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Aggression

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Title: Aggression


1
Aggression
  • Are we natural born killers?
  • If not, how do we stop the violence?

2
Aggression Defined
  • Intentional behavior aimed at causing either
    physical or psychological harm
  • Contrast aggression and assertiveness
  • Hostile vs. Instrumental Aggression
  • Hostile stems from a feeling of anger. Goal is
    to inflict pain or injury.
  • Instrumental aggression takes place as a means
    to some other goal (e.g., professional assassin)

3
Aggression Statistics
  • 16,974 murders in the U.S. in 1998
  • 15,533 murders in the U.S. in 1999
  • 15,586 murders in the U.S. in 2000
  • 15,980 murders in the U.S. in 2001
  • Expand definition to violent crime (murder,
    non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and
    aggravated assault)
  • 1,533,887 in 1998
  • 1,430,693 in 1999
  • 1,425,486 in 2000
  • 1,436,611 in 2001

4
Is Aggression an Instinct?
  • Hundreds of years of debate
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau No. We are naturally
    gentle - restrictive society makes us hostile
  • Thomas Hobbes Yes!!! We are brutes and only law
    and government can help us
  • Freud Supports Hobbes. Argued that we had a
    powerful death instinct known as Thanatos leads
    to aggressive actions

5
Freud and Aggression
  • Believed that aggressive energy must be released
    otherwise it builds up and causes illness.
  • A hydraulic theory
  • Sublimation society regulates this instinct.
    Helps people to turn destructive energy into
    useful behavior
  • E.g., danger seeking, competitive person becomes
    a race car driver

6
Hydraulic Theory
  • A fair amount of evidence suggests that for many
    species the hydraulic theory is not true
  • John Paul Scott If an organism can arrange its
    life so that there is no outside stimulation to
    fight, then it will not experience any
    physiological or mental damage as a result of not
    expressing aggression.
  • However, Lorenz has found evidence with cichlids
    (Siamese fighting fish) to the contrary

7
Evolutionary Arguments
  • Lore and Schultz argue that aggression has
    survival value.
  • However, most species seem to have developed
    inhibitory mechanisms that allow them to suppress
    aggression
  • Thus, aggression is an optional strategy
  • Regional differences in aggression suggest
    strategic view of aggression

8
Regional Differences in Aggression
  • Homicide rates for White southern males are
    substantially higher than for White northern
    males (especially in rural areas)
  • However, they do not endorse violence in general,
    only as a tool for protection of property and in
    response to insults Culture of honor based
    upon history as herding society
  • Nisbett research on southerners reaction to being
    bumped and cursed at
  • More upset (cortisol increase), primed for
    aggression (testosterone increase), more likely
    to engage in aggression after the incident

9
How Useful is Aggression?
  • Survival of the fittest?
  • Concept of aggression leading to success appears
    to have outlived its utility
  • e.g., MAD Mutual Assured Destruction arms
    policy utilized by US and the Soviet Union during
    the Cold War.
  • Peter Kropotkin (1902) argued that cooperative
    behavior and mutual aid might have greater
    survival value. Altruism.
  • Kropotkins work has been ignored perhaps it
    did not fit with the mindset of the Industrial
    Revolution

10
Utility of Aggression, Continued
  • Catharsis Freudian belief that a release of
    energy is necessary. Fits with our everyday
    experience of blowing off some steam.
  • Three methods question is do they work?
  • Method One Socially aggressive physical
    activities (e.g., football)
  • Neither participating or watching these sports
    decreases aggressive behavior (in fact, watching
    temporarily increases aggression).

11
Utility of Aggression, Continued
  • Method Two Fantasy
  • Utility is limited it reduces some, but not a
    lot of aggression
  • Method Three Direct Aggression. Does lashing
    out help to reduce future aggression
  • Apparently not. Actually seems to increase
    future aggression
  • Cognitive Dissonance. Blaming the victim.
  • Only reduces future aggression if equity has been
    restored.

12
Causes of Aggression
  • Neurological and Chemical Causes
  • Amygdala (located in the forebrain).
  • Testosterone leads to an increase in
    aggression, but also increases during aggression
  • If testosterone is linked to aggression, does
    this mean that men are more aggressive than
    women?
  • Maccoby and Jacklin research suggests yes.
  • Across cultures, women demonstrate less violence
  • Further, during era of womens liberation,
    non-violent crime rate relative to male rate has
    increased, but not violent crime rate.

13
Causes of Aggression, Continued
  • Alcohol
  • 75 of individuals arrested for crimes of
    violence were legally drunk at the time of their
    arrests.
  • Experimental evidence implies that alcohol
    ingestion increases aggression
  • Interpretation, alcohol is a disinhibitor. It
    seems that under the influence of alcohol a
    persons primary tendencies are revealed

14
Causes of Aggression, Continued
  • Pain and Discomfort
  • If an animal experiences pain and cant flee,
    violence follows
  • Most research has been done on heat
  • Violent crime and aggression increases as
    temperature increases (e.g., baseball above 90)
  • Confound is increased interaction as it gets
    warmer
  • However, lab research suggests that temperature
    is key component

15
Causes of Aggression, Continued
  • Frustration
  • Thwarting an individuals attainment of a goal
    increases the probability of an aggressive
    response
  • Frustration becomes greater the closer one gets
    to a goal, and if interruption is unexpected or
    illegitimate
  • Key seems to be relative deprivation not just
    deprivation
  • Revolutions are not begun by people with their
    faces in the mud, but people who have recently
    lifted their faces out of the mud and have had
    time to look around

16
Color
  • Research demonstrates that room color does not
    have much of an impact
  • However, uniform color has been demonstrated to
    be related to an increase in penalties received
    (in both football and hockey)
  • Question is Does wearing a color make you more
    aggressive or are referees more likely to
    interpret ambiguous situations as aggressive?

17
Social Learning and Aggression
  • We do learn when to not aggress
  • For instance, intention of frustrator is
    considered.
  • Excuses have a greater impact if given before
    frustrating behavior
  • On the other hand, certain cues prime us for
    aggression (e.g., guns).
  • Taking responsibility for act decreases violence
    why anonymity/deindividuation is so
    frightening.
  • Zimbardo (anonymous shockers) Mullen (lynchings
    and mob size)

18
Social Learning and Mass Media
  • Idea of learning from aggressive models begins
    with Bandura
  • TV, as we have discussed, is full of violent
    models
  • High correlation between the amount of TV watched
    and viewers subsequent aggression this data is
    correlational
  • Margaret Thomas demonstrated that viewing TV
    violence can numb peoples reactions when they
    are faced with real-life aggression

19
Why does media violence affect us?
  • When we summarize the ideas in the research four
    themes arise
  • Seeing others being aggressive weakens our
    learned inhibitions against violence.
  • Learn techniques, imitate.
  • Primes anger. Makes us more aware of anger.
  • Desensitization to violence.

20
Pornography and Violence Against Women
  • Approximately 50 of rapes are committed by
    acquaintances
  • This statistic has led many to theorize that
    confusion about sexual scripts is the problem
  • Male is supposed to persist, the female to resist
  • 95 of males, 97 of females believe that sexual
    advances should stop when women says no
  • But 50 of those respondents also believe that
    no does not always mean no!!!!

21
Pornography and Violence Against Women
  • Presidential commission on pornography concluded
    that explicit sexual material in and of itself
    did not contribute to sexual crimes, violence
    against women, or other anti-social acts.
  • But. Violent pornography has been shown to
    increase acceptance of sexual violence (Malamuth
    and Donnerstein)
  • Evidence that slasher movies have the same impact.

22
Can we reduce violence?
  • Pure reason? No, ineffective.
  • Punishment? Overall findings are mixed
  • More effective when applied in the context of a
    warm relationship
  • Overly restrictive punishments are frustrating,
    which can lead to aggression
  • What does that say about prison? Remember
    Zimbardo prison study.
  • Moderate vs. severe punishment and cognitive
    dissonance.

23
Can we reduce violence?
  • Punishment of aggressive models? e.g., public
    floggings, death penalty
  • Death penalty institution does not decrease
    homicide rate in a country.
  • In lab, seeing an aggressive model punished does
    not reduce future aggression (seeing them
    rewarded does increase aggression however.)
  • Presence of non-aggressive models? Yes.
  • Remember, we often conform to others when we seek
    out information on how to act

24
Can we reduce violence?
  • Rewarding alternate behavior patterns?
  • Brown and Elliott have demonstrated that ignoring
    aggression while rewarding positive behaviors
    reduces aggression
  • Issue is, negative attention is better than no
    attention at all for some
  • Building empathy towards others?
  • Feshbachs have demonstrated that increasing
    empathy can reduce aggression (difficult to
    dehumanize someone you feel for)
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