aggression

aggression

a verbal or physical act intended to cause harm to people or property, must be intended to cause harm and can be aggressive even if it fails

relational aggression

harm done through damaging social relationships (e.g ostracism)

• spreading rumours, encouraging others to not hang out with someone

direct vs. indirect aggression

direct: involves face to face confrontation such as getting into a fight

indirect aggression: attempts at harming others behind their back

affective aggression

the behaviour is done in response to negative emotions (ie throwing a rock at someone because you are angry)

instrumental aggression

the behaviour is done to achieve a goal (ie hitting someone so they give you money)

individual-based aggression

occurs between individuals (intimate partner violence)

group based aggression

occurs between groups (riots, gang violence)

naturalistic observation

researchers observe behaviours in natural settings

• graham and wells visited 12 bars in ontario to observe aggressive behaviour, 77.8% of aggressive behaviour involved only men and 3.4% involved only women

field experiments

takes place in a naturalistic setting, but researchers can manipulate the environment

baron study on aggression in driving:

• had a confederate wait 15 seconds after a light turned green before moving their car, recorded how much other motorists honked at the confederate while a second research assistant made notes on verbal comments, facial expressions and other responses

laboratory paradigms

measuring aggression in a lab setting

competitive reaction time paradigm

participants press a button when they see a cue appear on screen, are told they are competing against another person to see who reacts fastest

• winner gets to deliver a loud blast of noise into the headphones of the other person by pressing and holding down a button

• chosen noise intensity and duration is used as a measure of aggression

hot sauce paradigm

tasked with portioning how much hot sauce another person will be asked to consume, get to taste the sauce beforehand and are told the other person dislikes spicy food, size in weight of hot sauce portion is used to measure aggression

self report

asking participants to describe their own aggressive behaviour

• aggression questionairre (buss and perry): participants respond using likert scale (1= extremely uncharacteristic of me, 5 = extremely characteristic of me)

“I have become so mad i have broken things,”

“At times i feel like I have gotten a raw deal out of life.”

other-report

asking other people to describe the participant’s behaviour

• preschool social behaviour scale (Crick, Casas, and Mosher 1997): asks preschool teachers to rate the behaviour of their students

  • tells others not to play with or be a peer’s friend → relational aggression

  • hurts other children by pinching them → physical aggression

measuring aggression: official records

researchers can examine crime statistics and news archives

• anderson, bushman, groom compared meteorological data with crime stats and found that years with higher average temperatures were associated with higher rates of serious or deadly assaults

• very correlational in nature

evolutionary approach to aggression

proposes that aggression may have been an evolutionarily adaptative response to problems facing early humans

• co-opting resources from others, defending against attacks, securing sexual partners, fending off same sex rivals

Limitations:

• difficult to provide evidence for due to long timescales, aggression is sometimes directed towards ckise rekaruves which wouldn’t have been beneficial evolutionarily

the cathartic/psychodynamic approach

proposes people hold 2 competing instincts

• eros: the instinct for life, and thanatos: the instinct for death

• the death instinct causes self destructive behaviour but can also be turned outwards into aggressive behaviours, aggressive behaviour results from a build up of tension in the body which must be released → catharsis

frustration-aggression hypothesis

builds from cathartic approach, argues that aggression arises from frustration at particular people for events. going through the day, you have goals and things you want to achieve, yet other people or circumstances get in the way which creates frustration. the person cannot aggress against the cause of their frustration so it gets redirected at a more realistic target (e.g suboordinates, children, vulnerable people versus a boss)

cognitive-neo associationalist approach

frustration only leads to aggression when there are appropriate cues in the environment, any object or person repeatedly associated with anger and aggression in the past can serve as a cue.

berkowitz and lepage: had participant come into lab and complete a simple task, then a confederate examined how they did and gave feedback by shocking the participant. then, the confederate had to do a task and the participant would shock them. Also manipulated room decor to have guns.

findings: participants in the low anger condition were unaffected by the presence of guns, participants in the high anger condiiton gave more shocks when the gun was present

the weapons effect

presence of weapons increases the likelihood that violence will occur

excitation transfer model

non-specific arousal can inadvertently influence aggression, and physiological arousal can be caused by many types of stimuli. we differentiate arousal by labelling it, and labels depend on external cues and our responses to stimuli. arousal in one situation can transfer to an unrelated situation, which increases the likelihood of aggressive behaviour in the unrelated situation. Something causes you to experience physiological arousal, and you go into a new environment but the arousal has not fully gone away yet

social learning theory of aggression

people are not born with a ready to use repertoire of behaviour, we learn behaviours over time

direct experience: using our previous experiences to inform our future behaviour, learning what works and doesn’t work through our own actions

indirect experience: using the experiences of others to inform our future behaviour, there is so much to learn that we must observe other people

observational learning or modelling: learning new behaviours by observing the behaviour of others

trait aggression

a stable tendency to respond with aggression across situations

• monozygotic twin correlation: 0.40 (moderate)

• dizygotic twin correlation: 0.04

• aggression is somewhat determined by genetics

aggression in young children

very young children under one year old can express anger in response to frustration, but it does not count as aggression since the ability to forsee the consequences of their actions has not developed yet

hostile attribution style

the tendency to interpret ambiguous behaviour as a sign of hostile intent → associated with more aggression, aggressive behaviour and hostile attributions are mutually reinforcing

hormonal explanation for aggression

that difference in aggression is due to high levels of testosterone, berman et al measured testosterone through saliva sample and participants with higher testosterone showed more aggression on the CRT paradigm

• weak, positive correlation

gender socialization explanation

differences in aggression are due to how men and women are socialized, measured M+F 15 yr olds on indirect aggression, direct physical aggression, direct verbal aggression, and withdrawal. found that female students tended to use more indirect aggression and males tended to use more direct physical aggression

irritability

the tendency to get angry easily, associated with more aggressive behaviour

emotional susceptibility

tendency to experience discomfort, helplessness, inadequacy, of vulnerability. associated with more aggressive behaviour particularly after frustration

rumination

tendency to become preoccuppied with aggressive cognitions after a hostile encounter

dissipation

opposite of rumination, the tendency to get over hostile encounters without spending much time thinking about it

Hay et al. 2010 child aggression study

Wave 1: data collection from family homes, interviewing parents, completing questionairres when the children were 5-8 months

Wave 2: children 11-15 months brought to a simulated birthday party with 1-2 other families, made notes of their behaviour

The ratings of children in wave 1 predicted the children’s use of force in wave 2.

giancola and zeichner 1997 alcohol study

found that participants who drank alcohol showed more aggressive behaviour, but only as their BAC was rising

explanations:

• physiological arousal → rising BAC → aggression

• neuropsychological impairment: rising BAC → decreases info processing ability → not thinking consequences of behaviour → aggression

alcohol expectancy theory

the expectation of how alcohol affects behaviour also influences aggression, Lang et al: people who thought they had consumed alcohol showed more aggressive behaviour, even when they hadn’t actually consumed alcohol

situational factors and aggression

heat: higher temp is associated with increased aggression, vilent crime rate increases with temperature until 23.9 degree/ 75 F. associated with affective aggression but not thought out aggression

crowding: high density of people leads to physiological arousal which leads to aggression

culture and aggression (nisbet and cohen)

violence was more prevalent in regions that had animal herding heritage, which created a culture of honour: a belief that a man’s property and integrity must be protected, even with violence

disinhibition

weakening of the normative constraints around aggression avoidance

• can be caused by dehumanization → disinhibits violent action against dehumanized groups

• deindividuation: when people feel anonymous within a crowd, they feel less accountable for their behaviour

emergent norm theory

people in crowds aren’t ignoring social norms, they’re adhering to new, emergent norms created by the crowd environment, aggression happens when people undergo depersonalization, and internalize group norms which are more accepting of aggression