Aggression

Aggression

Social Learning Theory
1. We learn aggression from role models
2. If the role model uses aggression and is rewarded (get their own way) we are likely to copy their behaviour
3. If a role model is punished we are less likely to copy their behaviour
4. Vicarious learning; learning through others
5. Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) Children watched adult role model play with bobo doll aggressively or ignore it.Children were then annoyed by preventing them from playing with toys. They were then allowed to interact with the bobo doll. They were rated for levels and types of aggression.
  1. Results; those who watched aggressive role model displayed more aggressive behaviour. 60% of non-aggressive condition showed no aggressive behaviour. There was a gender effect as children were more likely to copy a Male role models aggressive behaviour rather than a female.
6. Johnson et al (1977) found that play aggression in children was highly correlated with actual aggression. This supports the validity of Bandura's study
7. Noble (1975) reports overhearing a little girl saying 'look mummy theres the doll we have to hit' this suggests she knew what she had to do before seeing the role model
8. Only uses children therefore can we generalise to other adults
9. Lack of informed consent, Bandura didnt always tell the parents the truth
Deindividuation
1. Definintion; to lose a sense of self and to lose the normal inhibitions held against certain behaviours, a loss of ones own identity
2. One behaviour we see in large groups is extreme aggression; this is strange because when the individuals in that group are later interveiwed they always state the behaviours was 'not like them'
3. This theory can be used to explain how people can turn from happpy social individiduals into an aggressive mob
4. Festinger et al. theory was based on Le Bons earlier 'crowd theory'; where the anomity of being in a crowd means that individuals feel less responsibility for their actions. Then a 'collective mindset' takes over the crowd and normally repressed aggressive acts occur
5. Zimbardo (1970) disagreed with Le Bons 'collective mindset' he stated that anonymity instead leads to; a release from self restraints against negative behaviour, increased emothional behaviour, increased irrational thinking, increased impulsive behaviour . He also suggested that reduced responsiblility, increased arousal, sensory overload, altered states of conciousness play an important role.
6. Postmes and Spears; conducted a meta-analysis of the research on deindividuation but only found mixed results; many studies did not support the theory of deindividuation
7. Malmuth and Check; found that in a study of US male university students nearly a 1/3 would rape someone if they thought there was no chance of getting caught
8. Zimbardo et al (1973) investigated role of deindividualtion on behaiours inside a prison. He created a prion in the basement of Standford University. students were randomly allocated to be a guard or prisoner. Prisoners wore gounds and numbers to be referred to as instead of names. Guards all wore the same military uniform and sunglasses
  1. Results; guards created a brutal atmosphere and used punishments to keep prisoners 'inline'. Both groups showed signs of deindividuation
  2. Etical Problems; some of the participants suffered from psychological harm. Study had to be stopped less than half way through because behaviour got so extreme
Institutional aggression
1. Importation model (Irwin and Cressey 1962) states that prisoners are violent because they 'import' behaviour e.g. if experienced in using violence outside they will use it inside. the prisoner will import the type of violence they use (knives). importation model has several sections; pre-existing factors such as, alcohol addiciton, race and age. Irwin and Cressey identify 3 subcultures found; 1.Criminal/theft; believe life of crime is an acceptable pathway. Could be the only option. they could lose social status with peer group. 2. Convict subculture; spent a long time in prison identify themselves as part of the prison system. Likely to use aggression to maintain status. 3. Convential or 'Straight'; do not have a bad backgroud. Likely to be a one off offender and not use violence. see value in jobs and career.
2. Deprivation model, describes aggression in institutions as being caused by inmates being deprived various things. the more the prisoner feels deprived the more likely it is they will use aggression. Sykes idnetified five deprivational factors; 1. Deprivation of liberty; no freedom 2. Autonomy; cannot decide what happens to them daily 3.Goods/Services; posessions (esp. western cultures) 4. Heerosexual relationships; feel worthless for not being allowed a female relationship 5. Secruity; fear for their own safety
3. Irwin and Cressey found that one off offenders were percieved by other offenders as 'Straight' and not part of the aggressive subculture
4. Chesseman; found that it was not deprivation itself that lead to aggression but the fact that deprivation increased stress level; which lead to increased aggression
5. McCorkle et al (1995) found that the deprivation model did not explain aggression in prisons and that bad management was important as was high staff turnover and lack of staff discipline
6. There is a large gender bias in this research as most inmates studied are males. this gender issue makes it difficult to generalise the information to female prisoners
Genetic Factors
1. Genes can determine the level of testosterone found in the human body, and the activity found in different regions of the brain
2. If an individual is born with genes that predispose to lower than normal activity in certain brain areas it can predispose them to be violent
3. One gene that has been linked to aggression is monoamine oxidase, A (MAOA) otherwise known as the 'warrior gene'
4. The enzyme is made by the MAOA mops up and excess neurotransmitters in the brain. Thereofore if a perosn has a faulty copy, they are liekly tohave high levels of nuerotransmittes in their brains, may lead to aggressive behaviour.
5. In addition to having a faulty copy of the MAOA, an individual also needs an abusive childhood
6. Real World Example; Professor Jim Fallon has a copy of MAOA and brain activity of a psychopath, had a good up bringing, and does not show high levels of aggression
7. Cases et al. created mice without the MAOA gene. these mice were lacking serotonin and were demonstrating increased levels of aggression. However, it also suggests that the lack of a working copy of MAOA influences aggressive behaviour
8. Brunner et al. (1993) found that males in a a large dutch family all had faulty MAOA and all were aggressive when angry, fearful or frustrated
9. New et al. found that the HTR1B gene which influences serotonin levels, was also involved in aggressive behaviours suggesting MAOA explaination is reductionist
10. Use of animals
Neural and hormonal mechanisms
1. Two main areas; that higher than normal levels of testosterone lead to aggressive behaviour, and/or lower than normal levels of serotonin lead to aggressive behaviour
2. testosterone is found only in low levels in females. It has been linked with aggression in several ways
3. Peak in testosterone during puberty, this peak in testosterone is also linked with an increases in agressive behaviour
  1. However many athletes have high levels of testosterone and are not aggressive
4. A lot of research into testosterone influence has been done on animals
  1. Has been shown that castration is shown to reduce aggressive behaviour
5. One way that testosterone works is through reducing the ability of serotonin to work in the brain. Sertonin has a carminig influence on behaviour and it may be that the testosterone reduces the ability of an individual to have self-control. It is believed aggressive acts are a loss of self control
6. Conor and Levine (1969) removed the testes of rats at either birth or after puberty. Both groups showed less aggression comparend to rats that werent castrated. However there was an effect of age of castration. Those castrated at birth did not increase in aggressive behaviour when injected with testosterone, whereas the others did. This suggests a developmental effect of testosterone where the animal must 'grow up' with testosterone present in its body for aggressive behaviour to increase
  1. However tghere is a problem with castration studies, as castration changes amny different hormone levels and not just testosterone, therefore the influence of testosterone on aggressive behaviour is not clear
7. Delville et al. found that drugs that increase leveks of serotonin reduce the level of aggression. In addition the most aggressive mental disorder is depression which has been linked to low levels of serotonin
8. Use of animals
Evolution, infidelity and jealousy
1. Evolutionary explainations of behaviour state that humans display certain behaviours like aggression, because they have help previous generations of humans to survive. To be evolutionary successful you need to pass on your genes by having children
2. It is likely that an aggressive human would have been more sucessful than the other humans because they would have been better at competiting for limited resources. Therefore aggression would be a common trait in humans becuase it helps to survive in different ways
3. Lorenz (1996) believes that humans share aggressive traits with other animals and that aggression is found in males as they would have to compete with other males to mate with a female
4. As aggression helps us to survive and pass on genes we call it an adaptation
5. Infidelity; being unfaithful, cheating. This can either be sexual or emotional
6. Jealousy; we feel jealousy when we think we are going to loose status,either generally or in a relationship. Jealousy is an emotion that seems to have evolved to protect, maintain, and prelong romantic relationships
  1. A man will be worried about being tricked into raising another mans child. Women will be worried about getting pregnant with a man and then him falling in love with another women and leaving her.
7. Buss, researched jealousy and believes that men are more worried about sexual infidelity, while women are more worried about emotional infidelity
8. Harris (2003) Condicted a meta-analysis and found that women were most affected by emotional and men by sexual infidelity
9. Daly et al found that men are most likely to be violent when their partners are unfaithful
10. Too reductionist, tend to focus on the success of the transfer of genes to future generations
11. There is a methodological issue in that much of the research is based on asking couples forced choice questions. Forced choice questions do not allow a participant to say what level of worry or distress they feel , thereofre the results may not truly reflect what the researchers intended to measure; lost validity
Evolutionary explainations of group displays
1. A group display of aggression is a ritualised display between a group of people
2. Group displays of aggression seem to be based on an evoltionary behaviour, where if you can encourage an opponent to think that you are strong they are less likely to challenge you
  1. This means that each member of the group is likely to survive and pass on their genes
3. If this explaintion is true, we should be able to see examples of group displays of aggression in human cultures around the world
4. If it is something that we havce evolved it may also be a behaviour we see in other species.
5. Sports events; rarely violence as high level of police presence
  1. Football orginated from 'mob football' there was few rules, no refs, lots of alcohol
  2. Often gangs from different areas would meet up and fight during football. it was banned due to the number of deaths and injuries
  3. Football now still has a large amount of violence. Extreme supporters called 'firms' who's main goal is to pick fights with other teams supporters
6. Group displays in sport may have replaced evolutionary tribal displays. If it is linked we expect to find it between two local teams
  1. New Zealand Haka
7. Maynard-smith and Parker, found that many species show territoral ownership of resources. Animals were also likely to try and prevent other competitiors from taking their resources or challenging them
8. Schwarz and Barkey; found that sports team win more home games due to group displays
9. Sua Peter; found that the samoan rugby team wanted to improve their war dance to make it more aggressive and intimidating, more like the NZ one
10. Blalock (1967) propsed the 'power threat' hypothesis to explain lynching. as black communities grew the white communities felt threatened and resorted to lynching to keep the blacks in place
11. Problamatic and evolutionary explainations are hard to prove worng, and to test scientifically as they change over long periods of time

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