Aggression

Common element of aggression

intent to harm (Carlson et al, 1989)

Definition of aggression

Behaviour that is intended to harm another person who is motivated to avoid that harm

Violence

an extreme form of aggression that is intended to cause severe harm

Individual and situational factors of aggression

• Personality

• Alcohol

• Disinhibition

• Deindividuation

• Dehumanisation

Type A personality

 overactive, achievement-oriented, competitive (more aggressive especially in competitive and high stress situations)

Type B personality

relaxed, quiet, easy going

research supporting the Type A personality

• Type A more aggressive to competitors than those with a Type B personality (Carver & Glass, 1978)

• Type A managers were more in conflict with peers and those who work under them (Baron, 1989)

• Even linked to increased driving anger (Feng et al., 2017)

limitations of type A personality

Personality is a dimension, not a category: someone may have some type A traits rather than being a ‘type A’ personality

How does alcohol increase aggression

• Alcohol makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do- loose inhibitions

• Effects cortical control where thinking and other cognitive functions are carried out

• Increases activity in other, more primitive areas (e.g. areas that affect breathing, heartbeat)

• Alcohol myopia: narrows attention to provocative cues (act) in our environment (Giancola et al., 2010)

Taylor & Sears, 1988

Male participants in either alcohol or placebo condition

• Competitive Reaction Time Task ~ ppt who responded more slowly would receive an electric shock from opponent

• Ppts told they could choose the intensity of the shock (in reality, shocks were always low intensity)

• Confederate would encourage ppts to administer a shock (no → mild → strong→ no encouragement)

• Ppts who drank alcohol gave more high-intensity shocks after being pressured, even after pressure was withdrawn.

Begue et al, 2009

Participants who thought they had consumed alcohol were more aggressive even if they were given a non-alcohol cocktail. Actual alcohol levels were not related to aggression.

Pedersen et al, 2014

Reading alcohol-related words can increase aggression

Beck & Heinz, 2013

Alcohol Outcome Expectancies (AOEs): What you expect to happen when consuming alcohol

Giancola et al., 201

Cues in the environment  (peer pressure)

Disinhibition

Cues in the environment  (peer pressure) (can be triggered by alcohol)

The online disinhibition effect

• People often do and say things online that they wouldn’t ordinarily do in the face-to-face world

• Lowers restraint and empathy

Suler (2004) six factors to explaining online disinhibition:

• Dissociative anonymity

• Invisibility

• Asynchronicity

• Solipsistic introjection

• Dissociative imagination

• Minimisation of authority

How does dissociative anonymity explain online disinhibition

• Online behaviour can be completely anonymous

• Anonymity can make people behave in a different way than they would do in real life

How does invisibility explain online disinhibition

• Not feeling seen or heard amplifies the online disinhibition effect

• Can give the courage to do things you wouldn’t normally do

• Online spaces mean no eye contact and face-to-face visibility

How does asynchronicity explain online dishibition

Emails or words online are not always seen immediately after you have written them and you don’t have to cope with someone’s immediate response.

How does solipsistic introjection explain online disinhibition

Feel like you know people who are online – can lead to the feeling that anything can be shared/said.

dissociative imagination

Seeing the online world as a game where social rules and norms don’t apply.

minimisation of authority

Online environment can feel as a peer-to-peer relationship and absence of authority figure may make people more willing to speak out and (potentially) misbehave.

What is deindividuation

Situational changes that make people lose their identity and therefore influence the level of aggression exhibited, as it lowers the perceived likelihood of being punished

factors in deindividuation

• Presence of others (other people won’t see me do it)

• Anonymity (they won’t know who it was)

• Diffusion of responsibility (I’m not responsible)

• Group size (greater the group, the greater the DoR)

Dehumanisation

Thinking of another person as anonymous, without thoughts feelings or emotions, which changes how the victim is perceived and denies pain suffered by them

Kteily & Bruneau, 2017

• Blatant dehumanisation (seeing groups as non-human)

• Subtle dehumanisation (denying traits associated with humanity)

Examples of dehumanisation leading to aggression

psychiatry, prisons, Mass killings in WWII; Rwandan genocide

Gustave Le Bon (1895): crowd violence

• The crowd is mindless, violent and irrational

• People feel anonymous in a crowd situation

• More suggestible to specific behaviours

• Idea that crowd behaviour is contagious

Reicher (1984): crowd violence

• St Paul’s Riots, 1980, Bristol

• Violence against individuals and property

• Police and camera operators were only intentional targets

• Rioters had a shared social identity which can guide collective behaviour (ingroup others will support individual actions)

General aggression model

Explains how personal and situational factors interact

Social theories

• Frustration-aggression

• Social learning theory

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

Dollard et al (1939)

• Theory of contextual influence seeking to address lynching murders in Southern USA in 1930s

• Aggression is always caused by frustration (i.e. when we can’t achieve certain goals)

• Aggression directed towards the source of the frustration (retaliatory) or others (displaced)

Criticisms of the frustration-aggression hypothesis

• Not clear how frustration leads to aggression

• Frustration does not always lead to aggression

• Some forms of aggression are not linked to frustration

Social learning theory

• Behaviour is learned from appropriate models

• Learning by direct experience or by vicarious experience

Bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1963)

• 4 & 5 year olds

 

• Watched an adult play with an inflated Bobo doll

 

• Four conditions: live, videotape, cartoon, or control

 

Findings:

• Children who watched an adult behaving aggressively (in any condition) behaved more aggressively later

 

• Live sequence was the most effective condition for modelling aggressive behaviour

 

• Cartoon and videotape conditions also increased imitative aggression

Przybylski and Weinstein (2019)

• UK; 14 – 15 year olds (N = 1004)

• Measured the amount of violent video games played in past month & carers assessments of aggressive and prosocial behaviour

• No relationship between playing and aggressive or prosocial behaviour

Cultural factors in aggression

Different values: peaceful societies, Honour systems & Individualism/ Collectivism

Cooperation and Competition in peaceful societies (Bonta, 1997):

25 societies examined which were almost completely without violence – either inter-personal or inter-group:

• Chewong – Malay peninsula. No words for quarrelling, fighting, aggression, warfare

• Ifaluk – Micronesia. In 12 months one tiny act of aggression

• Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites – USA & Canada.  Hutterites never a recorded murder

• Kadar – India.  Crime totally absent according to local police 

• Jains – India. Habitual criminality unknown.  Competitive and join military.

General themes in peaceful societies

• Co-operation and group success rather than individual competition and achievement

• Children cherished to age 3, then ignored= all equal

• Positive interpersonal relations must be constantly re-enforced

• Competition is associated with aggressiveness and violence

• Re-enforced by rituals emphasising co-operation and individual humility (daily church services)

Honour systems

cultural response to threats against social status ‘honour’ (cultural value of social status being important) (South America versus the North)

Cohen et al, 1996

• Participants needed to walk down a narrow hallway

• Confederate bumped into them (they didn’t know they were part of the study)

• Looked at how people responded behaviourally and physiologically

• Higher levels of aggressive behaviour and testosterone in Southern compared to Northern students

Differences between the North and South

1. Historical issues with levels of policing:  There was little law enforcement in the south, so it was necessary to rely on reputation and honour

2. Origins of settlers in these regions:  People in the north were farmers, People in the south were cattle herders

Individualistic countries

• USA

• UK

• Australia

Collectivist countries

• China

• Chile

Fujihara et al (1999)

• Indirect verbal aggression seen as more acceptable in individualistic cultures

• Direct verbal aggression seen as more justifiable in collectivist cultures

• Physical aggression seen as more acceptable in individualist cultures if defending yourself

What do individualistic cultures focus on

Personal desires: self-assertiveness, looking after yourself

What do collectivist cultures focus on

Confucianism:

• emphasise social harmony

• avoid conflict, obligation to others

• aggression is shameful and damaging

• self-assertiveness is selfish and antisocial

Triandis, 1993

Collectivistic cultures more focused on the distinction between in- and out-groups

• restrict aggression against in-groups

• more aggressive to outgroups

Forbes et al 2011

• Participants read vignettes describing a conflict situation, varied by ingroup (close friends) and outgroup (strangers or acquaintances)

• More conflict-reducing and less physical aggression in collectivist sample (Chinese participants)

• More aggressive responses towards outgroup members

• Group status was more important than C/I in predicting aggression

• Effect of group status on aggression was not stronger in collectivist sample (Chinese participants)

Limitations of comparing Collectivist and individualistic cultures

• Collectivism and individualism often assumed but not measured

• C and I as two independent dimensions

• Depends on the context

• Differences in degree or kind of collectivism (and individualism) in collectivist and individualistic societies