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Aggression - Coggle Diagram
Aggression
ethological explanation
Lorenz
- beleied aggression has survival value to animala and is triggered by certain enrivonmental stimuli
ao3
- more cognitiviely available
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- can’t be done with humans
- humans have society and social norms etc
- animals don’t/ rely on nature mostly
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- compare lorenz and bandura
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- can establish cause and effect
- Criticisms of an instinctive view of aggression
- criticised Lornez’s instinctual explanation
- believed Lorenz underestimated role of environmental factors in development of species-typical aggressive behaviour patterns
- these factors (resul of learing and experience) interact with innate factors in complex ways
- fixed actiona patternraplaced by behaviour pattern to reflect that they are not 100% innate and can be modified
- There are subtle variations between individuals in aggressive behaviors
- suggets that patterns of aggressive behavior are not as fixed as Lorenz claimed
- Do humans have fixed action patterns for aggression
- because environment changes rapidly, FAPs are no longer adaptive
- flexibility of human behavior and ability to repsond to an ever changing environment has proved more effective than production of sterotypical fixed patterns
- suggests that although non-humans may reposnd aggressively to specific sign stimuli. human behavior is far more varied and less predictable
- Problem for hydraulic model
- Lorenz believed that when leels of ASE reached a critical point this owuld lead to performance of an FAP (aggressive action)
- this would act as catharsis and reduce biological energy and reduction in aggression
- showed perfomance of aggressive bheaior could lead to a further stimulus, making aggression more likely
- The benefits of ritualised aggression
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- can’t establish cause and effect (not lab or field)
- no direct manipulation of IV
- question scientific credibility
- indigenous observer? would redycecultyeal biases
- Killing conspecific not that rare
- Problem for the ethological explanantion of aggression concerns the claim that predator species must also have instinctive inmhibitions that prevent them using their natural weapons against members of their own species
- arguemetn that mong species the killing of member would occur by accident has no evidence
- in some species the killing is more sysytematic
- e.g male liions kill cubs of other males, male chimps kill members of other groups
- findings pose a challenge for the ethological explanation of aggression as they cast doubt on the claim that much of anumal aggression is either ritualistic rather than real
Tinbergen
- suggested that animal aggression within a species follows a specific form which he called FAPs (fixed action patterns)
- patterns produced by IRMs (innate releasing mechanisms)
- and are triggered by the sign stimulus
- IRM receies input from sensory recognotion circuits stimulated by the sign stimulus
- IRM then communicates with themotor circuits to ralease the FAP associated with that sign stimulus
- Research with sticklebacks
- showed a male stickleback will poroduce a fixed sequence of aggressive actions when another male enter its terriotory
- sign stimulus is not the presence o f another male, but the sight of the red belly
- if belly is covered the intruder is not attacked
- Ritualised threat displays
- e.g male gorillas use different vocalisations and gestures to intimidate an opponent with the need for physical contact
Fox 1979
- found evidence of highly ritualised fighting amon males of Gaelic Tory Island where displays had basically taken over combat
- Some species with powerful killing weapons have devloped instinvtive inhibitions that prevent them from using daely force against members of their own species
- e.g when wolves fight, the losers can show its neck and the fight will stop
- Lorenz suggested that since we don’t havea ny natural weapons we have not developed strong instinctive inhibitions against killing one another
evolutionary explanation
- suggests aggression is adaptive
- advantageous for ancestors
- proposes that ggression improed survival and mating chances
- tendecies passed down to modern day humans
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Puts 2010
- suggets various male traits imply that competition with other males was a strong feature of eolutionary past
- Men have 75% more muscle mass than women
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- more likely to die violently
- indicates that thicker jawed men survived more face injuries and passed trait down
- means that men increase their status and improve chance of reproductive success
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- suggests males have evolved several strategies for keeping a mate
- include use of violence towards perceived rival
- studeis of domestically abused women cite extremem jealousy on the part of their male partners as a cause
- concluded that jealousy accounts for 17% of all murders in the UK
- men predominately the murderers
Ao3
- not just eat, survive, reproduce
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- neglects cognitive factors
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- doesn’t aknowledge culture
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- free will determinism/ feminism
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- deep rooted drive to harm women
- socially sensitive research
- feminisists argue that you can’t give men an excuse such as that for domestic abuse
- takes away responsibility
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- Gender differencs in aggression may be better explaned by socialisation
- Differnces in aggressive behavior of men adn women may also be product of differnt socialisation
- boys may likley to be hit
- girls more lilkey to be explained to why they were wrong
- could increase male violence
- girls learn they are less powerful than biys and may lead them to adopt other more social forms of aggression rather thanphysical
- Casts doubt on calim that men alone have evolved aggression
- girls developed it in a differnt form
- biased sample of white middle class
- non representative sample
- can’t establish cause and effect
SLT
Bandura
- beleived children learn through direct reinforcement but more so from role models
- suggets children learn aggressive behavior through the observation of live models (real people) and symbolic models (people in media)
- the more children identify with those models, the more likely they are to copy aggression
- suggets kids observe the consequences of actions and that dictates the likleihood of imitation
- e.g if a child sees a bully hit someome and get addmiration from peers, they’ll be more likley to copy to get that admiration theirself
- must form mental representations of events in their social environment
- in between wtaching and reproducing aggression mediational processes occur that dicate liklihood of imtation
- one process involves asses behavior against schemas and scripts
- kids learn rules of conduct from aorund them (scripts)
- scripts are then internalised
- assessment of ability to effectively carry out aggressive acts (self-efficacy)
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ao3
- A study that had heavy influence on SLT’s theory of aggression is Bandura’s bobo doll study.
- study involved an adult modelling an aggressive behaviour towards a bobo doll whilst 3-5 year old children watched.
- He found that the children who watched the aggressive behaviour copied it.
- This study however, was a lab study which means that although it had more control over extraneous variables, it lacked mundane realism.
- The bobo doll is fundamentally, just a doll which means that the children may act differently towards a human being in the real world since the doll cannot feel pain or retaliate.
- This challenges the ecological validity of the study as to what extent can the results be applied to real life if the subject isn’t even alive.
- Bandura later responded to similar criticisms with a follow up experiment where children watched a film of a model hitting a clown.
- The children then later imitated the aggressive behaviour show in the film. This may suggest that imitation of aggression is also likely towards other human beings.
- However, there may be demand characteristics involved.
- Similarly to the first Bandura study, the experiment is a lab experiment meaning the Ps were aware that they were in an experiment.
- The children in this experiment may believe that Bandura wants them to act aggressive so copy the behaviour for that reason alone.
- They may not act the same way if the situation naturally occurred outside of the lab.
- This also reduces the ecological validity of the study.
- Gee and Leith analysed penalty records from 200 games of NHL
- with the belief that the players born in North America have
- been exposed to more aggressive models on TV when they were younger,
- were less likely to have been punished fro aggression,
- would therefore have more penalties.
- The results showed that their theory was correct.
- However ice hockey can be an aggressive sport regardless of player background so you can’t generalise the findings to non ice hockey players.
- The penalties are also subjective to the referee.
- means that you can’t establish cause and effect due to the lack of an objective measure.
- They decide what counts as a penalty and they draw the line for the specific game their watching
- The correlation between where a player was born and how aggressive they are doesn’t take into account any other factors.
- The player may have a genetic disposition for aggression which is unrelated to where they were born.
- Also, the players may have had a different upbringing to what is expected
- they may have had “bad parents”,
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- or other factors that can contribute to aggression.
- The study doesn’t take into account these extraneous variables into their conclusions.
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De-individuation
Ao3
- found that males and females respond differently under deindividuation conditions
- increase in aggression obtained in all-male groups and not in all-female
- same finding as Diener who found greater disinhibition of aggression in de-individualised males than in females
- One reason is that men respond to provocation in more extreme ways
- reaction magnified under de-individuation
Zimbardo SPE
- Guards wore uniforms and dark glasses and prisoners refferred to by number only
- factors increased anonimity
- state amplified by being in a large group , any factor which dimishes personal identification e.g unifrom or mask and other factors such as alternated states of conssciousness due to drink/drugs
- state diminishes fear of aegative evaluation by others so weakens the onraml barriers to anti-social behavior that are based to a large extent upon the fear of social shame
Follow up expriement
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- Ps deloivered electric shocks to another student to aid learning
- 4 female undergraduates in independent group dsign
- half allocated to wear bulky lab coats and hoods which hid their faces, sit in separate cubicles and were never refferred to by name (de individualoised state)
- other half randomlly allocated to a group where they wore normal clothes, large name tages. introduced by name and able to see each other trhoughout
- found that in the deindividualised condititon Ps held the button for 2x as long
Festinger 1952
- a psychological state where inner restraints are lost
- suggests state exists when individuals form part of a large crowd
Le Bon's crowd theory
- suggests that being in a crowd provides individual with increased anonymity
- make them more suggestible
- talked of a collective mind taking possession and making aggression more likely
Genetic factors
- trying to disentangle nature from nurture.
- often been attempted by using twin and adoption studies.
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- may be particular genes linked to aggression.
- A gene responsible for producing an enzyme called MAOA has been strongly associated
- MAOA regulates the metabolism of serotonin inthe brain
- low levels of serotonin are associated with impulsivity and aggression.
- undertook a famous studyon the males in a large family from the Netherlands, whose members weredisplaying high levels of aggression.
- Five of the males were found to haveabnormally low levels of MAOA.
Caspi (2002)
- They identified a variant of the gene associated with high levels of MAOA(MAOA-H) and a variant associated with low levels of MAOA (MAOA-L).
- Those with the L variant were significantly more likely to exhibit anti-social behaviour but ONLY ifthey had been mistreated as children .
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- MAOA-L individuals are found morefrequently in populations with a history of warfare (about 2/3 of the populationshave this variant).
- sometimes referred to as the warior gene
Ao3
- caspi with andro centric research
- done in western countries
- biological approach/drug therapy
- ignores environental factors
- could be used to develop drugs to reduce aggression
- could keep more people out of prison if they were less aggressive
- stay out of the aggressive prison environment
- reduce amount of re offenders
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- many studeis focus on individuals convicted of violent crime
- Conviction for violent crimes are relatiely few compared to the vast number of violent attacks by individuals that don’t result in conviction
- therfore represnt a smal minority of aggressive behavior
- offenders designated as violent on the basis of a counrt conviction are not necessarily the most serious offenders
- e.g a convicted murderer would be violent for one offence depsite having a previos life free of crime
- may explain why many studies found no heritability evidence
- Difficulties of determining the role of genetic factors
- more than one gene usually contributes to a behavior
- as well as genetic factor, there are non genetic influences on the manifestation of aggressive behavior
- the influences may ineract with eachotehr genetic factors may determine which encironmental factors have an influence and vice versa
- demonstrated by Caspi and highlights the problems of identifying specific contribution to aggressive behavior
- Problems of assessing aggression
- many studies rely on parental or self reports
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- social desiability bias- parents want to seem good and people want to seem nice
- mode of assessmet was a moderator of aggressive behaviro in the 24 studies
- found genetic factotrs explained a large propportion of ariance in aggressive behavior in studie with parental or self reports
- those made use of observational ratings showed significantly less genetic contribution and a greater infleucne of envronment
- inconsistencies made it difficult to actually assess contribution of factors
- evidence for the influence of the MAOA gene
- in many countries the majority of all iolent crime is committed by a small group of persistant offenders
- Finnish prisoners (cultural relativity)
- reealed that MAOA-L in combination with another gende was associated with extrememly vioolent behavior
- no evidence for either gene among non offenders
- indicates that this combination was specific for violent offending onlly
- critics argue the gene just make it harder for some poeple to contorl violent urges, not predetermine violent behavior
- the MAOA gene maight explain gender differnces in aggressive behavior
- advantage of MAOA gene research is that it offers and explanation for uneen male/female violence rates
- suggets this may be a consequence of differnetial genetic vunerability that males/females have to MAOA
- MAOA linked to X chromosome
- women have 2 so the other chromosome prevents expression of the abnormal version
- should explain why emn are typically more aggressive
Media influences
Violent films/TV
- Lab and field experiments
- a consistent finding is that those who watch violent scenes display more aggressive behaviour and have more aggressive thoughts /emotions
- 5-6-year-old kids who viewed a non-violent film compared to kids who watched the violence
- kids who watched violence were rated higher on measures of physical aggression
Huesmann et al 2003
- studied children 6-10 and then again 15yrs later
- habitually early exposure to TV violence was predictive of later adult aggression
- relationship persisted even when the possible effects of socioeconomic status, intelligence and parenting style were controlled (confounding variables)
- Bushman and Huesmann
- found significant effect sizes for exposure to media violence on aggressive behaviour/thoughts/feelings and arousal levels
- short-term effects were greater for adults
- long-term effects were greater for children
Violent video games
- interactive violence in video games has potential to exert even more influence that TV as the gamer play a more active role in the violence
- lab exp have found short-term increases in hostile feelings/behaviours following violent gameplay
- Anderson and Dill
- found Ps blasted their opponents with white noise for longer after playing a violent video game
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- surveyed kids at 2 points during the school year
- higher exposure to violent video games = more verbally/physically aggressive and less prosocial
- Adachi and Willoughby 2013
- suggests the link found between violent video games and aggression may be due to the competitive nature rather than violence
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Ao3
- Media violence research: overstating the case
- a ‘statistically significant relationship between media violence and violent behaviors may be an overstatement
- studies have found a relationship between the 2 typically report small effect sizes
- very few have measured aggression against another person
- when aggression towards another person or violent crime is the measure of aggression the relationship is close to 0
- Failure to consider other causal variables
- many studies fail to account for other variables that may explain both aggressive behaviour and a preference for violent VG
- claims that much of the research on VG violence had failed to control for variables known to influence aggressive behaviour e.g family violence
- these other risk factors may be the real reason for violence
- Problems with research on the effects of computer games
- in experiments researchers must use alternatives that have no relation to real-life aggression or that only measure short-term effects
- e.g administering white noise blasts to another Ps
- however, Ps may be exposed to other forms of media violence during a study so effect form VG alone is uncertain
- Game difficulty rather than content could lead to aggression
- other research suggests aggressive behaviour may be linked to a player’s experience of failure and frustration during the game
- found that it wasn’t the violent storyline or imagery but the difficulty players had in completing the game that led to frustration and aggression
- suggest even non-violent video games can leave players feeling aggressive if it’s difficult
- e.g a puzzle game is impossible to solve so the player gets frustrated and hits things (frustration-aggression hypothesis)
Institutional aggression
Deprivation model
- main situational explanation
- suggests stressful nature of prison causes violence
- described specific deprivations
- loss of liberty, autonomy, security
- violence in prison is a rebellion against the deprivations
- way of surviving the risk of exploitation
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- way of expressing loyalty
- Cooke 2008 suggests overcrowding was another factor
- found a strong positive correlation between prison and population density
- Cooke also pointed out heat and noise
- found combo of high temperatures and population density produced more negative emotions
- deindividuation is another factor
Importation model
- main dispositional explanation
- prisons are aggressive as inmates bring a tendency to violence
- prisoners have different social norms
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- need for respect leading to gangs and aggression
- gang members were more likely to be violent in prison
- connected to anger, impulsivity and anti-social personality style
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Ao3
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- followup exp asked people of a similar smaple what they thought the aims woul dbe to a study like that and they guessed correctly the aims and outcomes
- obvious aims/ little deception
- ps were aggressive because that’s what they thought Zim wanted
- just a test of demand characteristics
- research support for the importation model
- Mears et al 2013 tested view that behavior stems from sub cultural beliefs
- measured code of the streets system and prison experience
- results supported belief that code of the street affects behavior
- pronounced against those without family support and were originally in a gang before prison
- concluded that the code deosn’t direcly influence, it calls for responses to insults
- in prison is more likely to end in violence to command respect
- How do they measure code of the streets???
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- challenges to the importation model
- evidence from Delisi challenges claim that pre prison gang people predicts violence
- found inmates with prior gang involvement were no more likely to engage in prison violence
- lack of association can be explained by the fact that violent gang members tend ot be isolated so restrict oppourtunities for violence
- Fischer found that isolating known gang members in solitary basically, reduced rates of serious assault by 50%
- probably because they weren’t commanding everyine ot hit eachother
- research support for the deprivation model
- substatial evidence to support the claim that peer violence is a response to deprivation in institutional cultures
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- found situational factors like oercrowding and lack of privacy increases assaults on other innmates and guards
- prisons where a major percentage of population involved in educational/vocational programmes had a lower incidence of violence against staff and innmates
- suggests that depriving inmates of meaningful activity increae the likleihood of violent behavior as predicted by deprivation model
- challenges to the deprivation model
the link between situational factors and institutional aggression is challenged by the findings of one most exhaustive studies of prison violence
- over 24000 innmates from 58 prisons in USA
- included importationa and deprivation variables and teste which pridicted likleihood of aggression
- concluded thst race,age and history were the only signficant factors wheras non of the deprivation ariables were singificant
- real-world application: prison and the deprivation model
- Prison governer reasoned that if most iolence occurs in hot, noisy environments, aggression coul dbe avoided by removing those factros
- set up 2 units for violent prisonsers that were less claustrphobic and prison like with a view to the outside
- typical noise was reduced and masked with music from a local radio
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- changes virtualy eradicated asssaults providing support for situational violence
- Strong demand characteristic
- nicer prison so prisoners would want to stay there
- assume that good behavior = nice place
- less people would also mean less oppoutunity for assault
- idiographic due to ignorance of individual differences
- theories seem to focus on the idea of all prisoners being aggressive
- most have an individual case that made them end up there
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- not all violent crimes e.g cybercrime or tax fraud
- ignoring individual factors
- classism as a lot of people come from working-class backgrounds
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