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Aggression (Y2) - Coggle Diagram
Aggression (Y2)
Real-world applications
- Differences between bullying and aggression -
-> Aggression - delivery of an aversive stimulus from one person to another, with intent to harm and with an expectation of causing such harm, when the other person is motivated to escape or avoid the stimulus
-> Bullying - one person or a group of people repeatedly demonstrate aggressive behaviour towards another person or group of persons with an imbalance of power
Cyberbullying and cyber aggression -
- Traditional bullying - above definition
- Cyber-bullying - aggressive intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly over time against a victim who cannot easily defend themself
- Cyber aggression - intentional harm delivered by the use of electronic means to a person or a group of people irrespective of their age, who perceive these acts as offensive, derogatory, harmful or unwanted
Cyberbullying is -
- Cause - less proximal, anonymous and can falsify identity
- Lack of facial cues / communicative gestures
- Bullying victims more likely to bully/troll online - take out frustration online
- Reinforcement - likes
- Unclear social norms
Bullying is -
- Cause - disinhibition - communication / evolutionary purpose
- Furstration-aggression and catharsis
- Social learning
- Cultural norms
Societal influences -
- Disadvantaged groups - social disadvantage can be an underlying cause of aggression - although causal link can be reversed; deprived groups often become passive victims
- Disadvantage and aggression interact through the aggressor being the most relatively deprived in comparison to the victim - illegitimate opportunity ladder
- Criminality and women - Rate of violent offending has increased among women
- Institutional aggression - controlled aggression in just scenarios - can preserve the social order
- Role of the state - Psychological structure around beliefs in a society can justify warfare e.g. religious wars; agentic and autonomous states
Rape myths, erotica and aggression -
- Rape myth acceptance - those who score high on this scale also score high on right-wing authoritarianism
-> Those who score high also attend more quickly to rape-consistent cues
-> RMA scorers more lenient in sentencing when irrelevant rape muth-consistent information was presented
-> RMA scorers more lenient in sentencing when irrelevant rape muth-consistent information was presented
- Erotica and aggression - depends on the kind of erotic viewed - attractive erotica reduces aggression, whereas neutral pictures do not
-> Highly erotic images can increase aggression - excitation transfer effect
-> Male desensitisation to aggression against women occurs after viewing sex in violent movies (Donnerstein and Linz, 1994) - correlational link between pornography consumed and violence / leniency on rape etc
-> Degrading messages about women institutionalise a demeaning and one-dimensional image of women
Domestic violence -
- Victims are mostly women - women are less likely than men to use physical aggression against partners in heterosexual relationships (Archer, 2004)
- However, asymmetry is not seen in same-sex relationships; lesbians, gay men and bisexuals still suffer violence - previous theories may be heterosexist
- Victim blaming more common in homosexual relationships due to just world hypothesis
-> Women often act in self defence - different violence
-> Ethnicity interacts with type of domestic abuse shown
Factors in abuse -
- Learnt aggression
- Proximity of family members - frustration
- Stress
- Power division
- Alcohol
What is aggression?
Aggression is the delivery of an aversive stimulus from one person to another, with the intent to harm and the expectation of causing harm, when the other person is motivated to escape or avoid the stimulus (Geen, 2001)
- Aversive stimulus - direct = physical force, indirect = verbal / social relations
- Intentional - aggressor is motivated to cause harm and cannot be accidental
- Victim should be motivated to escape - victim should want to avoid the stimulus (rare situations where this is not the case, such as atonement)
- Behaviour that results in personal injury or the destruction of property (Bandura, 1973)
- Behaviour intended to harm another of the same species (Scherer et al, 1975)
- Behaviour directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment (Baron, 1977)
- The intentional infliction of some form of harm on others (Baron and Byrne, 2000)
- Behaviour directed towards another individual carried out with the proximate (immediate) intention to cause harm (Anderson and Heusmann, 2003)
Types of aggression -
- Affective / reactive aggression; reaction to a trigger and intention to cause harm
- Instrumental / proactive - motivated by concerns greater than risk of harm
- Characteristics -
-> Emotional impulsivity
-> Cognitive
-> Violent
-> Non-physical
-> Physical
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Some evidence that the world has become more violent, with homicides increasing since the Second World War in industrialised countries (Anderson and Bushman, 2002)
- Increase could be due to violence against children in homes (Straus, 2001), exposure to violent media (Bushman and Huesmann, 2001), availability of guns (O'Donnell, 1995) and even global warming
- However, Pinker (2011) suggests the world has actually become less violent
Levels of explanation -
- In war, can vary from person to state levels of social behaviours - person to group centred social behaviour
- Authoritarianism argues that prejudice, discrimination, violence and war-time atrocities can reside in extreme or deviant personalities
- Agentic state - diffusion of responsibility
Reducing aggression -
- Interventions are effective at an individual level
- Peace studies - promotion of peace - to solve at a group level
Evolutionary accounts
Aggression as an instinct -
- Psychodynamic theory - build up of tension that needs release; death instinct
- Ethology - innate, adaptive instinct elicited by situation - releasers
-> Two factor or conditional theory - there is an innate urge to aggress, but its expression is conditional on appropriate sitmulation by environmental releasers
-> Lorenz, 1966 - humans have a fighting instinct
-> Once we start being violent, we struggle to stop, and to kill we resort to weapons
- Evolutionary social psychology - innate, survival mechanism
Aggression across human socieities and animals indicates evolutionary explanation and therefore must serve a purpose
Darwin (1872) - same emotional states across species (evolved, adaptive and useful)
- Indicate what the animal will do next
- If beneficial, will evolve and enhance communication
- Antithesis principle - submission v aggression
- Form of social competence - learn when aggression is appropriate
- Social learning in the adaptation and communication area of the theory
Riopelle (1987) - an instinct is -
- Goal-directed and terminates in a specific consequence
- Beneficial to the individual and their species
- Adapted to a normal environment
- Shared by most members of the species
- Developed in a clear way as the individual matures
- Unlearned on the basis of individual experience
Aggression as form of communication -
- Not just in animals
- Threat displays in humans indicate impending aggression (facing up, squaring up, displays of weapons) - can be culturally specific
- If recognised by the opponent harm can be avoided - survival benefit
Aggression as an adaptive mechanism - solves a number of adaptive problems
- Co-opting other's resources
- Defending against attack
- Inflicting costs on same-sex rivals
- Negotiating status and power
- Deterring rivals from future aggression
- Deterring mates from sexual infidelity
- Reducing resources spent on genetically unrelated children
Genocide function - could war serve a function then?
- Chimps have been found to carry out planned killings, extermination of neighbouring bands and abduction of young female
- 38% of gorilla killings are infanticide
- Suggests one reason humans live in groups is for defence against other groups
Limitations of evolutionary accounts -
- Potentially insufficient explanations for all forms of human aggression
- Difficulty applying studies in animals to humans (based on reports which may be biased)
- Circular logic
- Lack of evidence for genetic underpinnings (Miles and Carey, 1997)
- Bio-social accounts more popular (incorporate an element of social learning)
Personal factors
Hormones - testosterone is linked to aggression, but this is mostly correlational - hormonal transition has been linked with a change in aggressive behaviour (male to female transition results in decreases in aggression in response to an aversive, furstrating video) whilst female to male had the opposite effect
Personality - low-self-esteem and frustration intolerance observed in violent offenders linked to narcissism and Type A personality types
- Type A personality - overly competitive, which can lead to violence and destruction - more prone to abusing children (Strube et al, 1984)
Gender - some evidence women are less aggressive (hormones and socialisation), men are more overtly aggressive - women tend to be less direct
- Social role theory and sexual selection theory (Archer, 2004)
- Similar levels of verbal aggression
- Men have smaller index fingers than ring fingers - this ratio is established in utero, negatively related to testosterone and positively related to estradiol
-> testosterone linked with higher aggression - 2D: 4D ratios found to be correlated with self-reported aggression (in males not females, Bailey and Hurd, 2005)
-> Greater likelihood of attack in video games (McIntyre et al, 2007)
-> In one study, men with high levels of testosterone, Type A personality, or both, delivered higher electrical shocks to opponents
-> However, testosterone and aggression correlation is small
Alcohol - disinhibiition (less cortical control, behaviour becomes more primitive)
- Well-established link with aggression; people who drink become aggressive
- In interpersonal situations put at risk because - changes to positive impressions are prevented when negative behaviour is shown, and promoting changes in negative impressions such that potentially threatening people are deemed less dangerous (Bartholomew et al, 2003)
- Disinhibition - reduction in the usual social forces that operate to restrain us from acting antisocially, illegally and immorally
- Deindividuation - presence of others diffuses responsibility
- Dehumanisation - people seen as being less human
Cognitive models
Priming influence of viewing violent media -
- Ideomotor response, merely thinking about an act can facilitate its performance
- Weapons effect (Berkowitz and LePage, 1967)
The General Aggression Model - Allen, Anderson and Bushman, 2018
- Distal causes and processes - leads to personality
-> Biological modifiers - ADHD, impaired executive functioning, hormone imbalances, low serotonin and low arousal
-> Environmental modifiers - culture, exposure to violence, maltreatment and deprivation
- Proximal causes and processes - personality ->
-> Stage 1 - inputs - person + situation (risk and protective factors) = present internal state
-> Stage 2 - Stage 1 inputs influence the present internal state of thoughts, emotion and arousal
--> Route interaction may enhance or diminish aggression - cognition <-> affect <-> arousal
-> Stage 3 - leads to outcomes through appraisal and decision processes - immediate appraisal -> resources sufficient (time to assess) ->
--> Yes - outcomes important and unsatisfying -> yes -> reappraisal -> thoughtful action -> social encounter -> distal
--> Yes -> outcome important and unsatisfying -> no -> impulsive action -> social encounter -> start loop again
--> No -> impulsive action -> social encounter -> distal processes to reppraise
Model outlines both feed forward and feedback processes
- Results in aggressive behaviour or thoughtful behaviour based on the outcome of the behaviour, reappraising until satisfied and the situation and appraisal impact the behaviour
I3 model - Finkel and Hall, 2018 -
- Instigation - strength of environment stimuli e.g. provocation
- Impliance - situational and personal factors that influence how likely you are to be aggressive
- Inhibition - situational and personal factors that determine how aggressively you react
- Proctivity to aggress - these combined determine how likely you are to aggress
Separate the factors in likelihood of aggression and the different appraisal routes that result in aggression
- Combination of environment and appraisal
There are 12 different routes that go through each factor in the model to determine aggressive behaviour -
- Instigation being high can lead straight to aggression
- Impliance of situation leads to aggression
- Inhibiition is low - aggressive behaviour
- Impliance interacting with strong instigation - aggression
- Inhibition interacting with instigation - aggression
- Inhibition combines with impliance - aggression
- Inhibition, interacts with impliance and this leads to instigation - aggression
- Instigation + proctivity to aggress
- Impliance + proctivity to aggress
- Impliance + instigation - proctivity to aggress
- Proctivity to aggress leads to aggression for 3 previous routes
- Inhibition interacts with proctivity through instigation or impliance to cause aggression
Situational factors
Physical environment - heat; prolonged hot weather linked to domestic violence, suicide and collective violence up to a point; also, interacts with more alcohol consumption in nice weather
- Riot theory - crowding and social support increase aggression and hot weather also does
- Crowding - both personal space and population density, hence more violence in cities
-> crowd bating - collective aggression; case of Shaun Dykes
-> Mann (1981) - 21 cases where people threatened to jump to suicide in presence of a crowd - bating and jeering in 10 cases, and analysed newspaper articles trying to uncover why this aggressive behaviour may occur
-> Night time (6pm onwards), large crowds, warm temperatures, long duration, crowd distinct from victim - diffusion of responsibility, cities
Due to situation factors (weather and duration), dehumanisation and deindividuation (anonymity, loss of identity, punishment less likely)
Cultural norms - cultural variation in aggressive behaviour - subcultures where aggression and violence is perhaps more accepted
- Collective aggression - Culture; Western demographic natures view democracy, human rights and non-violence as core values - violence more common in US (Geen, 2001)
-> Variations in cultural norms around aggression linked to historical and geographical factors
-> Socieities that still practise non-aggressive lifestyle are small and relatively isolated
- Subcultures - football hoolinganism; ritualised aggression, linked to social status, group norms and values
-> Gangs - violence may be seen as part of life, a way of solving disputes, initiations involve ritualised violence
Social accounts
- Social learning theory - can aggression be learned?
- Schemas / cognitive scripts - reward, observation and modelling
-> Acquisition of behaviour - vicariously or directly
-> Instigation of overt acts
-> Maintenance of behaviour - reinforcement
- Violence in the media - TV, adverts, film and video games (hypodermic syringe model)
-> Columbine shooting - at the time, perpetrator actions partly blamed on exposure to violent video games
-> Largely seen as too simplified, but this sort of relationship between violent games / tv film is often given in the media itself
-> Anderson and Bushman, 2001 - link between violent video games and aggression - reduced prosocial behaviour
-> Kuhn et al, 2018 - Fergurson and Wang, 2019 - no causal link
-> Breuer et al, 2015; Velez et al, 2016 - selection effects, needs within-subject analysis
-> Desensitization to violence
Frustration-aggression hypothesis -
- Dollard et al, 1939 (aggression is always caused by some kind of frustrating event or situation)
- However, definition of frustration is loose
Hate crimes -
- Violence can be linked to prejudice
Measuring aggression
Operational defintion -
- Bobo doll (Bandura, 1963)
- Pushing an electric shock button (Buss, 1961)
- Pencil and paper ratings by teachers and classmates of a child's level of aggressiveness (Eron, 1972)
- Self-report by institutionalised teenage boys about prior aggressive behaviour (Leyens et al, 1975)
- Verbal expression of willingness to be violent in lab setting (Geen, 1978)
- Relational aggression - peer relationship damage (Crick and Grotpeter, 1995) or spreading rumours (Warren, Richardson and McQuillin, 2011)
Each of these measures has acted as a substitute, or analogue, for the real thing
- Unethical to use actual aggression
- Anderson and Bushman (1997) have validated the eclectic shock method
- Good parallel between laboratory and real life for alcohol, high temperatures, direct provocation and violence in the media
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