Aggression, Coercive Action, and Anger

Coercive Action

  • Coercive action aims to achieve compliance through threats and punishments.

  • Key components:

    • Actor: Evaluates and decides.

    • Targets: Threatened individuals.

    • Terminal Goal: Motivates actor's decisions.

  • Coercive action emerges when target behavior clashes with actor's desires.

  • Costs of coercive action:

    1. Opportunity costs

    2. Potential retaliation costs.

    3. Costs of noncoercion.

    4. Third-party costs

  • Skills can lower perceived costs of coercive action.

Irrational Coercive Action

  • Complete information processing isn't always likely in coercive actions.

  • Alcohol impairs information processing, leading to disinhibition.

  • Alcohol-induced myopia causes disregard for negative information = increased coercion.

Justice

  • Justice is learned early and involves expectations of reciprocity.

  • Belief in a just world reduces anxiety about the future.

  • Norms and responsibility are vital for justice.

  • Norm violation leads to suspicion of further violations.

Retributive Justice

  • Punishment for norm violations restores compliance.

  • Norms and terminal goals are similar.

Three Types of Norm Violation

  1. Distributive Justice: Fair resource allocation.

  2. Procedural Justice: Fair conflict resolution.

  3. Interactional Justice: Respect and politeness.

  • Violations of justice impact self-worth.

Attribution of Blame

  • Blame attribution involves assessing cause, intention, and justification.

  • Unjustified intended actions lead to blame.

  • Foreseeable unintended consequences can also result in blame.

Anger and Injustice

  • Anger follows blame and threatens self-worth.

  • Anger impairs information processing leading to impulsive behavior.

  • Escalating conflict arises as parties defend self-worth.

Interpersonal Violence

  • Violence can maintain control and power.

  • Loss of power triggers violence.

  • Violence against marginalized groups reflects power struggles.

  • Public education can reduce violence by explaining that empowerment is not a zero-sum game.

  • Political systems should ensure fair resource distribution.

  • Violence is the last resort when control is lost or when other means of control are absent.

Summary

  • Coercive action involves threats and punishment to enforce compliance.

  • Rationality in coercive action is often limited by factors like alcohol.

  • Justice motivates many coercive actions.

  • Violence relates to control, power, and failures in communication.

Youth Violence

  • Increased significantly.

  • Poverty = predictor of violence, though not universal.

  • Abuse = Risk factor, though not universal.

  • Media, TV violence = Risk factor.

Two Paths for Youth

  • Antisocial/Criminal Behavior.

  • Conventional/Participant behavior.

  • Biological, learned and cognitive factors interact.

Biological Component

  • Frustration + unmet needs = Hostile feelings.

  • Hostile feelings is a fight or flight response due to a perceived threat.

The Learned Component

  • Instrumental behavior to escape threat.

  • Attack the threat.

  • Good guidance, role model, and education = likely to escape plight.

  • Helplessness of hostile aggression.

Empathy

  • More empathetic = Less aggressive.

  • Abusive parents score lower on empathy.

The Cognitive Component

  • Positive role models = develop a positive self-concept with self-control.

  • Violence from parents = see self as victims.

  • Sense of control from a strong community.

Summary

  • Violence in youth depends on parental attitudes and role models.

  • Supportive environment = self-control.

  • Hostile environment = sense of being victims.

Aggression and Health Issues

  • Type A personality = Competitive, sense of urgency, aggressiveness and hostility.

  • Type B personality = less competitive.

Hostility and Heart Disease

  • Hostility clearly related to heart disease.

Hostility and Anger in Hypertension and Coronary Heart Disease

  • Repressed anger (anger-in) = linked to hypertension and cardiovascular problems.

  • Men at greater risk for cardiovascular problems.

Cynical Hostility

  • Grown out of a disturbed thinking process. These people need to reduce their cynical distrust of others.

Practical Application 8-1

  • Need to learn how to manage anger, if we are to reduce aggression and hostility.

  • Look for another explanation.

  • Distract yourself.

  • Look for the humor.

  • Determine what triggers your anger.

  • Create an inner dialogue that reduces anger.

  • Learn to recognize that life is not always fair.

  • Learn to talk it out and negotiate.