social psychology; week 9; aggression

defining aggression in psychology

• behaviour resulting in person injury or destruction of property (Bandura, 1973)

• behaviour intended to harm another of the same species (Schere, Abeles & Fischer, 1975)

• behaviour directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment (Baron, 1977)

• intentional infliction of harm on others (Baron & Byrne, 2000)

• behaviour directed towards another carried out with the proximate intent to cause harm (Anderson & Bushman, 2002)

• behaviour that is intended to harm others in some way (Baron & Branscombe, 2012)

studying aggression

• researchers measure aggression differently:

  • analogues of behaviour

    • bobo dolls (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1963)

    • pressing a button to deliver a (fake) shock (Buss, 1961)

  • signals of intention

    • asking pp about situations and how willingly they’d be aggressive in those situations

    • expression of willingness to behave aggressively

  • ratings

    • self-report, report by others (teachers/ parents)

    • observation

  • indirect

    • non-physical, relational / psychological aggression

studying aggression - critical appraisal

• analogues of behaviour

  • is this generalisable to real life settings?

• signals of intention

  • intentions does not always translate to behaviour

• ratings

  • social desirability bias

  • observation- interpret behaviour in line with prior expectations/ hypotheses

• indirect

  • may inflate the prevalence of aggression if comparing to direct/ physical measures of aggression

the theoretical approaches of aggression

biological

• psychodynamic

• evolutionary

biosocial

• frustration and aggression

• excitation transfer

social

• social learning theory

biological approaches of aggression: psychodynamic

• we have an unconscious drive known as ‘thanatos’ (death instinct)

• over time this instinct builds up creating pressure which we cannot control and makes us do something aggressive

• we deal with this tension by redirecting it to other activities = catharsis

• how do you engage in catharsis?

biological approaches of aggression: evolutionary

• aggressive behaviour is used to ensure genetic survival:

• aggression thus must be linked to living long enough to procreate (can be seen when comparing against animal behaviour)

  • males fighting other males for mating rights, hunting for food, protecting territory or resources

  • mothers behave aggressively to protect their offspring

• among humans → obtain social and economic advantage to improve survival rate of their children

biological approaches of aggression: critical evaluation

• do appeal and resonate with the idea that violence is part of human nature

• supported when comparing to animal behaviour

• unknowable and immeasurable - instincts cannot be measures

• supported by observational studies only, so cannot establish causality

• evolutionary tendencies develop over thousands of years- difficult to measure in lab

• humans behave aggressively outside of situations when we need to defend ourselves. children

• aggression toward sour own relatives

biosocial approaches of aggression: frustration and aggression

• based on the catharsis hypothesis

• considers frustration as an antecedent to aggression

  • frustration = individual is prevented from achieving a goal by some external factor

• aggression is a cathartic release of the build-up of frustration

• cannot always challenge the direct source of aggression

  • sublimination- using aggression in acceptable activities such as sport

  • displacement- directing aggression onto something or someone else

biosocial approaches of aggression: critical evaluation

• provides useful opportunities for intervention to target

• Marcus-Newhall et al (2000) meta-analysis of 49 studies of displaced aggression. Participants who were provoked but inable to retaliate directly against the source of frustration were significantly more likely to lash out at an innocent party unprovoked (displacement)

Biosocial approaches of aggression: excitation transfer

• people experience physiological arousal in different contexts

• arousal in one context can carry over to other situations and may increase likelihood of aggressive behaviour

• requires three conditions:

  • 1st stimuli produces arousal/ excitement

  • 2nd stimuli occurs before the complete decay of arousal from the first stimulus

  • there is a misattribution of excitation to the 2nd stimulus

  • 

social approaches of aggression: social learning theory

• aggression can be learnt

• directly (operant conditioning)

  • e.g. child rewarded for an aggressive act will repeat the behaviour

• indirectly (observation learning and vicarious reinforcement)

  • e.g. watching role models carry out aggressive behaviours and observing the consequence of the aggressive acts- whether the role model is rewarded or punished for them

• if aggressive behaviour is rewarded, they learn it is socially acceptable

• Study: Bandura and Walters (1963)

  • Nursery school children observe adult attack a ‘bobo doll’ when upset

    • in person

    • videotaped

    • cartoon

    • control- saw nothing

  • children exposed to an adult displaying aggressive behaviour demonstrated increase number of aggressive behaviours when alone

  • strongest effect for live observation

  • 

social approaches of aggression: social learning theory: critical evaluation

• account for how children learn aggression form others around them, as well as through media

• empirical support from many studies, but many are in labs

• aggressive role model does not meant there is aggressive behaviour

• does not include individual differences

• effect of violent media on aggressive behaviour is not consistently replicated

personal factors of aggression: sex and gender

• may engage in aggressive behaviour more frequently than women (Eagly & Steffen, 1986)

  • but is this due to differences in hormones such as testosterone or differences in socialisation

• there is individual variation in testosterone levels across genders, and testosterone only has a weak positive relationship with aggression (Book et al., 2001)

• we learn gender appropriate behaviours (Eagly & Steffen, 1986)

  • physical aggression socially unacceptable for women

  • indirect (relational) forms of aggression may be more socially acceptable for women

• this would predict that men and women would differ not in the amount but the type of aggressive behaviours displayed

personal factors of aggression: gender

• Denson et al., 2018

  • literature review of aggressive behaviour in women

  • overall, women are more likely to engage in indirect forms of aggressive behaviours

  • on lab studies: women are physically less aggressive compared to men

• gender differences in aggression may be due to socialisation

personal factors of aggression: personality

• Barlett & Anderson, 2012:

  • big five personality traits and aggression

  • agreeableness:

    • negatively associated with aggression both directly and indirectly via aggressive attitudes and emotions

  • Neuroticism:

    • positive association with physical aggression both directly and indirectly via aggressive emotions

  • conclusions supported in a recent meta-analysis (Hyatt et al., 2019)

personal factors of aggression: attachment

• attachment security (Ogivile et al., 2014)

  • meta-analysis of 30 studies that included an overall total of 2798 offenders, examines the relationship between attachment security and offending

  • offenders were less secure in their attachment than controls

  • insecure attachment was strongly associated with all types of criminality

  • BUT excluded studies involving juvenile and female offenders

  • attachment is also not always measured in the same way

situational factors of aggression: alcohol

• alcohol present in 68% of incidents of physical aggression

• Bushman & Cooper (1990) meta-analysis of experimental studies: alcohol consumptions increased aggressive behaviour in men

• direct effects:

  • compromises cortical control and increases activity in more primitive brain areas- impairment in cognitive function, decision making

  • physiological arousal - in line with excitation transfer model

• indirect effects:

  • placebo effect- expectations of receiving alcohol (in fact placebo) increased aggressive behaviour (Begue et al., 2009)

  • priming effect - activating thoughts of alcohol increased aggressive behaviour

• Study: Taylor and Sears (1988)

  • assigned 18 male pps to alcohol vs placebo condition

  • Competitive task with another ppt involving reaction time

  • Loser received electric shock from opponent each time

  • Shock level “supposedly” set by the ppt delivering the shock (but actually kept constantly low by experimenter)

  • A confederate applied social pressure to the ppt, sometimes encouraging them to increase the shock level (max = level 16)

  • Those in the alcohol group were more susceptible to this pressure

  • 

situational factors of aggression: Heat

• heat and aggression are linked - ‘hot-headed’, ‘blood boiling’

• Cohn & Rotton (1997)

  • asssessed links between ambient temperature and assaults

  • increased ambient temperature is associated with increases in aggression

  • but the effect is not linear: it can be too hot to have the energy for aggression

  • effects stronger in the evening

    • potential interaction between heat and alcohol consumption

  • 

situational factors of aggression: crowding

• population density linked to crime rates

  • increases stress, irritation, frustration and physiological arousal (Lawrence & Andrews, 2004)

• anonymity in crowds

  • disinhibition- when the usual social forces that restrain us from acting anti-socially are reduced in some way

  • ‘deindividuation’- feeling unidentifiable among many others means we think we are unlikely to face consequences

    • football hooliganism, riots, online bullying

societal factors of aggression: crowding

• socially disadvantaged groups may engage in aggression if they believe

  • they are unjustly disadvantaged and they cannot improve their disadvantaged position

• rates of homocide and non-lethal violence is higher among young, urban, poor and ethnic minority males- likely due to a mix of social and ecological factors

• relative deprivation- discontent coupled with feeling that chances of improving conditions through legitimate means is minimal

  • vandalism, assault, burglary, riots or violent protests

societal influences of aggression: violent media

• Easy access to sanitised versions of aggression/ violence in the media has been argued to desensitise viewers

• TV/film often depicts aggressors as unpunished heroes

• Social learning theory argues that viewers will copy such reinforced acts, whereas the catharsis hypothesis argues it will release tension and reduce aggression

• Black and Bevan (1992) viewing a violent film increases aggression scores compared to watching a non-violent film (priming effect)

• Greitmeyer & Mugge 2014: Meta-analysis of 98 studies suggested that violent video games increase aggression

General Aggression Model

• Fundamental idea is the interplay between personal and situational variables

• Which influence 3 internal states: cognition, affect, arousal

• Affecting our appraisal/decision processes

• Which influence aggressive outcomes

• Applied in many contexts e.g. effect of media on violence, domestic violence

• Used to inform interventions to reduce aggression and violence

• 

• 1. Person and situation factors increase or decrease the likelihood of aggression through their influence on internal state variables (i.e., cognition, affect, and arousal)

• 2. Person/situational variables can affect our moods/emotions, aggressive thoughts, and arousal which affect our appraisals and therefore alter the likelihood of aggression

• 3. Internal states influence appraisal of the situation. E.g. if a person is emotional, highly aroused, has aggressive thoughts , negative impulsive appraisals—including a goal, plan to harm the perpetrator—are more likely. The behavioural script that was activated during the appraisal is then enacted leading to the social encounter

• explaining temperature effects

  • Measured hostile affect, hostile cognition, perceived arousal, and physiological arousal with 107 undergraduates who played video games while room temperature was controlled

  • Increasing temperature resulted in increased hostile affect, hostile cognition, and physiological arousal

  • Therefore, hot temperatures increase aggressive tendencies by 3 separate routes (internal states)

  • Excitation transfer processes may then increase the likelihood of biased (hostile) appraisals of ambiguous social events, resulting in increased likelihood of aggression

institutionalised aggression

• Institutions are places where there are strict rules that give little choice to members of that institution.

  • E.g. prisons, schools.

• Institutional aggression refers to aggressive behaviours adopted by members of an institution; e.g. prisoners may form gangs that commit violence against other inmates/staff.

• About 25% of prisoners are victimized by violence each year while 4–5% experience sexual violence and 1–2% are raped (Modvig, 2014)

• Approximately 30% of all students annually experience some type of aggression at school (UNESCO, 2018)

causes of institutionalised aggression

• dispositional factors

  • •Personalities of the institution’s members – Importation model (Irwin and Cressey, 1962)

    • E.g. gender, personality, attachment, past experience

• situational factors

  • Situation in which the members find themselves – Deprivation model (Sykes, 1958)

    • E.g. crowding, uncomfortable temperature, loss of freedom

• linked to general aggression model and frustration-aggression hypothesis

intimate partner violence

“any behaviour within an intimate relationship that causes physical, psychological or sexual harm to those in the relationship, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviors” (WHO, 2002)

• 30% of women globally aged 15 and older have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence (Devries et al. 2013)

• Female perpetrated IPV occurs more in societies that are modern, secular, and liberal (Archer, 2006)

  • likely reflecting changes in traditional gender roles/norms (societal influences)

causes of IPV

Personal/situational factors

• Biology (e.g. Pinto et al. 2010)

• Gender (e.g. Gonzalez & Rodriguez – Planas, 2020)

• Stresses – financial, unemployment, illness (e.g. Kalifeh et al. 2013)

• Alcohol consumption (e.g. Foran & O’Leary, 2014)

• Football? (e.g. Kirby, Francis, & O’Flaerty 2014)

Social

• SLT - Learned patterns of aggression: generational cycle of abuse (Huesmann, Dubow, & Boxer, 2011)

Biosocial

• Excitation transfer (football, alcohol), frustration aggression hypothesis (stresses), General Aggression Model (personal/situational factors)

if aggression is omnipresent, is it an inescapable part of human nature?

Some scholars (e.g. Ardrey, 1961) claim that aggression is a basic human instinct, an innate fixed action pattern that we share with other species. If aggression has a genetic foundation, then presumably its expression is inevitable. Other scholars paint a less gloomy picture, arguing that even if aggressive tendencies are a part of our behavioural repertoire, it may be possible to control and possibly prevent the expression of the tendency as actual behaviour

ethology

• ethology

  • a branch of biology; the study of instincts or fixed action patterns. among a species when living in their natural environment

  • they stress the functional aspects of aggression, recognising the instinct for aggression may be innate, whilst also noting that aggressive behaviour is elicited by specific stimuli in the environment; aka releasers

  • Lorenz invoked evolutionary principles to propose that aggression has survival value. An animal is more aggressive towards other members of its species, which functions to distribute the individuals and/or family units to make the most efficient use of available resources, such as sexual selection and mating, food and territory.

  • intraspecies aggression may not result in actual violence, as one animal will display instinctual threat gestures that are recognised by the other animal,

  • Lorenz (1966) extended the argument to humans, who he believed also inherited a fighting instinct . However, its survival value for humans is less clear than for other animals. Largely because humans lack well-developed killing appendages, such as large teeth or claws, so that clearly recognisable appeasement gestures seem not to have evolved

The implications of ethology

• once we start being violent, we do not seem to know when to stop

• in order to kill, we generally need to resort to weapons

imitation

What is unique in social learning theory is the proposition that the behaviour to be imitated must be seen to be rewarding in some way, and that some models, such as parents, siblings and peers, are more appropriate for the child than others. The learning sequence of aggression can be extended beyond direct interactions between people to include media images, such as on television. It can also explain how adults learn in later life. 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

Bandura’s studies used a variety of experimental settings to show that children quite readily mimic the aggressive acts of others. Adults in particular make potent models, no doubt because children perceive their elders as responsible and authoritative figures. Early findings pointed to a clear modelling effect when the adult was seen acting aggressively in a live setting. Even more disturbingly, this capacity to behave aggressively was also found when children saw the adult model acting violently on television.

A theoretical approach: A blend of SLT with the learning of a particular kind of cognitive schema- the script

Children learn rules of conduct from those around them, so that aggression becomes internalised. A situation is recognised as frustrating or threatening: for example, a human target is identified, and a learnt routine of aggressive behaviour is enacted. Once established in childhood, an aggressive sequence is persistent. Research on age trends for murder and manslaughter in the United States shows that this form of aggression quickly peaks among 15to 25-year-olds and then declines systematically

What effect does spanking have on the social development of children?

From SLT, you predict that children will learn that striking another is not punished, at least if the aggressor is more powerful! In a two-year longitudinal study of children and their parents, Murray Straus et al recorded how often a child was spanked (none to three or more times) each week. Across a two-year period, they found an almost linear relationship between the rate of spanking and the level of antisocial behaviour. Children who were not spanked at all showed less antisocial behaviour after two years.

Another study, by Brian Boutwell et al, was able to disentangle environmental and genetic factors. Data was drawn from a US longitudinal study of children born in 2001 that included twins (about 1,300 fraternal and 250 identical), which allows an estimate to the genetic impact on behaviour. The results pointed to a genetic susceptibility to long-term antisocial behaviour that was more marked in children who were spanked. This effect was negligible in girls.

Type A personality

• Type A people are overactive and excessively competitive with others, and may be more aggressive towards those perceived as competing with them on an important task.

• are also prone to coronary heart disease.

• Type A people prefer to work alone when under stress, probably to avoid exposure to incompetence in others and feel in control of the situation.

• A behaviour can be socially destructive in a number of ways.

  • For example, Type A personalities have been reported to be more prone to abuse children and experience more conflict with peers and subordinates, but not their own supervisors.

hormones:

• Brian Gladue (1991) reported higher levels of overt aggression in males than in females. Moreover, this sex difference applied equally to heterosexual and homosexual males when compared with females – biology (male/female) rather than gender orientation was the main contributing variable.

• In a second study, Gladue and his colleagues measured testosterone levels through saliva tests in their male participants and also assessed whether they were Type A or Type B personalities. The levels of shock administered to an opponent in an experimental setting were higher when the male was either higher in testosterone or a Type A personality, or both. Overall, there is a small correlation of 0.14 between elevated testosterone (in both males and females) and aggression – if it was causal, testosterone would explain 2% of variation in aggression. However, a correlation between levels of testosterone and aggression does not establish causality.

• Causality could operate in the opposite direction. A more convincing link between the two was pinpointed by two studies in The Netherlands. Transsexuals who were treated with sex hormones as part of their gender reassignment showed increased or decreased proneness to aggression according to whether the direction of change was female to male or male to female. Although reviews of both animal and human studies confirm a link between testosterone and aggression, they also implicate other hormones – norepinephrine (noradrenaline), dopamine and serotonin.

catharsis

• An instrumental reason for aggression is catharsis. We aggress as an outlet or release for pent-up emotion – the cathartic hypothesis. The idea can be traced back to Aristotle and ancient Greek tragedy: by acting out their emotions, people can purify their feelings. The idea has popular appeal. Perhaps ‘letting off steam’ from frustration can restore equanimity.

• In Japan, some companies have already followed this principle, providing a special room with a toy replica of the boss upon which employees can relieve their tensions by ‘bashing the boss!’.

• However, questions about its efficacy has been around for many years, and more recent experimental research has outright rejected the argument that cathartic behaviour can reduce subsequent aggression.

• Bushman, Baumeister and Stack (1999) found that those who hit a punching bag, believing it reduced stress, were more likely later to punish someone who had transgressed against them.

Deindividuation

Leon Mann (1981) explored deindividuation in relation to collective aggression; the ‘baiting crowd’. This involves a person threatening to jump from a high building, a crowd gathers below, and some chant ‘jump, jump’. In one case in New York in 1938, thousands of people waited at ground level, some for 11 hours, until a man jumped to his death. Mann analysed 21 cases of suicides reported in the 60s and 70s. He found that in 10 of the 21 cases where there had been a crowd watching, baiting had occurred. In comparing crowds, he found that baiting was more likely to occur at night and when the crowd was large (more than 300 people), and that the crowd was typically a long way from the victim, usually at ground level.

These conditions are likely to deindividuate people. The longer the crowd waited, the more likely they would bait, perhaps egged on by irritability and frustration. In a study in Israel, Naomi Struch and Shalom Schwartz (1989) investigated aggression among non-Orthodox Jews towards highly Orthodox Jews, measured in terms of strong opposition to Orthodox institutions. They found two contributing factors: a perception of intergroup conflict of interests, and a tendency to regard Orthodox Jews as ‘inhuman’.

situational variables of aggression- sports events

• Since the early 1970s, European, particularly English, football has become strongly associated with hooliganism. The violence of some English fans in Belgium with Euro 2000 contributed to England’s failure to be chosen to host the World Cup in 2006. Popular hysteria has characterised ‘soccer hooliganism’ in terms of the stereotyped images of football fans on the rampage

• sports riots have been recorded in 6 continents.

• It is tempting to explain spectator violence purely in terms of deindividuation in a crowd setting, but a study of football hooliganism by Peter Marsh suggested another contributing cause. Violence by fans is often orchestrated far away from the stadium and long before a given match. The crowd is comprised of several groups of fans with differing status. By participating in ritualised aggression over a period of time, a faithful follower can be ‘promoted’ into a higher-status group and can continue to pursue a ‘career structure’. Rival fans who follow their group’s rules carefully can avoid real physical harm to themselves or others. Organised football hooliganism is a kind of staged production rather than an uncontrollable mob.

• Football hooliganism can also be understood in more societal terms. For example, Patrick Murphy described how football arose in Britain as a working-class sport. By the 1950s, a working-class value of masculine aggression was associated with the game. Attempts by a government (seen as middle class) to control this aspect of the sport would enhance class solidarity and encourage increased violence that generalises beyond matches. This account is societal and involves intergroup relations and the subcultural legitimation of aggression.

• Finally, hooliganism can be viewed in intergroup terms: in particular, the way hooligans behave towards the police and vice versa

subcultures of mafia

• Many societies include minority subgroups in which violence is legitimised as a lifestyle – they represent a subculture of violence. The norms of reflect an approval of aggression, and there are rewards for violence and sanctions for non-compliance. In urban settings, these groups are often labelled as gangs, and the importance of violence is reflected in their appearance and behaviour.

• Political Violence: The Behavioral Process, Harold Nieburg (1969) painted a graphic picture of the traditional initiation rite for the Sicilian Mafia. After a long lead-up period of observation, the new Mafia member would attend a candlelit meeting of other members and be led to a table showing the image of a saint, an emblem of high religious significance. Blood taken from his right hand would be sprinkled on the saint, and he would swear an oath of allegiance binding him to the brotherhood. He would then prove himself by executing a person selected by the Mafia

subcultures of violence- machismo

Machismo plays a key role in encouraging a subculture of violence among boys and young men. This is evident in Latin American families (Ingoldsby, 1991). It is also evident in another Latin culture, Italy, where aggression is encouraged in adolescent boys from traditional villages in the belief that it shows sexual prowess and shapes a dominant male in the household (Tomada & Schneider, 1997). One consequence of this is that there is more male bullying in Italian schools than in England, Spain, Norway or Japan

a cognitive analysis

Neo-associationist analysis- includes the idea that merely thinking about an act can faciltiate its performance. Real or fictional images of violence presented to an audience can translate later in antisocial acts.

Berkowitz argued that memory can be viewed as a collection of networks, each consisting of nodes. A node can include elements of thoughts and feelings, connected through associative pathways. When a thought comes into focus, its activation radiates from that node via the associative pathways to other nodes, which can lead to a priming effect.

Consequently, if you have been watching a movie depicting a violent gang ‘rumble’, other semantically related thoughts can be primed, such as punching, kicking and shooting a gun. This process can be mostly automatic, without much conscious thinking involved.

Similarly, feelings associated with aggression, or of other related emotions may likewise be activated. The outcome is an overall increase in the probability that an aggressive act will follow. Such action could be of a generalised nature, or similar to what was portrayed in the media (a ‘copy-cat crime’)

the weapons effect

The weapons effect is a phenomenon that can be accounted for by a neo-associationist approach. In a priming experiment by Craig Anderson and his colleagues, participants first viewed either pictures of guns or scenes of nature. They were then presented with words printed in different colours that had either aggressive or neutral connotations. Their task was to report the colours of the words. Their response speed was slowest in the condition where pictures of weapons preceded aggressive words. We should not infer from this that weapons always invite violent associations. A gun, for example, might be associated with sport rather than being a destructive weapon (Berkowitz, 1993) – hence the more specific term ‘weapons effect’.

However, there is overwhelming evidence that availability or ownership of guns is significantly correlated with a country’s suicide and homicide rates (Stroebe, 2014). Huesmann and his colleagues argue that long-term adverse effects of exposure to media violence are likely based on extensive observational learning in the case of children, accompanied by the acquisition of aggressive scripts , whereas short-term effects among adults and children are more likely based on priming.

rape myths

Philipp Sussenbach and his colleagues give examples of beliefs that typify rape myth acceptance (RMA): ‘A lot of women lead a man on and then they cry rape’ and ‘Many women secretly desire to be raped’. Here are some of their findings based on an RMA scale:

In a correlational study of German residents, those who scored high on RMA also scored high on Right Wing Authoritarianism.

In an experimental study of eye movement responses to a supposed police photograph of a rape scene, participants who scored high on RMA more quickly attended to rape-consistent cues, i.e. two wine glasses and a bottle. In an experimental study using a mock jury, high RMA scorers were more lenient in sentencing when irrelevant rape myth-consistent information to the case was presented. This suggested that rape myth acceptance is a cognitive schema that acts as a bias towards blaming the victim, even when there is lack of certainty about the facts

erotica and aggression

Research indicates that any effect of erotica on aggression depends on the kind of erotica viewed.

For example, viewing pictures of attractive nudes (mild erotica) has a distracting effect (such pictures reduce aggression when compared with neutral pictures), whereas viewing images of explicit lovemaking (highly erotic) can increase aggression. Sexually arousing non-violent erotica could lead to aggression because of excitation-transfer. However, excitation-transfer includes the experience of a later frustrating event, which acts as a trigger to aggress. In short, there has not been a convincing demonstration of a direct link between erotica per se and aggression.

In a more dramatic demonstration, Zillmann and Bryant (1984) exposed participants to a massive amount of violent pornography and then had them actively irritated by a confederate. Participants became more callous about what they had seen: they viewed rape more tolerantly and became more lenient about prison sentences that they would recommend.

However, the experimental design involves a later provoking event, so this outcome could be an instance of excitation transfer. Schema Cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus, including its attributes and the relations among those attributes.

A feminist perspective emphasises two concerns about continual exposure of men to media depicting violence and/or sexually explicit material involving women

• exposure to violence will cause men to become callous or desensitised to violence against female victims

• exposure to pornography will contribute to the development of negative attitudes towards women

association between pornography and sexual offending

Michael Seto et al suggest that people who are already predisposed to sexually offend are most likely to be affected by pornography exposure as well as show the strongest consequences.

When violence is mixed with sex in films, there is evidence of male desensitisation to aggression against women.

A meta-analysis by Paik and Comstock (1994) found that sexually violent TV programmes were linked to later aggression- most evident in male aggression against women. Daniel Linz et al reported that when women were depicted enjoying violent pornography, men were later more willing to aggress against women – although not against men. It has been demonstrated that portrayals of women apparently enjoying such acts reinforce rape myths and weaken social and cognitive restraints against violence towards women.

Zillmann and Bryant (1984) pointed out that the cumulative effect of exposure to violent pornography trivialises rape by portraying women as ‘hyperpromiscuous and socially irresponsible’.

objection theory

• women’s life experiences and gender socialisation routinely include experiences of sexual objectification

The sex difference in intimate partner violence arises for a number of reasons

• evolutionary perspective: human fear is an adaptive human emotional response to threat that reduces exposure to physical danger. For females, there is a higher level of fear in the face of direct aggression

• biological perspective: oxytocin is a hormone that regulates several reproductive and maternal behaviours, including child birth. When released in responding to danger, it mediates the reduction of stress associated with fear

• intimate partner violence: the release of oxytocin is more pronounced in the presence of an intimate partner. If threat is involved, the higher level of oxytocin associated with the partner reduces the stress experiences and increases the likelihood of female aggression

• cultural norms: women in western culture often equal or exceed men in their level of aggression. Norms that govern the expression of aggression vary across cultures and provide another causal path for sex differences in aggression to emerge.

gender asymmetry

Richard Harris and Cynthia Cook (1994) investigated students’ responses to three scenarios: a husband battering his wife, a wife battering her husband and a gay man battering his male partner, each in response to verbal provocation. The first scenario, a husband battering his wife, was rated as more violent than the other two scenarios. Further, ‘victim blaming’ – an example of belief in a just world – was attributed most often to a gay victim, who was also judged most likely to leave the relationship. It seems that the one act takes on a different meaning according to the gender of the aggressor and the victim.

DcKeseredy (2006) and Claire Renzetti (2006) agree in deciding that both gender and ethnic asymmetries underlie partner abuse:

• most sexual assaults in heterosexual relationships are committed by men

• much of women’s use of violence is in self-defence against their partners assault

• men and women in different ethnic groups ‘do gender’ differently, including variations in perceptions of when it is appropriate to use violence

what factors influence why people hurt those closest to them?

• Learnt patterns of aggression: imitated from parents and significant others, together with low competence in responding non-aggressively; there is a generational cycle of child abuse, 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 frustration, and targets when these feelings are generated externally;

• Stresses, especially financial difficulties, unemployment and illnesses; this partly accounts for domestic violence 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;

• High alcohol consumption, which is a common correlate of male abuse of a spouse

reducing aggression

• Hong and Espelage (2012) reviewed research on school bullying and peer victimisation, to conclude that anti-bullying programs had little impact, and punitive tactics (e.g. corporal punishment and suspension) were ineffective. They suggest a more effective approach would be multipronged. This would involve modifying the behaviour of bullies and their victims and of non-involved bystanders, addressing classroom and school climate, and reaching out to the family and wider society.

• Laws can also play a role in reducing aggression or its effects. Take gun ownership laws in the United States as an example. You now know something of the weapons effect. Consider this irony: guns and ammunition may be kept in the home to confer protection. The same guns are overwhelmingly used to kill a family member, particularly in homes with a history of drug use and physical violence

• Mass violence such as genocide is a different matter. There is room for the introduction of peace studies into the education system. Peace education has broadened to cover all aspects of peaceful relationships. By teaching young children how to build and maintain self-esteem without being aggressive, it is hoped that there will be a long-term impact that will expand into all areas of people’s lives