Aggression

What is Aggression?
Physical or verbal behaviour intended to hurt a
person or property

The hurt can be:

Physical (e.g., a bruise)
Social (e.g., a damaged reputation)
Emotional (e.g., hurt feelings)
Cultural (e.g., defacing carvings, mosques,
cemeteries)
 Aggression as human nature?

Aggression seems present in every culture, at almost

every time, and is also displayed by animal species

Thomas Hobbes (1651)

The State of Nature is life without formal laws and
institutions, and is nasty, brutish, and short

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Models of Aggression
Social

Biological

Learning
Social
Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
(1939)

Always leads to
Frustration Aggression

Frustration:

The blockage of a goal that you are

striving for with the expectation of reward upon
its attainment
Example
Your exam Goal: to finish exam

Get stuck on the last question Blockage

Aggression Frustration

Relief of finishing the exam Goal

attainment
Frustration-aggression hypothesis
frustration is the blocking of a goal, increases
when
motivation to achieve goal is strong
we expected to achieve goal
the blocking is complete

Dollard (1939): frustration always leads to

some form of aggression
Supporting Research
As unemployment rises, so too does child abuse
and other violent behaviours (Catalano et al
1993)

Lynching of African Americans in late 1800s

increased when the price of cotton decreased.
(Holland & Sears, 1940)
Biological
Instinct Theories of Aggression
Freud proposed human motivational
forces are based on instinct
Sex life giving instinct Eros
Aggression death instinct Thanatos

Aggression comes from instinct (Lorenz,

1963) only most aggressive genes procreate
 Evolutionary Theory (Simpson &
Kenrick, 1999)
Aggression ensures we live long enough for our
genes to be passed onto offspring.

- Evident among animals, but humans too?

Aggression seems present in every culture, at

almost every time, and is also displayed by
animal species
Evolutionary Theory
Aggression can be used to
Gain resources such as fertile land, water,
shelter
Defend against attack
Assert dominance over sexual rivals
Increase status to look more appealing
Deter long-term mates from cheating
 Supporting Research: Balyaevs
Russian Silver Fox Experiment

From 1959, researchers in Siberia bred from

wild foxes, picking the tamest ones to breed
from
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 Balyaevs Russian Silver Fox
Experiment

Class III foxes wild, will show fear, bite

Class II foxes will be petted and handled
but no friendliness
Class I foxes show friendliness
Class IE elite foxes friendly, seek out
human contact

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 Balyaevs Russian Silver Fox
Experiment

Figure derived from data reported by Trut (1999)

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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jFGN
QScRNY

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Twin Studies
TWIN STUDIES: one line of evidence

Raine (1993): Studied twins of convicts

Half of identical twins also had criminal
records
1/5 of fraternal (dizygotic) twins had criminal
records
Correlation between aggression of
twins

Tellegen et al. (1988)

If one MZ twin reported high levels of aggression, so did the other
but same not true of DZ twins

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Learning Theory
Social Learning Theory
Children observe
role models and
then imitate

Whether we
imitate the
behaviour depends
on the perceived
consequence
Social Learning Theory
Vicarious Reinforcement: people
wanting to copy the behaviour of
someone by observing him/her being
rewarded
 Meet a Bobo doll

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdovKH
DNU
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Social Learning Theory
We maintain behaviour through direct
experience

If we are rewarded--- repeat behaviour

If we are aggressive and successful, our

confidence at this behaviour increases-
Self-Efficacy
Self- Efficacy
Our belief in our ability to do something

I punch Sam and get his lunch money

My aggression has been rewarded

My confidence to do this behaviour increases

Im going to do it again
Supporting Studies
Patterson et. al., 1989

Field Study- role of parents as models

Looked at negative home environments

and found parents who are aggressive
and focussed on punishment had more
aggressive children
Aggression with others
Deindividuation
The loss of personal identity and
responsibility

It occurs when
We are in a large group/crowd
We are anonymous
We are under the influence of drugs/alcohol
Deindividuation
Individuated behaviour: Rational
behaviour, conforming to social standards
(paying for items in a shop)

Deindividuated behaviour: Primitive

urges, not conforming
(running through a
lecture theatre naked)
Deindividuation- how?
Decrease in private self awareness
meaning we do not regulate our
behaviour

When we are self-aware we focus on our

internal attitudes and morals so are less
likely to be aggressive
Deindividuation
Rehm et. al., (1987)

German school children split into teams

of 5

Either in orange shirts or normal clothes

Children in orange shirts were harder to

identify and were more aggressive
Deindividuation- The Faceless
Crowd
Mullen (1986)

Analysed newspaper cuttings of lynching

in America

The larger the crowds, the more horrific

the violence
But.
Deindividuation can lead to positive
behaviour

Johnson and Downing (1979)

In the presence of positive cues, groups gave
fewer shocks

Peaceful rallies
Situational Factors
Physical Environment
Temperature
Anderson et al., (1996)
found very hot
conditions lead to
increased aggression

The relationship
between temperature
and aggression is curved
Temperature
Baron (1972)- when temperatures get too
hot, aggression decreases

When temperatures get too hot, people

focus on survival not
aggression
Temperature- alternative?
Felson and Cohen (1980): Routine Activity
Theory

Summer people are out more

More opportunities to be with others

More opportunity for aggression

Noise
Unwanted noise leads to aggression

Glass and Singer (1973)-

Played noise while people did tests
aggression is worse when noise is loud and
unpredictable

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS3t1G
mHi2U
Noise
Donnerstein and Wilson (1976)
Students could give electric shocks
People with music they could turn off gave
fewer electric shocks
Overcrowding
Too many people in the same space leads to
aggression

Being in overcrowded places reduces your

control over situations (Schmidt & Keating,
1979)

Slow walking people?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq97hwP
XRWM
Individual factors
Gender and Aggression
Bjrkqvist et al. (1992): examined the differences in the
types of aggressive acts boys and girls engaged in.

1.2
1
Observed level of
aggression

0.8
0.6 Female
Male
0.4
0.2
0
Verbal Physical Indirect
Gender and Aggression
When under stress
Males fight or flight syndrome
Females tend and befriend syndrome
In all known societies men just over age
of puberty commit most violent crimes
and acts
Females exhibit more relational
aggression
 Alcohol and Aggression
Alcohol can influence
aggression in the
following ways:
Reduces inhibitions
Reduces self-awareness
Decrease in number of cues
people can attend to

(Ito, Miller, & Pollock, 1996)

Alcohol

BUT not just a biochemical

phenomenon - fake alcohol
produces powerful placebo effects
(Begue et al., 2009)

- Partly because of alcohol-related

expectancies (we think it is linked
to violence)

- Showing alcoholic imagery even to

kids increases their aggression in
laboratory tasks (Brown, Coyne,
Barlow, & Qualter, in press )

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Sports games

The frustration-aggression
hypothesis and social learning
theory make somewhat different
predictions about aggression
after sports games

Social-learning:
more aggression after your
team has won or lost?
Frustration-aggression:
more aggression after your
team has won or lost?

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 Sports

Cardiff hospital admissions increase after games at Millennium

stadium (Sivarajasingam et al., 2005)

Especially after the home team wins

Winning makes home team fans feel more aggressive. This, rather
than their happiness, was correlated with their intention to go
out drinking

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 Media, computer games

The average child views something

like 8,000 murders by their late
teens (Aron, 1975)

Experiments and correlational

studies show that violent TV and
computer games contribute to
aggression

Recent meta-analyses show that

this effect is getting stronger

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Huesmann (2007)

The link between consumption of media violence and aggressive

behaviour is stronger than many other interesting and important
relationships

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Reducing Aggression
Catharsis
The ancient idea that its bad to bottle up anger,
good to release anger

Hokanson et al. (1960s)

when allowed to retaliate against provocateur,
participants blood pressure returned more
quickly to normal
but only when the target is the actual tormentor,
when retaliation is justifiable and the target is not
intimidating
Learning Theory
If aggression can be learned, it can be unlearned

Goldstein & Glick (1994)

aggression-replacement
encourage parents away from physical and verbal
punishment.

Eron & Huesmann (1984)

teaching children that TV is unrealistic, aggression is
less common than TV suggests, and that aggression is
undesirable reduces later susceptibility to TV
violence