Aggression

Aggression

Media influences
1. Desensitisation - continuous exposure desensitises flight or flight response so no longer adaptive
2. Disinhibition - loose moral restraints when exposed to violence due to percieved wrong doing
  1. Operant condition in video games - people are rewarded for intitating violence
3. Cognitive priming - children see 8,000 murders on TV - script is influences by media and computer games, an aggressive schema is made
4. found men who listened to aggressive music were more aggressive - gave people more chili
5. Real life application - video gaes used in army to densensitse people to violence
Neural explanations
1. Limbic system linked to aggression
  1. cingulate gyrus, septal area, hypothalmaus, formi, amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus
2. Testosterone linked with males, aggression linked with males
  1. Giammanco founds castrated animals were less anxious
  2. mixed evidence, more than one hormone at play - cortisol too
  3. mixed evidence - dual hormone hypothesis with cortisol
3. Serotonin, inhibitory, behaviour control
  1. Virkunnen - violent impulsives had lower levels of serotonin
4. Orbitofrontal cortex linked with aggression: more than one structure at play
Genes
1. MAOA: gene prducing protein - monoamine oxidase - metabolising noadrenaline, seortonin and DA, adrenaline linked to aggression
2. Agression works with Y chromosome so males with XYY were supermales
  1. Theillgaard - only thing different was above average height
3. Concordance rates - found MZ twins had 50% similarity in aggression
4. Selective breeding found links to aggression and inheritance
5. Bruner - violent males had MAOA abnormlaity
6. Stuart - 97 abusive males had faulty MAOA gene
Ethological Explanation
1. Innate behaviour maybe beneficial
2. Aggression ritualistic to escape harm
3. innate human and animal behaviours eg Lorenz and geese
4. IRM - Innate Releasing Mechanism inbuilt structure/process
  1. Leads to FAP - fixed action pattern, behavioural sequence
    1. FAP not always fixed due to characteristics
5. Findings between South and North American men saw different rates of aggression - not innate due to variation
6. Not all aggression is ritualistic - chimpanzee war killed others - not adpative
7. Shickleberg - red spot on fish is IRM - competition to be fought
Evolutionary Explanation
1. adaptive to human ancestors - reaction of history due to environment of evolutionary period (EEA) to survive
2. Natural selection
3. Jelaousy is adaptive from adultery and cuckoldry
  1. Explains male aggression due to woman's usefulness
  2. Daly & Wilson - mate retention strategies: agressive guarding - restricting freedom Intersexual negative reducements - threat of violence
4. Shackleford found correlation between MRS and violence
  1. Self report studies - social desirability and unreliable
Frustration Aggression Hypothesis
1. Frustration always precedes aggression, aggression always follows frustration
  1. Bushman - venting doesnt decrease aggression
2. can be violent fantasy or outburst or physical
3. Not always direct - if unable to direct it's deflected on an alternative
4. Environmental cues - cues are needed for anger to become aggression
5. Berkowitz & LePage: shocks were higher in presence of guns - weapon focus
6. Glenn: jigsaw, frustation measures, aggression higher when insulted in comparison to other variables
Social Learning Theory
1. Learned through reinforcement
2. cognitive factors - attention, retention, reproduction, motivation and self efficiacy
3. Aggression imitated by parents
4. Bandura bobo doll, high reliability, controlled but low external vlaidity, lab experiement
5. cultural bias - some cultures don't encourage aggression
Deindividuation
1. aggression bigger in groups
  1. Explains prison violence
2. Lab experiments, more aggressive the more hidden they were.
3. lack of responsibility increases antisociability - demand characteristics
4. 35% of men would commit rape if they weren't likely to be caught
Insititutional explanations
1. Dispositonal - importing trains into aggressive situation (Irwin and Cressey)
  1. normalised violence explaining aggression in any position
2. Situational: aggression due to environment
  1. Deprived of freedom, choices, heterosexual relationships and security in jail, explaining aggression
3. Overcrowding causes violence
  1. McCorkle found no link
4. SPanish/Blacks more likely to be violent in prison due to deprivation
  1. No link was found.
5. young more violent due to appropriateness of conflict

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	Created by Samiha Nassir over 6 years ago