence behaviour/aggression
Aggression is a negative interaction that can occur within and between groups and within close
relationships.
Aggression is damaging, leading to significant mental and physical health problems (especially in
its more extreme forms).
-Aggression:
• Believed to be on a spectrum
• Can be physical and/or verbal
• More abstracts concepts like ostracism can also be considered a form of aggression
what predicts aggression;
Aggression is an impulsive action that is
predicted by our cognitions, affect, and
physiological arousal.
What are the major theories of aggression, and what should be considered when comparing theories of aggression that stress biological factors, bio-social factors, and social factors?
Aggression is an impulsive action that is
predicted by our cognitions, affect, and
physiological arousal.
-something that is reactive.
-your internal state influences your behaviour, if you are already feeling angry then you are more likely to be triggered into aggressive behaviour.
-emotions also influences our arousal
-emotions influence our appraisal and decision process (depending on the way you appraise will influence whether you engage in thoughtful action or impulsive behaviour)
Most theories (explanations) of aggression fall into two broad approaches (reflecting the nature-nurture debate)
Biological explanations
Aggression is an innate drive or tendency. It
maintains the survival of the species.
We are born to be engage in aggression.
Social explanations
Aggression is dependent on learning and the
social context. We learn this from models.
We learn or are provoked to be aggressive
In reality, no single theory provides a complete explanation for why aggression occurs because
they either focus too much on biology or too much on social learning.
Instead most aggression behaviours are best thought as an interaction between
Nature (biology) x nurture (social environment)
with certain factors/variables increasing or decreasing the likelihood of aggression
-so both have an influence on behaviour.
How do personal and situational factors contribute to aggressive behaviour?
situational factors: -provocation -frustration -exposure to aggressive models -cues associated with aggression - causes of discomfort/negative affect. (the video) They were provoked • e.g., harsh/unjustified criticism, condescension, teasing, threat to status • Our attributions matter for this one!-how we interpret the situation, also how we are feeling when the provoke occured.
-They are frustrated
• Although frustration does not always = aggression
-we can also misattribute our feelings, stress at work and feelings of high arousal there can the able transferred home and higher levels of aggression can happen say you get triggered by things more easily- misattributing your feelings.
-They are HOT (and maybe even crowded in that car)!
….but not to hot. - where you reserve energy.
-They have been around violent media and people
• It’s modelling
• Desensitizes people to aggression
• It strengthens pro-aggression beliefs
• It increases hostile attributions
• Develops strong aggression schemas that are readily primed
Weapons are around him (weapons effect)
• Weapons prime aggressive thoughts
• Having guns around increases homicide and suicide
They have been socially excluded (ostracism)
• Loneliness
being excluded is a big threat to our survival.
Individual differences
- Personality
- found that children who are aggressive at eight years of age are more likely to be aggressive in later years. It also seems likely that chronic aggression is linked to a tendency to attribute hostile intentions to others.
Type A personality The ‘coronary-prone’ personality – a
behavioural correlate of heart disease characterised by striving to achieve, time urgency,
competitiveness and hostility.
-gender (men vs women)
testosterone and aggression link
- other hormones’ involved and is complex
An instrumental reason for aggression is catharsis, which refers to the process of using our behaviour as an outlet or release for pentup emotion – the cathar-tic hypothesis.
BUT:
Does venting anger extinguish or feed the flame? The results from the present research show that venting to reduce anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire – it only feeds the flame.
Alcohol= aggression
more one pg. 289
What is the general aggression model, including its major tenets?
Model: 1 input is: person/situation both 2. internal state affect/cognition/arousal 3.apraisal thoughtful or impulsive 2. action social encounter
Aggression is a social encounter that follows several steps. It starts with a person with specific characteristics in a particular context. The person and the situation are inputs that impact via affective, cognitive and arousal routes. The person’s decision on how to act depends: is the appraisal thoughtful or impulsive?
How are domestic violence and institutional aggression described?
learned patterns of aggression, imitated from parents and significant others, together with low competence in responding nonaggressively; there is a genera tional cycle of child abuse (Straus, Gelles & Steinmetz, 1980), and the chronic repetition of violence in some families has been identified as an abuse syndrome
• the proximity of family members, which makes them more likely to be sources of annoyance or frustration and targets when these feelings are generated exter nally
• stresses, especially financial difficulties, unemployment and illnesses (including postnatal depression; see Searle, 1987); this partly accounts for domestic vio lence being much more common in poorer families
• the division of power in traditional nuclear families, favouring the man, which makes it easier for less democratic styles of interaction to predominate (Claes & Rosenthal, 1990)
• a high level of alcohol consumption, which is a common correlate of male abuse of a spouse (Stith & Farley, 1993).
Here is a sobering statistic: about onequarter of those homicides where the
killer knows the victim are spousal. According to Todd Shackelford (2001), American women in cohabiting relationships incur about nine times the risk of being murdered as women in marital relationships, a trend that is similar in Canada. The breakup rate is also higher for cohabiting partners. There are other correlates of cohabiting: being poorer, younger and having stepchildren. According to metaanalyses carried out by John Archer (2000), there is a cultural effect clearly associated with female domestic violence – much higher rates are found in societies that are modern, secular and liberal, and where women are emancipated in both the local economy and the family
What strategies have been developed to decrease aggression, and how effective are they?
priming, just punching a boxing bag for example is not associated with getting rid of aggression as it actually primes you to be aggressive.
The person: Reducing alcohol misuse Helping those with a type A personality or insecure attachment orientation, or those with more hostile attribution tendencies to look at things differently. -people with insecure attachments are more likely to make hostile attributions.
The social environment:
Addressing crowding/heat (smaller class numbers, monitoring heat)
Negative relationship
interactions
(provocation, social
exclusion, loneliness)
-social exclusion and loneliness is real bad/implications are as bad as obesity.
Reduce exposure of violent
media (violent games are priming people/ modeling inappropriate behaviour.
Society: Replace cultural norms that accept/encourage aggression (e.g., “boys will be boys”) Gun ownership restrictions
Understand the main focus of biological theories of aggression. Note the main arguments for each of the theories discussed in your text: a) psychodynamic theory; b) ethology two-factor theory; and c) evolutionary theory.
biological theories:
The starting point for these explanations is that aggression is an innate action tendency.
goal-directed and terminates in a specific consequence (e.g. an attack)
• beneficial to the individual and to the species
• adapted to a normal environment (although not to an abnormal one)
• shared by most members of the species (although its manifestation can vary from individual to individual)
• developed in a clear way as the individual matures
• unlearned on the basis of individual experience (although it can become mani fest in relation to learned aspects within a context).
psychodynamic theory:
In Beyond the pleasure principle (1920/1990), Freud proposed that human aggression stems from an innate ‘Death Instinct’, Thanatos, which is in opposition to a ‘Life Instinct’, Eros. Thanatos is initially directed at selfdestruction, but later in development it becomes redirected outwards towards other people.
-an aggressive urge stemming from Thanatos builds up from bodily tensions, and needs to be expressed. This is essentially a onefactor theory: aggression builds up naturally and must be released.
Ethology:
The general perspective that underpins this explanation of aggression is referred to as ethology, a branch of biology devoted to the study of instincts, or fixed action patterns, among all members of a species when living in their natural environment.
- actual aggressive behaviour is elicited by specific stimuli in the environment, known as releasers.
- An animal is considerably more aggressive towards other members of its species, which serves to distribute the individuals and/ or family units in such a way as to make the most efficient use of available resources, such as sexual selection and mating, food and territory.
Evolutionary social Evolutionary social psychology is an ambitious approach that not only assumes an innate basis for aggression but also claims a biological basis for all social behaviour.
For humans, the goals for which aggressive behaviour is adaptive include social and economic advantage, either to defend the resources that we already have or to acquire new ones.
Understand the main focus of (bio-)social theories of aggression. Note the main arguments for each of the theories discussed in your text: a) frustration hypothesis; b) excitation-transfer model; and c) social learning theory.
Frustration–aggression hypothesis Theory that all frustration leads to aggression, and all aggression comes from frustration. Used to explain prejudice and intergroup aggression.
One major flaw is the theory’s loose def inition of ‘frustration’ and the difficulty in predicting which kinds of frustrating circumstance may lead to aggression. As we shall see, there are many factors other than frustration that can cause violence between people.
excitation transfer:
A later approach, which invoked the concept of drive, was Dolf Zillmann’s (1979, 1988) excitation-transfer model. The expression of aggression (or any other emo tion) is a function of:
- a learned aggressive behaviour
- arousal or excitation from another source -the person’s interpretation of the arousal state, such that an aggressive response seems appropriate.
Eg. A student has been exercising at the gym
and is still physically aroused when driving to the local supermarket. Here, another customer’s car sneaks forward into the parking space that the student is trying to reverse into. Although the event might ordinarily be mildly annoying, this time the residual excitation from the gym session (now forgotten) triggers verbal abuse from the student (not you, of course).
social learning:
- that human social behaviour is not innate but learned from appropriate models
The idea of learning by direct experience is based on B. F. Skinner’s operant reinforcement principles: a behaviour is maintained by rewards and punishments actually experienced by the child. For example, if Jonathan takes Margaret’s bis cuit from her, and no one intervenes, then he is reinforced by now having the biscuit. The idea of learning by vicarious experience is a contribution made by social learning theorists, who argue that learning occurs through the processes of modelling and imitation of other people.
According to Bandura, whether a person is aggressive in a particular situation depends on:
• a person’s previous experiences of others’ aggressive behaviour
• how successful aggressive behaviour has been in the past
- the current likelihood that an aggressive person will be either rewarded or punished
• the complex array of cognitive, social and environmental factors in the situation.
Modelling
Tendency for a person to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real-life or symbolic model. Also called observational learning.
Review the individual differences and situational variables that are linked to aggression.
Individual differences
- Personality
- found that children who are aggressive at eight years of age are more likely to be aggressive in later years. It also seems likely that chronic aggression is linked to a tendency to attribute hostile intentions to others.
Type A personality The ‘coronary-prone’ personality – a
behavioural correlate of heart disease characterised by striving to achieve, time urgency,
competitiveness and hostility.
-gender (men vs women)
testosterone and aggression link
- other hormones’ involved and is complex
An instrumental reason for aggression is catharsis, which refers to the process of using our behaviour as an outlet or release for pentup emotion – the cathar-tic hypothesis.
BUT:
Does venting anger extinguish or feed the flame? The results from the present research show that venting to reduce anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire – it only feeds the flame.
Alcohol= aggression
more one pg. 289
situation variables:
Environments:
Two aspects of our environment have been reliably implicated in increasing levels of aggression, heat and crowding.
Differentiate between the 3 D’s: Disinhibition, Deindividuation, and Dehumanisation. Example each with a research study.
Disinhibition A breakdown in the learned controls (social mores) against behaving impulsively or, in this context, aggressively. For some people, alcohol has a disinhibiting effect.
Deindividuation Process whereby people lose their sense of socialised individual identity and engage in unsocialised, often antisocial, behaviours.
Deindividuation brings a sense of reduced likelihood of punishment for acting aggressively.
(crowds)
My Lai incident, during the Vietnam War, where American soldiers slaughtered an entire village of innocent civilians. In the official inquiry, it was revealed that the same unit had previously killed and tortured civilians without any disciplinary action; that the area was a designated ‘free-fire’ zone, so that it was considered legitimate to shoot at anything that moved; and indeed that the whole ethos of the war was one of glorified violence (Hersh, 1970).
In addition, there was a sense of anonymity, or deindividuation, which came from being part of a large group, and this further enhanced the soldiers’ perception that they would not be punished as individuals.
Dehumanisation Stripping people of their dignity and humanity.
Explain the reasoning behind the General Aggression Model.
Model: 1 input is: person/situation both 2. internal state affect/cognition/arousal 3.apraisal thoughtful or impulsive 2. action social encounter
Aggression is a social encounter that follows several steps. It starts with a person with specific characteristics in a particular context. The person and the situation are inputs that impact via affective, cognitive and arousal routes. The person’s decision on how to act depends: is the appraisal thoughtful or impulsive?
Define relative deprivation. How might this foster mass aggression?
Relative deprivation A sense of having less than we feel entitled to.
Relative deprivation is a sense of discontent associated with feeling that the
chance of improving one’s condition is slight. If improvement cannot be achieved legitimately, a deprived individual might commit vandalism, assault or burglary; at an intergroup level, this could extend to collective aggression, such as violent protest or rioting. The Los Angeles race riots of 1992 were ostensibly triggered by a jury verdict that acquitted Caucasian police officers of beating an African American motorist. Although this was the immediate cause, there was also an enduring undercurrent of relative deprivation among African Americans in the neighbourhoods of Los Angeles where the rioting occurred.
Review the research on gender roles, cultural norms, and the subculture of aggression.
gender roles:
Although criminal violence is still more prevalent among men than women, the
rate of violent offending has increased more rapidly among women.
Throughout history, there have always been differences in cultural norms and values that have shaped some societies as more, and some as less, aggressive than others.
Regions that place a value on vio lence to restore honour include some Mediterranean countries, the Middle East and Arab countries, central and southern America, and the southern United States. In their crosscultural comparisons of peoples in the Americas, Vandello et al. reached three general conclusions: 1. Female infidelity damages a man’s reputation, particularly in honour cultures. 2. A man’s reputation can be partly restored by exacting retribution. 3. Cultural values of female loyalty and sacrifice, on one hand, and male honour, on the other, validate abuse in a relationship. The same values reward a woman who ‘soldiers on’ in the face of violence.
Subculture of violence
A subgroup of society in which a higher level of violence is accepted as the norm.
The norms of the group reflect an approval of aggressiveness, and there are both rewards for violence and sanctions for noncompliance. In urban settings, these groups are often labelled and selfstyled as gangs, and the importance of vio lence is reflected in their appearance and behaviour
machismo among Latin American families, and suggested that it encourages a subculture of violence among boys and young men.
Briefly discuss the following aspects in terms of their research findings relating to aggressive behaviour. Do you agree with these links? (a) media; (b) violent video games/films; (c) the weapons effect; and (d) pornography.
media and games/films - Social learning
that merely thinking about an act can facilitate its performance. According to neoassociationism, real or fictional images of violence that are presented to an audience can translate later into antisocial acts. Conversely, exposure to images of people helping others can lead later to prosocial acts
priming also
Weapons effect The mere presence of a weapon increases the probability that it will be used aggressively.
When violence is mixed with sex in films there is, at the very least, evidence of male desensitisation to aggression against women – callous and demeaning attitudes sexually violent TV programs were linked to later aggression (Paik and Comstock, 1994), most clearly in male aggression against women.
Outline some of the influential factors that have been discussed as an explanation for domestic violence.
learned patterns of aggression, imitated from parents and significant others, together with low competence in responding nonaggressively; there is a genera tional cycle of child abuse (Straus, Gelles & Steinmetz, 1980), and the chronic repetition of violence in some families has been identified as an abuse syndrome
• the proximity of family members, which makes them more likely to be sources of annoyance or frustration and targets when these feelings are generated exter nally
• stresses, especially financial difficulties, unemployment and illnesses (including postnatal depression; see Searle, 1987); this partly accounts for domestic vio lence being much more common in poorer families
• the division of power in traditional nuclear families, favouring the man, which makes it easier for less democratic styles of interaction to predominate (Claes & Rosenthal, 1990)
• a high level of alcohol consumption, which is a common correlate of male abuse of a spouse (Stith & Farley, 1993).
Here is a sobering statistic: about onequarter of those homicides where the
killer knows the victim are spousal. According to Todd Shackelford (2001), American women in cohabiting relationships incur about nine times the risk of being murdered as women in marital relationships, a trend that is similar in Canada. The breakup rate is also higher for cohabiting partners. There are other correlates of cohabiting: being poorer, younger and having stepchildren. According to metaanalyses carried out by John Archer (2000), there is a cultural effect clearly associated with female domestic violence – much higher rates are found in societies that are modern, secular and liberal, and where women are emancipated in both the local economy and the family.
