EDUC 221 Final Exam (Aggression)

Definition of aggression

• INTENTIONAL behaviour that hurts another person

• Instrumental aggression

  • Done in order to obtain some concrete goal (like a peer’s toy) and the hurt of the other person is just a consequence

• Hostile aggression

  • Deliberate attacks just to hurt someone else

Proactive Aggression

• Aggressive behaviour done without a reason or prompt

• Done in anticipation of positive social consequences and response

• Goal-focused (similar to instrumental aggression)

Reactive Aggression

• Children who are unlikely to be aggressive unprovoked BUT likely to respond aggressively when they are provoked

• Hostile attribution bias - likely to interpret others’ actions as hostile 

• Aggression in response to what they see as insulting behaviour 

• Emotionally-driven 

• Generally trauma-ridden kids in fight or flight

• Learned behaviour from childhood

Hostile Attribution Bias

• Reactively aggressive children

• See the world through an “aggressive lens”

• If someone’s intentions or goals are not clear they assume hostile motives

• Inclined to evaluate aggressive responses in a good way and prosocial (non-aggressive) responses in a bad way

Dodge’s social information processing theory

• The reinforcement cycle of hostile attribution bias

• Child is bumped into → hostile attribution bias → views aggression as appropriate response → this elicits more counter-attacks and peer rejection → reinforces the view that other people are inherently hostile → BACK TO BEGINNING

• Because the child then reacts with aggression, the teachers and parents gossip and reinforce the idea of the child as a hostile person

• This leads to peer rejection and isolation and the teachers just thinking they are a “difficult” kids and leaving them alone

• Self-fulfilling prophecy

Parenting influences on Aggressive Behaviour (summary list)

• Abusive punishment/Coercive parenting

• Lack of discipline

• Violence between parent

Abusive Punishment/Coercive Parenting

• Parents who use abuse as punishment give examples of aggression to children

• Associated with antisocial behaviour

• Patterson’s vicious cycle of parent-child interactions

  • Child acts hostile or aggressive (doesn’t follow instructions) → parents is aggressive → child is aggressive → parent hits child, etc and they learn this pattern

Lack of discipline in parenting

• Parents who threaten discipline and punishment but do not follow through

• Threats but no action 

• Give in to child’s temper and demands

• More likely than other parents to have aggressive children

Parent fighting (violence)

• Children exposed often to parents being verbally or physically aggressive to each other

• More likely to be antisocial and aggressive

• Stays even when controlling for genetic factors

Patterson’s developmental progression for antisocial behaviour

• Learning a pattern of aggressive behaviour in the family then carries over into peer and teacher interactions at school

• Poor parenting factors → conduct issues → peer rejection/academic failure → deviant peer group commitment → delinquency

Antisocial friend group

• Being in a friend group with other antisocial people contributes to more antisocial behaviour

• Aggressive children tend to make friends with other aggressive children

Early-onset bad behaviour

• Children with bad antisocial behaviour that begins BEFORE age 5 and continues throughout life (lack of self-control, empathy, task completion)

• Deeply entrenched identity and reputation as a non-conformer

Non-conformers & social status

• Kids who have deliberate goals to break the rules and behave anti-socially because public punishments and gossip are how their achievements are recognised 

• They make friends in detention and gain social status and recognition by behaving badly 

Types of aggression (Overt vs Relational)

• Overt Aggression

  • Physical

    • Hits, kicks, pushes

  • Direct verbal

    • Insults, calling names

• Relational Aggression

  • Indirect (relational aggression)

    • Telling false stories, becoming friends with an enemy of target as revenge, silent treatment , for social status

High-quality deviant friend groups

• The most at-risk for becoming disruptive/antisocial

• Being in an antisocial friend group can be linked to family factors and the developmental progression model 

Risk factors for being in a deviant friend group

• Low socioeconomic status

• Poor family functioning (parental conflict, coercive parenting, low parental warmth, childhood sexual abuse)

• Poor parental functioning (alcoholism, criminality, drugs)

Reputation Enhancement Theory

• Anti-social behaviour improves inclusion in deviant friend groups

• Antisocial acts improve one’s social status in such groups and lead to peer inclusion

Threatened Egotism

• The antisocial child is likely to have high views of themselves that are threatened by someone else, and the aggressive behaviour aims to save that favourable view of oneself by belittling the other person who poses the threat