Social Psychology: Aggression PDF

Preview

Summary

Social Psychology Lecture on Biological and Psychological Theories of Aggression for Part 1 Experimental Psychology Examinations. ...

Description

Aggression Introduction and definitions -Definition of aggression: any form of behavior that intentionally attempts or succeeds to harm someone who would want to avoid that treatment -Types of aggression: physical vs verbal/ direct vs/ indirect/ instrumental vs hostile/ defensive vs offensive/ provoked vs. unprovoked Measurements of aggression: -Observation: Taylor aggression paradigm, hot-sauce paradigm, RT to aggressive words -Reporting: self-reports on aggressive questionnaires, peer nominations, archival records Biological Theories of Aggression -Ethological -Steam boiler model (Konrad Lorenz, 1966): aggressive energy is produced continuously within an organism until it is released by external cue and if this pent up energy is not released, then a spontaneous account of aggression will occur. -Problems: What happens to multiple acts of serial aggression and catharsis can be seen as counterproductive -Genetic -Rhee & Waldman (2002): genes account for 41% of the variance in aggression and environment accounts for 59% variance in aggression -Caspi et al. (2002): People with the MAOA genotype tend to show aggressive behavior and antisocial behavior in interaction with the environment (childhood abuse) -Neural -People with more testosterone tend to be more aggressive whereas cortisol is negatively related to aggression -> although there is an inconsistency in results -Dual hormone hypothesis (Mehta & Prasad, 2015): testosterone increases aggression only when cortisol is low and when cortisol is high, testosterone’s impact is blocked. -Berman et al. (2009): serotonin’s function is negatively related to aggression, but is dependent on baseline aggression

-Reduced PFC function is associated with aggression Psychological Theories of Aggression -Frustration-aggression (Dollar et al, 1939) -Frustration: blocked goal attainment -Frustration always leads to some form of aggression and aggression always is a consequence of frustration -The inclination to aggressive behavior decrease as the person displays aggressive behavior Limitations to the original F-A hypothesis -Aggressive behavior is not always pointed towards the cause of frustration (i.e. if the perpetrator is in a higher social status or is physically stronger than the aggressor) -Instead the aggressor may inflict harm upon scape goats (target substitution) or in more indirect ways (response substitution) Revision of the F-A hypothesis (Miller et al., 1941) -Although frustration may not lead to aggression all the time, it may be a dominant response tendency for aggression. In other words, frustration acts as a stimulus for aggression as in the perpetrator is more eager to aggress Cue arousal theory (Berkowitz, 1964, 1969, 1974)

-‘Situational cues with an aggressive meaning that increase the accessibility of aggressive cognitions’ (i.e. pictures of people fighting, -Cues acquire their quality as cues for aggression through the processes of classical

conditioning The Weapon Effect -Berkowitz predicted that the mere presence of weapons should cause more aggression than the presence of neutral objects The Weapons Effect Study (Berkowitz and Le Page, 1967) Aim: Method: -Part 1: Male college students were asked to perform a task and the performance was evaluated by experimental confederates. The participants were given different amounts of electric shock from their confederate which was irrelevant to the actual performance; participants who received higher number of shocks were angrier than those who received lower amounts of shock. -Part 2: When it was time for the participant to evaluate the confederate, the researchers divided the participants into two different conditions: with a shotgun or revolver placed on a table or with neutral objects or no objects placed on a table. Outcome:

Evaluation of the Research on Weapons Effect -A meta-analysis of 57 studies done by Carlson et al. (1990) showed that there was strong evidence for the influence of aggressive cue among negatively aroused people; however, the effect is not as apparent for those who are in a neutral mood state. -> Aggression cues act as cognitive primes of aggression related thoughts -> Exposure to such cues can facilitate the access to aggression related schema -Social Learning Bandura, in his Social Learning Theory (1977), suggests that behavior is acquired through observational learning and modelling. This insinuates that children acquire violent behavior as they are exposed to violent models. As violent behavior is rewarded, the children are naturally motivated to reproduce such behaviors. The SLT has been used to demonstrate how the intergenerational transmission and development of violent and aggressive behavior is perpetrated by socialization. These influences can include family, immediate environment and peers, and the media. Social learning can be direct (instructions) or indirect (observation of role models). Children who grow up in a violent environment may see how certain models benefit from aggressive behavior. This leads to the internalization and justification of violence as a legitimate mean to get what they want or the exert force over other people. The support for this theory comes from the Bobo Doll experiment (Bandura et al., 1961). In the experiment, researchers subjected 36 girls and 36 boys between the ages 3 and 4 to 3 conditions. The first condition was the exposure to an aggressive adult hitting a Bobo doll. The second condition was the exposure to a non-aggressive adult hitting the Bobo doll. The last condition was the control which the children were not exposed to any models at all. The researchers discovered that children who watched aggressive adults displayed the same aggressive behaviors as well, while the children exposed to non-aggressive behavior did not display aggressive behavior. Furthermore, the researchers found that children were more likely to imitate same sex models. The study lacked ecological validity, as it was performed in a laboratory, and it did not standardize violent behavior displayed by the children. Nevertheless, the study explicitly showed how violent behavior is transmitted through generations. Likewise, the strength of SLT is that it is supported by empirical evidence. Social norms of violence can be transmitted from parent to children. SLT is also capable of explaining how and why adolescents use violence in marginalized societies because it pays off in the form of status. The limitations of the SLT are that it does not cover other contribution in the origins of violence. For example, how does poverty contribute in establishing norms of male superiority? Also, the SLT ignores individual disposition (intelligence and personality) in the development of violence. Finally, the SLT does not consider all the situational factors that may lead some individuals to be more violent than others.

Media influences on aggression -Lefkowitz et al. (1977): drew strong correlations between those who viewed TV violence at the age of 8 and the perpetuation of aggressive behavior from the age of 8 to 18. The limitation of correlational study, however, is that they do not indicate a cause-effect relationship as there may be other factors associated with children’s preference to TV violence. -Busman (1995): Effects of media violence on aggression in low versus high trait aggressive individuals following provocation revealed that there is a much higher noise blast intensity for violent video condition especially for the high aggressiveness condition. Situational determinants -Alcohol

-By doing so the experimenters distinguished the cognitive expectations and the true, pharmacological effects of alcohol. -Outcome: Participants in the ‘Alcohol’ and ‘Placebo’ condition displayed more aggressive behavior; however, there no was significant difference between ‘Anti-placebo’ and ‘Control’ groups. (there is a pharmacological effect?) -Bushman and Cooper (1990): reveals that there is clear supports in causal link between alcohol intake and aggressive behavior

-Temperature -Consistently linked to aggression in naturalistic observations, including archival analyses of criminal records -Uncomfortably high temperatures are correlated to increased aggression (Anderson, 1989) -Noise -Noise intensifies ongoing behavior and can reinforce aggressive behavioral tendencies -Noise-> frustration -Also only works if noise is uncontrollable as opposed to controllable -Crowding -Density: terms of objective spatial constraints -Density does not link to aggression in conclusive fashion -Crowding increases likelihood of aggression (too many people) -Primary effect of crowding is to produce negative feelings which lower threshold for aggressive behavior...