AGGRESSION:Identifying Aggression, Instrumental aggression

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Lesson 34

AGGRESSION

Journal Activity relevant to previous Lecture # 33

Personal Examples of Conforming

·Describe a time that you changed your behavior because of real or imagined pressure from other people

·Most

of the examples would be of normative conformity, which after repeated action, became

internalized.

Aggression: Lecture # 34

Aims

To introduce psychological aspects of antisocial (aggressive) behavior

Objectives

Describe different types of aggression

Discuss gender differences in aggression

Describe personality differences in aggressive behavior

Describe different explanations of aggression

Aggression: Chapter Summary

This chapter examines the nature of aggression and its consequences. The difficulty of defining aggressive

behavior is discussed, and a working definition of aggression as "any action that is intended to hurt others"

is adopted. Aggressive acts can be antisocial, prosocial, or sanctioned, depending on whether they violate

or conform to social norms. Attacks, frustration, expectation that one can retaliate, and competition lead to

feelings of anger, which can lead to (and should be distinguished from) aggressive behaviors. Anger and

responses learned through imitation and reinforcement are major determinants of aggressive behavior.

Evolutionary and biological factors in aggressive behavior are also discussed. Other sources of aggressive

behavior, like frustration, situational factors, and cognitive neo associations' explanations are discussed.

Possible ways to reduce aggressive behavior are discussed. Fear of punishment or retaliation can reduce

aggressive responses but may foster covert or delayed aggression. Learned inhibition of aggression

provides the most important control, but can also result in displacement to innocent parties. Other methods

like inducing incompatible responses, non aggressive modeling, etc. are also discussed. Laboratory

experiments and correlational studies of the effects of media violence on aggressive behavior are also

discussed, and implicate media violence as a cause of aggression, though not a necessary or a sufficient

one.

Definition of Aggression

Any form of behaviour that is intended to harm or injure some person, oneself, or an object

Aggression may be antisocial, sanctioned (e.g., self-defense), or prosocial (e.g., law enforcement)

Aggression is a behavior and should be distinguished from feelings of anger

Different from assertiveness, designed not to hurt others. Assertiveness is the ability to express yourself

and your rights without violating the rights of others.

Identifying Aggression

To test whether you can identify others aggressive actions based on this definition, read the following

vignette and try to identify five acts of aggression.

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

"A thief fires a gun at a man he is trying to rob, but the bullet misses the mark and the man is uninjured.

Panicked, the man accidentally knocks down a young girl as he flees the scene, and she badly cuts her knee

on the pavement. Later, the girl screams in pain as a doctor puts five stitches in her knee to stop the

bleeding. Upon finishing, the doctor asks the girl how badly it hurts. Still crying and now very angry, she

grabs his moustache and sneers, "That's how much it hurts!" The next day, the thief is arrested and his

cellmate verbally criticizes him for being such a clumsy burglar. Depressed and angry, the thief smashes

his fist into the concrete cell wall, fracturing three fingers. While in the hospital being treated for his injury,

the thief angrily kicks and dents a waste container. In response, the attending medical assistant angrily

shouts at the thief that if he does not calm down immediately he will face solitary confinement".

·Firing a gun at a man (bullet is missed, still an aggressive act)

·Accidentally knocking down a young girl (not an aggressive act)

·Grabbing doctor's moustache (an aggressive act)

·Smashing fist into the concrete cell wall (an aggressive act; hurting inanimate object)

·Kicking and denting a waste container (an aggressive act; hurting inanimate object)

·Cellmate's verbal criticism for being a clumsy burglar (verbal aggression)

·Shouting at the thief (verbal aggression)

Distinction between "Instrumental" and "Hostile" Aggression

Instrumental aggression:

· The intentional use of harmful behavior to achieve some other goal.

· Aggressive acts are carried out with the objective of gaining material, psychological, or social

benefits

· Carried out to avoid punishment

· Deliberate and rational

· The aggression the thief used in his robbery attempt (as mentioned above) is an example of

instrumental aggression. The thief used aggression as an instrument to achieve his real goal, which

was obtaining the victim's money. The aggression that occurs in a military context is also often

instrumental in nature. Here, the principal goal may be defending one's own territory or to

confiscate the enemy's land.

Hostile aggression:

· Triggered by anger

· The goal of the intentionally harmful behavior is simply to cause injury or death to the victim

· Often impulsive and irrational

· Hostile aggression is not really motivated by the anticipation of rewards or the avoidance of

punishments, even though these may indeed be ultimate consequences of the aggressive act.

Instead, this type of aggression is often impulsive and irrational. There is a goal, but it is simply the

desire to cause harm to the victim

Gender differences in aggression

There is a widespread belief about men being more aggressive than women. Does social psychological

research support this cultural belief? The answer is both yes and no. Meta-analytic studies indicate that

males and females do differ in one important kind of aggression: physical aggression. There is some

evidence that males are more likely than females to engage in aggression that produces pain or physical

injury (Eagly & Steffen, 1986). One form of aggression that researchers largely ignored for many years is

indirect aggression, a form of social manipulation in which the aggressor attempts to harm another person

without a face-to-face encounter. Gossiping, spreading bad or false stories about someone, telling others

not to associate with a person, and revealing someone's secrets are all examples of indirect aggression.

Together, they suggest we need to reexamine the "peaceful female" stereotype. Research also reveals that

women commit crimes by methods which were very bold and aggressive such as hammering victim to

death or killing with knives (Hashmi, 1974; Malik, 1958; Rizvi, 1962).

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Personality and aggression

·Gian Caprara et al. (1994, 1996) indicate that three personality traits consistently related to aggression are:

Irritability (the tendency to explode at the slightest provocation)

Rumination (the tendency to retain feelings of anger following provocation)

Emotional susceptibility (the tendency to experience feelings of discomfort and inadequacy)

·Kirkpatrick et al. (2002): downward revision of self

·A comprehensive review suggests that aggression is more commonly a result of threats to highly favorable

views of the self and is most likely to occur when a person's high self-esteem is fragile and unstable.

Apparently, in these instances, aggression is a defensive reaction to avoid making any downward revision

of self-esteem.

Explanations of aggression

·Biology of aggression: Evolutionary, Behavior genetics, Hormonal activity

·Cathartic: Frustration aggression hypothesis

·Learning

Biology of aggression

·Worldwide, more than 563,000 homicides occur each year, representing a global rate of roughly 10.7 for

every 100,000 individuals

·Aggression is manifested not only in direct participation, but in so many of human activities. Even when

people do not directly participate in aggressive acts themselves, many enjoy watching others do so in action

adventure films or sporting events, e.g., bull fighting or wrestling games (Mustonen, 1997).

·Aggression even manifests itself in the play guns and toy soldiers we produce and purchase for our

children's enjoyment. And judging from their faces as they play with these toys, enjoyment is what it often

brings them. Based on these observations, is it reasonable to conclude that the human race has an inborn

tendency for aggression?

·Is it reasonable to conclude that the human race has an inborn tendency for aggression?

Evolution shaped our aggressive behavior patterns

·A number of social scientists concur with the judgment that we are an innately aggressive species

·Aggression is beneficial from a survival point of view

·Victims of aggression tend to be non-relatives

·But...

There are wide differences in aggression within cultures, and

over short periods of time this variety and rapid changes are not possible in evolutionary terms

Biological factors

Biological research suggests that individual differences in aggression are partly due to inheritance and

hormonal changes.

Behavior genetics:

·Identical twins tend to have more similar aggressive tendencies than fraternal twins. The problem with this

research, however, is that parents tend to treat identical twins more similarly than fraternal twins, and thus,

it is difficult for us to clearly distinguish between biological and environmental determinants of aggression.

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Hormonal activity:

· Research indicates that chemical messengers in the bloodstream, known as hormones, influence

human aggression (Adelson, 2004). Higher than normal levels of the male hormone testosterone is

reported in highly aggressive individuals of both sexes (Carlson, 2004). These findings suggest that

high testosterone levels may either directly cause aggression or indirectly cause it by encouraging

social dominance and competitiveness.

Although a growing number of social psychologists are acknowledging the impact that biological

factors can have on our capacity for aggression, the vast majority still believe that the form that the

aggression takes, as well as its intensity, is influenced most by the many psychological, social, and

cultural forces. For example, in one study of male tennis players, winners' testosterone levels

increased after the match while losers' hormonal levels decreased (Mazur & Lamb, 1980)

Cathartic: The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

·Dollard, Miller, Doob, Mowrer & Sears (1939) defined frustration as any external condition that prevents

us from obtaining the pleasures we had expected to enjoy.

·Frustration will always elicit the drive to attack others

·Every act of aggression can be traced back to some previous frustration

·Engaging in aggression is Cathartic (reduces aggressive drive)

Hovland & Sears (1940)

Lynching of African Americans in late 1800's increased when the price of cotton decreased

Low cotton prices indicated economic depression --> frustration --> aggression

Catalano et al. (1993)

As unemployment rises, so too does child abuse and other violent behaviours

Does catharsis purge aggression?

· The idea of catharsis has been derived from Freud that indirectly expressing feelings of hostility

will reduce subsequent aggression.

· The claim that aggressive tendencies are reduced following the expression of aggression has been

subject to a great deal of scientific scrutiny.

· Although this notion of catharsis reflects a common belief that people can purge themselves of

powerful emotions by "letting off steam" or "getting it off their chests," little empirical evidence

supports this proposition.

·Shahbaz Mallick & Boyd McCandless (1966)

third-grade girls and boys worked on a block-construction task in pairs

confederate child either allowing participants to complete the task or to impede completion

Immediately after they were either involved shooting a toy gun at a target or talking with the experimenter

(half had neutral talk and half were told that the child was upset)

Each of the naive participants then was given an opportunity to hinder the confederate's progress by

pushing a "hurt" button

Engaging in make-believe violence does not purge aggressive drives.

Reading

· Franzoi, S. (2003). Social Psychology. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 13.

Other Readings

· Lord, C.G. (1997). Social Psychology. Orlando: Harcourt Brace and Company. Chapter 8.

· David G. Myers, D. G. (2002). Social Psychology (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

· Taylor, S.E. (2006). Social Psychology (12th ed.). New York: Prentice Hall.

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