Chapter 11 - Aggression: Why We Hurt Other People

Is Aggression Innate, Learned, or Optional?

Is Aggression Innate, Learned, or Optional?

• Agression should not be confused with assertiveness,

• even though people often loosely refer to others as "aggressive" when they stand up for their rights, write letters to the editor complaining about real or imagined injustices, or display a great deal of ambition.

• Some people would say that a woman who speaks her mind or disagrees with a male co-worker is being aggressive. But true aggression involves the intent to harm another.

• The action might be physical or verbal; it might not even succeed in its goal.

• If someone throws a beer bottle at your head, and because you duck the bottle misses, it is still an aggressive act.

• The important thing is the intention.

• By the same token, if a driver happens not to see you crossing the street and runs into you that is not an act of aggression, even though the damage would be far greater than that caused by a flying beer bottle.

• It is also useful to distinguish between types of aggression

  • Hostile aggression

  • instrumental aggression,

• aggression is complex and comes in many forms- -from direct assaults to indirect cruelty- but it's important to realize that such behaviour is not inevitable and that we possess the power to limit its frequency and consequences.

aggression

intentional behaviour aimed at causing either physical or psychological pain.

Hostile aggression

an act of aggression stemming from feelings of anger and aimed at inflicting pain or injury.

instrumental aggression

an intention to hurt the other person, but the hurting takes place as a means to some goal other than causing pain.

• For example, in a professional football game, a defensive lineman will usually do whatever it takes to thwart their opponent (the blocker) and tackle the ball carrier. This typically includes intentionally inflicting pain on their opponent if doing so is useful in helping them get the blocker out of the way so they can get to the ball carrier.

The Evolutionary Approach to Aggression

• men are more aggressive than women.

• 87 percent of those accused of homicide in this country are men.

• Men are more likely than women to get into spontaneous, unprovoked acts of "picking a fight" with a stranger, join mobs bent on destruction and looting, and commit crimes of violence.

• men are the perpetrators in 98 percent of sexual assault cases processed by the criminal courts and 91 percent of weapons offences

• Evolutionary psychologists argue that physical aggression is genetically programmed into men because it enables them to defend their group and perpetuate their genes

• In cultures all over the world; male aggressiveness starts in childhood: Little boys are far more likely than little girls to engage in "nonplayful" pushing and shoving

• Males are theorized to aggress for two reasons:

  • 1. First, to establish dominance over other males and secure the highest possible status. The idea here is that the female will choose the male who is most likely to provide the best genes and the greatest protection and resources for offspring.

  • 2. Second, males aggress out of sexual jealousy to ensure that their mate is not having sex with another man, thereby ensuring their paternity.

• According to the evolutionary view, when females behave aggressively, it is generally to protect their offspring: Do not get in the way of a mother bear or, for that matter, a mother bird

• Men reported more aggressive responses, overall, than did women.

• Further, as predicted, people responded most aggressively when the target of the insult was a relative.

• in most contemporary societies, social dominance and hence access to females is still largely (but certainly not entirely) based on status.

• In most societies, the ability to physically intimidate other males in the group is no longer the primary attribute that attracts females.

• Rather, power is now based on attributes related to success such as high-status careers, wealth, and celebrity status.

Aggression Among Animals

• demonstrates that early experience can override it.

• rats raised in isolation (i.e., without any experience in fighting other rats) will attack a fellow rat when one is introduced into the cage.

• the isolated rat uses the same pattern of threat and attack that experienced rats use

• although aggressive behaviour can be modified by experience, some kinds of aggressive behaviour apparently do not need to be learned.

• The near universality of aggression strongly suggests that aggressiveness has evolved and has been maintained because it has survival value

• researchers underscore the point that nearly all organisms also seem to have evolved strong inhibitory mechanisms that enable them to suppress aggression when it is in their best interests to do so.

• Aggression is an optional strategy.

• Whether it is expressed is determined by the animal's previous social experiences as well as by the specific social context in which the animal finds itself.

Culture and Aggression

• Most social psychologists believe that aggression is an optional strategy.

• We humans, especially males, may be born with the capacity for aggressive behaviour, but how, whether, and where we express it is learned and depends on our circumstances and culture.

• Because of the complexity and importance of our social interactions, for human beings the social situation becomes even more important than hormones or genetic predispositions

• we seem to have an inborn tendency to respond to provocation by striking out against the perpetrator.

• it is true that men are far more aggressive than women under ordinary circumstances, the gender difference becomes much smaller when men and women are actually provoked

• women were just as aggressive as men when subjected to strong provocation from a confederate

• But whether people actually do lash out depends on a complex interplay between these inborn tendencies, a variety of learned inhibitory responses, and the precise nature of the social situation.

  • You may be furious at a police officer who stops you for speeding on your way to the airport, but you probably will control your temper and your behaviour.

• Analyses of cultural differences in aggression provide support for the view that, for humankind, innate patterns of behaviour are infinitely modifiable and flexible.

• Human cultures vary widely in their degree of aggressiveness.

• cultures that value cooperation and collectivism have had lower levels of aggression than European societies

• In close-knit cultures that depend on cooperation for the group's survival, anger and aggression are considered dangerous and disruptive; an offender will be ostracized or punished.

• It turns out that when men live in cultures that lack internal and external threats to their survival, they are not raised to be aggressive, sex differences are minimized, and cooperation is encouraged

Cultures of Honour

• Violence is seen as more acceptable in honour cultures

• people from male honour cultures are more likely than people from non-honour cultures to believe that it is appropriate for a man to physically assault a woman if he thinks she is threatening his honour and reputation by being unfaithful or leaving him.

• cultures of honour have higher rates of domestic violence.

• homicide rates for White males in the southern American states are substantially higher than those for White northern males, especially in rural areas

• American high school students in culture of honour states are much more likely than

  students from other states to bring a weapon to school and to use that weapon; these states have twice as many school shootings per capita than do other states

• The effects of being raised in a culture of honour are even evident in the realm of sports.

• pitchers often deliberately hit batters to restore justice, such as payback for having hit a home run earlier or in retaliation for a teammate having been hit.

• White pitchers who are born in the American South are 40 percent more likely to hit a batter than are non-southerners

• a code of male honour exists among security staff at bars (i.e., bouncers) and among bar patrons.

• bouncers were most likely to engage in excessive aggression against bar patrons when they perceived that their authority or masculinity was being threatened

• The researchers also observed a "macho" subculture among male bar patrons that involved bullying one another or making threatening comments in response to little or no provocation.

• "Every male in there is vour competition."

• young men who have high status in their peer group are more likely to report drinking heavily and to report being more likely to engage in physical aggression when provoked

• male aggression fulfills a powerful part of the male role and identity.

• When "being a man" is defined by competitiveness and strength, men will try to "prove" their masculinity and status in displays of aggression

honour cultures

cultures that define male honour in terms of power, toughness, and the ability to protect one's property

(e.g., Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Arabic, Latin and South American cultures with Iberian roots, and southern American states)

Gender and Aggression

• women and girls are more likely than men and boys to express their aggressive feelings more covertly _by gossiping, backbiting, spreading false rumours about the target person, or excluding that person

• this gender difference begins at an early age.

• The boys used physical aggression to get it, hitting or pushing the child who had the orange crayon.

• The girls used relational aggression, spreading rumours about the child with the orange crayon or ignoring her to make her cry

• boys were more likely than girls to be physically aggressive.

• the researchers expected girls to be more relationally aggressive, in this study this gender difference was not found

• However, in general, it is the case that from about the age of 3 onward, girls engage in more social aggression such as spreading rumours or shunning friends than do boys

• (There also are gender differences in intimate partner violence,

• even if gender differences in aggression are at least partly attributable to biological factors, it does not excuse violent behaviour; nor does it mean that such behaviour cannot be altered by a social intervention

the extent to which biological factors, such as hormones, play a role in the kinds of aggression each sex displays.

• too much testosterone, a male sex hormone, is associated with increased physical aggression.

  • (Both sexes have testosterone, but males have it in higher proportions.)

• Naturally occurring testosterone levels are significantly higher among prisoners convicted of violent crimes than among those convicted of nonviolent crimes

• juvenile delinquents have higher testosterone levels than do college students

• those generally considered most rambunctious, less socially responsible, and "cruder" have the highest average testosterone levels

• testosterone was not strongly related to physical aggression but was associated with social dominance

• testosterone can fluctuate, depending on situational factors.

• Participants who were provoked and for whom aggression was costly showed an increase in testosterone

• Men who showed the largest increase in testosterone and who were most aggressive during the earlier computer game were most likely to choose the competitive game.

• a weak positive correlation between testosterone and aggression; the average correlation was 0.14

• although testosterone may be a factor in some cases of aggression, the effects tend to be small.

Learning to Behave Aggressively

• If we want to know whether aggressive behaviour is OK, we will look to see what others are doing or saying and whether they get away with it.

• Almost unconsciously, we learn our culture's roles and norms.

• those situations can help shape, direct, encourage, or suppress an individual's wishes to behave aggressively or peacefully.

• Most people take their cues from others. Children are especially susceptible to observational learning.

• the children imitated the aggressive models and treated the doll in almost exactly the same ways.

• Some of them went beyond mere imitation, coming up with inventive new ways in which to beat up the doll.

• In contrast, children in a control condition, who did not see the aggressive adult in action, almost never unleashed any aggression against the hapless doll.

• children frequently learn to solve conflicts aggressively by imitating adults and their peers.

• This is particularly true when they see that aggression is rewarded. (like sports for example)

• many physically abusive people were themselves abused by their parents or watched their parents being physically aggressive toward each other when they were children

Social learning theory a.k.a. observational learning

we learn social behaviour, from aggression to altruism, in large part by observing others and imitating them - a process referred to as observational learning.

Physiological and Chemical Influences on Aggression

• when people are drunk, hot, or in considerable pain, they are more likely to lash out at others, getting into fights and quarrels, than if they feel completely fine, sipping lemonade on a cool spring day

Alcohol and Aggression

• alcohol is a social lubricant that lowers our inhibitions against committing behaviours frowned on by society, including acts of aggression.

• The greater the reported consumption of alcohol, the greater the reported aggression

• more severe violence was reported when alcohol was consumed at a bar or a party rather than at home.

• fights were more likely to break out in "jock" bars or student bars than in "classy establishments"

• The more people drank, the more likely they were to engage in aggression, especially severe forms of physical aggression (e.g., punching, kicking, brawling).

• the link between alcohol and aggression is not limited to bars.

• Intoxication has also been implicated in cases of air rage

• more than half of individuals who have committed violent crimes were drinking heavily at the time of the crime

• family violence is also often associated with alcohol use.

• If a spouse drinks heavily, the rate of marital violence is six times higher than if a spouse drinks moderately or not at all

• Marital violence is between four and six times more likelv if the husband is an alcoholic than if the husband is not an alcoholic

• Not only is violence more likely to occur when alcohol is involved, but it also tends to be more severe

• 67 percent of those accused of spousal homicide are believed to have consumed alcohol or drugs

• the stage for alcohol-related aggression is set early on: 1000 youths in early adolescence, By Grade 8, nearly 35 percent of the boys and 25 percent of the girls reported alcohol use.

• "Both boys and girls who bullied others were almost five times more likely to report alcohol use than boys and girls who did not report bullying"

• dating aggression was up to five times more likely among adolescents who used alcohol compared with those who did not.

Is There a Link between Women's Consumption of Alcohol and Their Risk of Being a Target of Sexual Aggression?

• alcohol intoxication may interfere with the ability to recognize sexual aggression or to clearly communicate that sexual advances are unwanted.

• They also point out that intoxicated women may be seen as

  "easy" targets by men

• the majority of women who went along with unwanted sexual advances reported being intoxicated at the time

• "Beware of intoxication in either you or your partner; it increases the chances that one will behave inappropriately"

Can we be sure that alcohol is a direct cause of aggression?

• when individuals ingest enough alcohol to make them legally drunk, they tend to respond more violently to provocation than do those who have ingested little or no alcohol

• intoxicated men who are provoked administer stronger shocks to a fictitious opponent than participants who are not intoxicated

• Intoxicated participants reported more negative emotions when thinking about the conflict and had more negative perceptions of their partner's feelings than did participants in the other two conditions -who did not differ from one another.

• "alcohol can play a causal role in exacerbating relationship conflict"

• whenever people are intoxicated, the stage is set for aggression

Pain, Discomfort, and Aggression

• If an animal experiences pain and cannot flee the scene, it will almost invariably attack;

• In those circumstances, animals will attack members of their own species, members of different species, or anything else in sight, including stuffed dolls and tennis balls.

• students who underwent the pain of having their hand immersed in very cold water were much more likely to aggress against other students than those who had not suffered.

• Other forms of bodily discomfort_ such as heat, humidity, air pollution, and offensive odours also lower the threshold for aggressive behaviour

• the hotter it is on a given day, the greater the likelihood that riots and violent crimes will occur

• Smaller "crimes" increase, too.

• Participants who read these stories in an uncomfortably hot room (32°C) were more likely to complete the stories with aggressive responses than were participants who performed the task at room temperature (21°C)

• simply being exposed to heat-related words is enough to increase aggressive thoughts.

• Participants who had been exposed to heat-related terms came up with more aggressive word completions than those in the other conditions.

• exposure to heat-related words was also associated with attributing more hostility to another person compared to exposure to cold-related or neutral words.

• people are more likely to have aggression on their minds when they are uncomfortably hot.

• The students in the hot room not only reported feeling more aggressive but also expressed more hostility to a stranger.

Brain Chemistry: Does Serotonin Play a Role in Aggression?

• For many years, it was thought that a brain chemical, Serotonin, played a role in aggression.

• serotonin may be a causal factor in impulsive aggression but not instrumental aggression

• different studies obtain different results depending on how serotonin is measured and how aggression is measured.

• the correlation between serotonin deficiency and aggression was very small

• neurotransmitters interact with one another in complex ways, making it difficult to isolate the effects of serotonin.

• "we are still far from understanding the complex role played by the serotonergic system in the modulation of a complex set of behaviors like aggression"

Serotonin

a neurotransmitter in the brain that is responsible for controlling mood, attention, sleep, and pain.

serotonin deficiency hypothesis,

people who are low in serotonin tend to be more aggressive.

Frustration as a Cause of Aggression

• frustration is a major cause of aggression.

• Frustration occurs when a person is thwarted on the way to an expected goal or gratification.

• But when children in the frustrated group were finally given access to the toys, they were extremely destructive.

• those who were easily frustrated (as assessed by the Frustration Proneness Scale) were most likely to report engaging in retaliatory aggression.

• This included both physical forms of aggression (e.g. hitting or kicking the person who angered you) and relational forms of aggression (e.g., telling your friends to stop liking the person who frustrated you).

• Several factors can increase frustration and, accordingly, increase the probability that some form of aggression will occur.

• One such factor involves your closeness to the goal or the object of your desire.

• The closer the goal, the greater the expectation of pleasure that is thwarted; and the greater the expectation, the more likely the aggression.

• The people standing behind the intruder were much more aggressive when the confederate cut in to the second place in line.

• Aggression also increases when the frustration is unexpected.

• The callers with high expectations were more verbally aggressive toward the nondonors, speaking more harshly and slamming down the phone with more force, than the callers with low expectations.

• It is important to keep in mind that frustration does not always produce aggression.

• Rather, it seems to produce anger or annoyance and a readiness to aggress if other things about the situation are conducive to aggressive behaviour

• An obvious one is the size and strength of the person responsible for your frustration, as well as that person's ability to retaliate.

• It is undoubtedly easier to slam the phone down on a reluctant donor who is miles away and has no idea who you are than to take out your anger against your frustrater if he turns out to be a defensive lineman for the Saskatchewan Roughriders and is staring you in the face.

• It is also easier to lash out at another driver from the safety of your car than confront another driver face to face.

• people who are prone to road rage are also more likely to get into accidents

• if the frustration is understandable, legitimate, and unintentional, the tendency to aggress will be reduced.

• You might be frustrated that the driver ahead of you hasn't budged, even though the light has turned green.

• But if you then notice that the driver is waiting for an elderly person with a walker to finish crossing the street, you probably will be less likely to honk, yell, or make an obscene gesture.

frustration-aggression theory

people's perception that they are being prevented from obtaining a goal will increase the probability of an aggressive response

• This does not mean that frustration always leads to aggression but it frequently does, especially when the frustration is a decidedly unpleasant experience.

Relative Deprivation topic

• frustration is not the same as deprivation.

• What causes aggression, then, is not deprivation but relative deprivation-(the perception that you (or your group) have less than you deserve, less than what you have been led to expect, or less than what people similar to you have)

• But they are motivated by anger over the perceived discrepancy between what they had and what they felt their nation and religion were entitled to.

• The perception that their credentials were not recognized in Canada was associated with feelings of anger, frustration, and resentment, as well as intentions to protest or challenge their situation.

• South Africans who felt relative deprivation (e.g., in terms of their economic status relative to other South Africans) would report more negative attitudes toward immigrants to their country than those who felt less deprived. That is exactly what they found

• some Canadian police women experienced relative deprivation they believed they were excluded from opportunities and activities that were available to their male colleagues

• feeling deprived relative to others is associated with more stress, resentment, and poorer physical and mental health,

• Feeling that you are deprived is also associated with negative behaviours, such as risk taking.

• personal relative deprivation is associated with urges to gamble and problem gambling

• feeling deprived is associated with problematic gambling desires and behaviours

• people who feel they are getting less than they deserve compared to others see gambling as a way to improve their finances and get ahead

• Those who nearly made it into the high-status group were most likely to write a letter of protest demanding that the high-status group reverse its decision, even though they were told that the decision was final and the high-status group disapproved of protest action.

• They also perceived greater injustice in the situation than did those who were far from being accepted.

• Those who were far from being accepted were more likely to passively resign themselves to remaining in the low-status group for the rest of the experiment

relative deprivation (definition)

deprivation-the perception that you (or your group) have less than you deserve, less than what you have been led to expect, or less than what people similar to you have.

Provocation and Reciprocation

• Those who attributed hostile intentions (e.g., believed that the student spilled the tray "to be mean") reported that they would respond with aggression-more so than students who interpreted the event as an accident or who believed that the other student's motives were ambiguous.

• the participants who reported the greatest use of aggression in their everyday lives were also the most likely to attribute hostile intent in the scenarios.

• provocation was associated with the motivation to aggress; moreover, the desire to be aggressive was stronger when participants imagined being intoxicated, rather than sober, in the provocation situation

• One cause of aggression, then, stems from the urge to reciprocate after being provoked by aggressive behaviour from another person.

• the plea to "turn the other cheek" is wonderful advice, most people don't take it,

• When provided with an opportunity to retaliate, participants who were treated harshly were far more likely to do so than were those in the "gentle criticism" condition.

• even when provoked, people do not always reciprocate.

• One question we ask ourselves is whether or not the provocation was intentional.

• When convinced it was unintentional, or if there are mitigating circumstances, most of us will not reciprocate

• But to curtail an aggressive response, these mitigating circumstances must be known at the time of the provocation,

• The students who knew about the mitigating circumstances before being insulted delivered less intense bursts of noise than did those who learned about the circumstances after they had been insulted

• Why the difference?

• At the time of the insult, the informed students simply did not take it personally and therefore had no strong need to retaliate.

• This interpretation is bolstered by evidence of their physiological arousal.

• At the time of the insult, the heartbeat of the insulted students did not increase as rapidly if they knew beforehand about the assistant's unhappy state of mind.

Social Exclusion

• Analyses of these tragedies paint a picture of the killers as socially isolated individuals who experienced rejection by their peers.

• They then deal with the pain of rejection by mounting a lethal attack on those whose acceptance they craved most.

• Does social exclusion actually lead to aggressive behaviour? - Yes

• If you are like the actual participants in this study, you would react with aggression.

• The participants who had been rejected earlier were much more aggressive toward the confederate (i.e., gave longer and louder bursts of noise) than those who were told they had been accepted by the group.

• the experience of being excluded from a group of strangers in a laboratory can provoke considerable levels of aggression.

• The effects of social exclusion have been documented among elementary school children as well.

• children who are rejected by their peers behave more aggressively than those who do not experience rejection.

• social exclusion can motivate us to form new social bonds.

• when university students were socially excluded, they were more interested in forming new friendships with other students or becoming socially reconnected in other ways

Weapons as Aggressive Cues

• Is it conceivable that the mere presence of an aggressive stimulus an object associated with aggressive responses might increase the probability of aggression?

• Those individuals who had been angered in the presence of the gun administered stronger electric shocks than did those who were angered in the presence of the racquet

• Weapons Effect

• male participants who were asked to interact with a gun for 15 minutes showed higher testosterone levels than did participants who spent the same amount of time playing a children's game

• "Guns don't kill; people do." Guns do kill. "The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger can also pull the finger"

• the homicide rate in countries all over the world is highly correlated with the availability of handguns.

• that if guns aren't readily available, people are less likely to use them.

• the aggressive stimulus effect occurs only when we actually link an object with aggression.

• hunting rifles were associated with aggression for nonhunters but not for hunters, whereas assault guns were associated with aggression for both groups.

• aggression can be cued by any aggressive stimulus not just guns.

• even neutral objects can come to be associated with aggression.

• Thus, the walkie-talkie had become a violence-related cue simply from having been associated with violence in the television show the participants had seen earlier.

• for most people, guns are associated with violence.

• The increase in mass shootings in the United States and Canada would suggest that people are more likely than ever to associate guns with horrific violence.

weapons effect

effect-an increase in aggression that can occur because of the mere presence of a gun or other weapon

• The effect is physiological as well as physical.

Intimate Partner Violence

• intimate partner violence represented 30 percent of all police-reported violent crime in Canada, affecting almost 96,000 victims.

• 26 percent of violent-crimes were perpetrated by strangers

• The highest rates of police-reported intimate partner violence were experienced by people aged 25 to 34 years-this was the case for all victims.

• only a small fraction of incidents that actually get reported to police and get processed through the criminal court system.

• 70 percent of victims of spousal violence and 93 percent of victims of childhood physical or sexual abuse never contacted authorities

• intimate partner violence occurs in about one-third of dating relationships

• There is some variability in estimates depending on how the researchers measure partner violence (e.g., whether the focus is only on physical aggression or whether only severe forms of violence are assessed).

• rates of violence are higher in dating relationships than in marital relationships.

• In cohabiting and marital relationships, the rate of spousal violence in Canada is generally under 10 percent

• the most severe forms of intimate partner violence (e.g., threatening to kill or actually killing) do occur in marital relationships.

• examined whether there was a link between self-objectification (i.e., seeing oneself as an object to be used for the pleasure of the other sex), objectification of the other sex, and patterns of violence.

• women with a

  history of severe victimization at the hands of an intimate partner reported higher self-objectification compared to women who were involved in dyadic severe violence and women who were not in violent relationships.

• Women's objectification of men was not related to intimate partner violence.

• men who objectified women were more likely to have a history of perpetrating severe violence toward their female partner than men who were involved in relationships in which there was no violence or the violence was dyadic.

• In their large-scale survey of intimate partner violence among Canadians, Lysova and colleagues (2019) found that 1.1 percent of men reported experiencing extreme forms of intimate partner violence, compared to 0.5 percent of women.

  • Men also were more likely than women to report being physically assaulted by their partner in the past five years (2.9 percent versus 1.7 percent of women who reported physical or sexual assault).

• However, other data show that women are much more likely than men to report having experienced severe violence at the hands of their current or former spouse, whereas men report having experienced milder forms of violence

• In research conducted with distressed couples, such as those in court or in marriage counselling, it is generally found that husbands are more violent than wives.

• Crime statistics show that the most severe forms of intimate partner violence are perpetrated by men, including homicide.

• The male victims (21 percent of the total number of intimate partner homicides during 2007-2017 in Canada) were also most likely to be killed by a current or former wife or cohabiting spouse (59 percent), followed by girlfriends (27 percent).

• A smaller percentage of men were killed by their same-sex spouses or dating partners (14 percent;

• there has been backlash against the view that men are the perpetrators and women are the victims

• intimate partner violence is a serious, even life-threatening, issue that affects far too many people.

gender differences in intimate partner violence.

• women report being more physically violent in intimate relationships than do men.

• men were more likely than women to report being victimized by their partner in the last five years

• when gender differences were reported, they tended to be in the direction of women behaving more violently toward their partner than men.

  • The operative phrase here is when gender differences were reported.

• women and men are equally likely to report engaging in physical violence

• women report more violence than do men.

• violence in intimate relationships is dyadic, meaning that both partners engaged violence

• male violence also does more physical, emotional, and psychological damage than female violence.

• even though more men reported experiencing severe violence than did women, it was still the case that more than twice as many women as men experienced physical injury (27 percent of women versus 12 percent of men).

• Women are also more likely to require medical treatment for their injuries.

The Effects of Violence in the Media

• Most Canadian children (and many adults) are immersed in images of violence in all types of media: from television and movies to video games and the internet.

• Violence in movies has more than doubled since 1950, and gun violence in PG-13 films has more than tripled since 1985.

• most children and adults are surrounded by images of violence in all forms of media

• Does exposure to violent media cause people to behave violently?

Violence in Television and Movies

• If merely watching adults behave aggressively causes children to mistreat dolls, what does watching violence on television and in the movies do to them, or for that matter to all of us?

• watching violence does increase the frequency of aggressive behaviour, angry emotions, and hostile thoughts

• Those who had watched the violent police drama

  earlier behaved far more aggressively with their playmates than did those who had watched the sporting event--the Bobo doll effect

• watching violence on television has the greatest impact on youngsters who are somewhat prone to violence to begin with.

• Exposure to the violent film had the effect of increasing the number of aggressive acts committed during the game primarily by those boys who had previously been rated as highly aggressive by their teachers.

• to a much greater extent than nonaggressive boys who had also watched the violent film or the boys rated as aggressive (by their teachers) who had watched the nonviolent film.

• watching media violence in effect serves to give aggressive children "permission" to express their aggression.

• children who do not have aggressive tendencies to begin with do not necessarily act aggressively at least, not on the basis of seeing only one violent film.

Longitudinal Studies on the Effects of Media Violence

• under controlled conditions there is an impact of media violence on children and teenagers.

• the more violence children watch on TV, the more violence they exhibit later as teenagers and young adults

• a significant correlation between the amount of violent television shows watched and the children's aggressiveness

• television viewing at age 8 predicted their level of aggression 10 years later even better than it predicted their level of aggression when they first participated in the study (at age 8).

• The children's consumption of media violence early in the school year predicted higher rates of all three kinds of aggression (verbal, relational, and physical) and less prosocial behaviour later in the year

• The amount of time spent watching television during adolescence and early adulthood was strongly related to the likelihood of later committing violent acts.

• The association between television viewing and violent behaviour was significant regardless of parental education, family income, and neighbourhood violence

• Adolescents and adults who watch TV for more than four hours per day are more likely than light TV viewers (who watch less than two hours per day) to have an exaggerated view of the degree of violence taking place outside their own homes, and they have a much greater fear of being personally assaulted

Violence in Video Games

• the Columbine killers enjoyed playing a bloody, extremely violent video game licensed by the U.S. military to train soldiers how to kill.

• critical periods, such as the anniversary of the shootings, are associated with increased threats for at least three to five years afterward

• in the 20 years since the Columbine shootings there have been more than 100 copycat shootings

• exposing children to a graphically violent video game has a direct and immediate impact on their aggressive thoughts and behaviour. This finding holds up in countries around the world

• Violent video game playing also is positively correlated with delinquency in children

• exposure to violent video games increases aggressive thoughts and behaviours

• Games that directly reward violence, are especially likely to increase feelings of hostility, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive acts

• the more time the participants spent playing video games -violent or not the lower their grades became!

• other negative effects of exposure to violent video games have been documented.

• participants who played a violent video game (Grand Theft Auto IV) for 20 minutes subsequently were faster at attributing criminal adjectives to themselves on an Implicit Association Test compared to participants who played a nonviolent game.

• this effect operated at an unconscious level people who play violent video games for two or more hours per day are quicker to identify the facial expression of fear than people who don't play these games.

• those who play violent games become vigilant for signs of danger and threat

• people who were playing a violent game experienced stress while playing.

• Later, these people also behaved more aggressively toward a confederate (delivering loud bursts of noise) than those who had played a nonviolent game

• "The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behaviour"

• other meta-analyses suggest that the data do not support strong claims of violent video games leading to real-world aggression

• not all researchers have found that playing video games causes people to engage in severe acts of violence.

• in the vast majority of settings, violent video games do increase aggressive behavior but that these effects are almost always quite small"

• although there is reason to be wary of the effects of a steady dose of violent video game playing, it is unlikely that video games are primarily to blame when someone goes on a killing rampage.

Pornography and Violence

• Both males and females perceived pornography as a cause of sexual violence in relationships.

• participants reported that it was not uncommon for them or their partners to imitate acts of sexual violence observed in pornographic movies or magazines.

• women living in shelters or attending counselling groups for battered women in the Toronto area reported much greater consumption of pornographic material by their partner than did a comparison group of women who were not battered.

• The battered women experienced higher levels of verbal aggression, physical aggression, and sexual aggression from their partners than did the comparison group.

• 39 percent of the battered women -versus 3 percent of the control group -answered yes to the question "Has your partner ever upset you by trying to get you to do what he'd seen in pornographic pictures, movies, or books?"

• exposure to violent pornography is associated with greater sexism, acceptance of sexual violence toward women, and is almost certainly a factor associated with actual aggressive behaviour

• male students who had viewed the movie containing sexual violence were more accepting of violence against women than were those who had seen the nonviolent movie.

• But do laboratory studies show that men who view violent pornography actually behave aggressively toward women? Sadly, the answer is yes.

• Only men who had previously seen the violent pornographic film subsequently administered intense shocks to the female accomplice.

• those who view violent pornographic films will administer more intense shocks to a female confederate than to a male

  confederate

• exposure to pornographic material (which, in their analysis, included violent pornography) has far-reaching negative consequences, such as an increased risk of developing sexually deviant tendencies, committing sexual offences, accepting the rape myth, and experiencing difficulties in one's intimate relationships

• exposure to violent pornography has a strong effect on male viewers, increasing their hostility and aggressiveness toward women

• consumption of pornography was associated with sexual aggression both verbal (e.g., using threats to obtain sex) and physical (e.g., using force to obtain sex).

• the relation between pornography consumption and sexual aggression was found for both violent and nonviolent pornography.

• although nonviolent pornography does not explicitly portray acts of violence toward women, women generally are still portrayed in an objectified manner

The Numbing and Dehumanizing Effects of Media Violence

• Once players get in the habit of dehumanizing the

  "enemy," that habit can be carried over into how players come to regard real people, not just robots and lifelike cartoons.

• participants who played a violent video game (Lamers) were later more likely to dehumanize immigrants to Britain, seeing them as somehow less human and deserving than native Britons, in contrast to the students who played a prosocial version of the game (Lemmings) or a neutral game (Tetris)

• Repeated exposure to difficult or unpleasant events tends to have a numbing effect on our sensitivity to those events.

• Viewing TV violence can subsequently numb people's reactions when they are faced with real-life aggression.

• Although such a reaction may psychologically protect us from getting upset, it may also have the unintended effect of increasing our indifference to victims of violence and perhaps rendering us more accepting of violence as a necessary aspect of modern life.

• This numbing effect may also make people more oblivious to the needs of others.

• media violence can also make people more accepting of violence in intimate relationships.

• media violence can also make people more accepting of violence in intimate relationships.

• the greater the consumption of violent media (TV shows, websites, magazines), the greater the likelihood of being either a victim or perpetrator of dating violence down the road.

• an increase in usage of violent media went hand in hand with more tolerant attitudes toward violence in intimate relationships

• The usual assumption has been that watching violence makes people more aggressive, but aggressive people are also drawn to watching violence.

• Indeed, where violence in the media is concerned, causality is probably a two-way street.

• exposure to violence in media or video games has the strongest relationship in children who are already predisposed to violence

• It may be that watching media violence merely serves to give them permission to express their aggressive inclinations

• the effects of watching violent pornography are strongest on men who already have high levels of hostility toward women and are predisposed to commit violence against them

• violent media does have an impact on average children and adults, but its impact is greatest on those who are already prone to violent behaviour.

• not all people or even a sizeable percentage of people-are motivated to commit violence as a result of watching it.

• People's interpretation of what they are watching, their personality dispositions, and the social context can all affect how they respond

• some people are influenced by violent entertainment, with tragic results, cannot be denied.

Does Punishing Aggression Reduce Aggressive Behaviour?

• the threat of relatively severe punishment for committing a transgression does not make the transgression less appealing to the child.

• But the threat of mild punishment - of a degree just powerful enough to get the child to cease the undesired activity temporarily - leads the child to justify their restraint and, as a result, can make the behaviour less appealing

• What about adults? The criminal justice system of most cultures administers harsh punishments as a means of retribution and to deter violent crimes. Does the threat of harsh punishments for violent crimes make such crimes less likely?

• punishment can act as a deterrent, but only if two conditions are met:

  • (1) The punishment must be both prompt and certain;

  • (2) it must be unavoidable

• in the real world these conditions are almost never met.

• The probability that a person who has committed a violent crime will be apprehended, charged, tried, and convicted is not high.

• promptness is rarely possible cases typically take months if not years to make their way through the Canadian court system.

• severe punishment is unlikely to have the kind of deterrent effect it does in the laboratory.

• severe punishment does not do much to deter violent crimes.

• where many states invoke the death penalty for murder has a much higher rate of homicide than many other industrialized countries,

• the American states that have abolished the death penalty have not experienced the increase in crime that some experts predicted

• consistency and certainty of punishment were far more effective deterrents of violent behaviour than was severe punishment, including the death penalty.

• The message being sent from these courts is that family violence is a serious crime with immediate, serious consequences.

The establishment of family violence courts has had several effects.

• The first has been a dramatic increase in the number of arrests and convictions.

• the high rate of convictions has been coupled with an emphasis on rehabilitation; most offenders are required to participate in treatment groups.

• the rates of recidivism among the accused are now lower than they were prior to the implementation of the court

• the legal system alone cannot "fix" the issue of intimate partner violence.

• "a coordinated response is required one that integrates criminal justice, social service, mental health and community responses"

Catharsis and Aggression

• Freud had a "hydraulic" idea of aggressive impulses:

• He believed that unless people were allowed to express their aggression in relatively harmless ways, the aggressive energy would be dammed up, pressure would build, and the energy would seek an outlet, either exploding into acts of extreme violence or manifesting itself as symptoms of mental illness.

• Freud's theory of catharsis has been greatly. oversimplified into the dictum that people should "vent" their anger.

• The idea is that blowing off steam will not only make angry people feel better but also serve to make them less likely to engage in subsequent acts of destructive violence.

• the most aggressive participants (i.e., those who delivered the longest and loudest blasts of noise) were those who had read the pro-catharsis message and had hit the punching bag.

• they were equally aggressive, regardless of whether the target was the person who had angered them or an innocent person.

• venting anger actually increases anger rather than reduces it.

• participants who read the pro-catharsis article and who were angered wanted to play more violent video games than participants in the other conditions.

• Competitive games often make participants and observers more aggressive.

• feelings of hostility increased significantly

• another variation of the catharsis hypothesis; watching competitive and aggressive games is a safe way to get rid of our aggressive impulses.

• As the game progressed, the spectators became increasingly belligerent; toward the end of the final period, their level of hostility skyrocketed and did not return to the pregame level until several hours after the game was over.

• As with participating in an aggressive sport, watching one also increases aggressive behaviour.

• Verbal acts of aggression are followed by more of the same.

• Many people feel worse, both physically and mentally, after an angry confrontation.

• When people brood and ruminate about their anger, talk to others incessantly about how angry they are, or vent their feelings in hostile acts, their blood pressure shoots up, they often feel angrier, and they behave even more aggressively later than if they had just let their feelings of anger subside

• when people learn to control their tempers and express anger constructively, they usually feel better, not worse; they feel calmer, not angrier.

• All in all, the weight of the evidence does not support the catharsis hypothesis

catharsis

The notion that “blowing off steam” by performing aggressive act, watching others engage in aggressive behavior, or engaging in a fantasy of aggression, relieves built-up aggressive energies and hence reduces the likelihood of further aggressive behaviour

Finally, does direct aggression against the source of your anger reduce further aggression?

• the answer is no

• When people commit acts of aggression, such acts simply increase the tendency toward future aggression.

• those students who had previously delivered shocks to the confederate expressed even greater aggression when given the subsequent opportunity to

  attack them

Blaming the Victim of Our Aggression

• Aggressing the first time can reduce your inhibitions against committing other such actions in the future; in a sense, the aggression is legitimized, making it easier to carry out such assaults.

• committing an overt act of aggression against a person changes your feelings about that person- in a negative direction thereby increasing the probability of future aggression against that person.

• harming another person sets in motion cognitive processes aimed at justifying the act of cruelty.

• When you hurt another person, you experience cognitive dissonance.

• The cognition "I have hurt someone" is dissonant with the cognition "I am a decent, kind person."

• A good way for you to reduce dissonance is to convince yourself that hurting this person was not an unreasonable thing to do.

• You can accomplish this by emphasizing the person's faults, convincing yourself that they are a not a nice person and that they deserved what they got.

• This will reduce dissonance but it also sets the stage for further aggression; once a person has succeeded in derogating someone, they find it easier to do further harm to the victim in the future.

• you would be especially likely to reduce dissonance in this way if someone were an innocent victim of your aggression

• If there is a major discrepancy between what the person did to you and the force of your retaliation, you must justify that discrepancy by deciding that the object of your wrath really did something awful to warrant it.

What Are We Supposed to Do with Our Anger?

• If violence leads to self-justification, which in turn breeds more violence, then what are we to do when we are angry with someone?

• Stifling anger and sulking around the house, hoping that someone will read our mind, doesn't seem to be a good solution. Neither is brooding and ruminating by ourselves, which just prolongs and intensifies anger

• But if keeping our feelings bottled up and expressing them are both harmful, what are we supposed to do?

• First, it is possible to control our anger by actively enabling it to dissipate.

• Actively enabling means using such simple techniques as counting to 10 (or 100!) before shooting your mouth off.

• Taking deep breaths or engaging in a pleasant, distracting activity (working on a crossword puzzle, listening to soothing music, taking a bike ride, or even doing a good deed) are good ways of actively enabling the anger to fade away

• But there is more to anger than simply controlling it

Communication and Problem Solving

• Feeling anger is part of being human, but anger itself is not the problem.

• The problem is the expression of anger in violent or cruel ways.

• we are not born knowing how to express anger or annoyance constructively and nonviolently.

• it seems almost natural to lash out when we are angry.

• However, it is possible to express anger in a nonviolent and non demeaning way.

• You can do this (after counting to 10!) by making a clear, calm, and simple statement indicating that you are feeling angry and describing, nonjudgmentally, precisely what the other person did to bring about those feelings.

• It is important that you speak in a way that does not cause your listener to become defensive or counterattack but rather in a way that invites problem solving

• ("Look, we seem to have different notions about housework standards. Can we figure out how to resolve this so that I don't get angry about your 'compulsive neatness' and you don't get angry with my being a 'slob'?").

• Such a statement in itself will probably relieve tension and make you feel better.

• At the same time, because you haven't actually harmed the target of your anger, such a response does not set in motion the cognitive processes that would lead you to justify. your behaviour by ridiculing or derogating the other person.

• The person with whom you are angry is also more likely to react in a constructive manner.

• When feelings of anger are expressed in a clear, open, non punitive manner, the result can be greater mutual understanding and a strengthening of the relationship

Defusing Anger through Apology

• What if you are not the person who is feeling angry, but rather the one who caused it in someone else?

• people who are high in self-control are more likely to apologize for their transgressions than those who are low in self-control.

• people who are high in self-control may be more likely to accept responsibility for their behaviour and therefore more likely to apologize when they have done something wrong

• Typically, any apology sincerely given and in which the perpetrator takes full responsibility is effective at reducing aggression.

• people may have different ideas about when an apology is necessary.

• Men had a higher threshold for what constitutes an offensive action warranting an apology.

• men rated them all as being less severe than did women

• A woman might feel angry or slighted that her partner doesn't even notice an offence that she thinks is serious enough to warrant an apology, and the man might feel angry that she is being oversensitive and thin-skinned.

• open, constructive communication can help prevent, or at least repair, these kinds of misunderstandings.

The Modelling of Nonaggressive Behaviour

• children will be more aggressive toward dolls as well as other children- if they witness others behaving aggressively in similar situations.

• What if we reverse things and expose children to nonaggressive models--to people who, when provoked, express themselves in a restrained, rational, pleasant manner?

• found to work

• they showed a much lower frequency of aggressive responses than did children who were not exposed to the nonaggressive models.

Building Empathy

• seeing a person on crutches evoked feelings of empathy and decreased the drivers' urges to be aggressive.

• The importance of empathy in reducing aggression is underscored

• Those who put the event behind them reported more empathy for the aggressor than those who focused on the recency of the event.

• the greater the empathy experienced, the lower the desire to seek revenge for the transgression.

• empathy is an important human phenomenon.

• most people find it difficult to inflict pain on another human being unless they can find some way to dehumanize their victim

• Understanding the process of dehumanization is the first step toward reversing it.

• By building empathy among people, aggressive acts should become more difficult to commit.

• students who had been trained to empathize that is, to take the perspective of the other person behaved less aggressively toward that person than students who had not received the training

• Participants administered less severe shocks to the victim who had revealed personal information.

• people's tendencies toward aggression can be reduced.

Teaching Empathy in School

• Thinking hard about the answers to such questions expands children's ability to put themselves in another's situation.

• This empathy-building program also involves having children listen to stories and then retell them from the point of view of each character.

• Not only do children learn empathy, but this program also has several other positive effects.

• At the end of the program, children show higher self-esteem, greater generosity, more positive attitudes, and less aggressiveness compared with children who have not participated in it

• such a program may seem unrelated to academics. Yet role-playing and close analysis of stories is just what students do when putting on a play or analyzing a piece of literature.

• students who have learned to develop greater empathic ability also tend to have higher academic achievement