Aggression

Overview
Aggression does not appear to have one,
single cause or root. Much of Personality
Psychology deals with issues and concepts
that have many causes, many variables that
impact the issue, and Aggression is no
different.

Research
Thus, research has looked into
I.biological predispositions (its
innate, evolutionarily adaptive,
biological),
II.learning history (either classical,
operant, or modeling),
III.emotional states leading to maladaptive
thinking processes or lack of skills and
IV.culture as influencing the amount of
aggression a person displays.

Variables leading to or influencing Aggression:

I. Biological causes
Innate Psychoanalytic/dynamic
Evolutionary Theory
Biological hormones, brain structures,
genetics

I. Biological causes
1. It is innate Psychoanalytic and
Psychodynamic theories support this idea.
Thanatos is our basic biological drive towards
aggression, destruction and death.

Variables leading to or influencing Aggression:

I. Biological causes
Innate Psychoanalytic/dynamic
Evolutionary Theory- Aggression is
adaptive for us, just as it is for animals
Biological hormones, brain structures,
genetics

I. Biological causes
2. Researchers using Evolutionary Theory and
Animal Models also propose the idea that
aggression is an innate instinct that is crucial
for the survival of our species. We must
aggress to defend our young, territory, and
other resources.

Evolutionary theory,
cont.
Much of human aggression does not seem
to fit the models and theories that describe
innate aggression, however.
Altruistic aggression (a strong member of a
family protecting a weaker one; a few
select soldiers going to war for an entire
country) is supported by research, but the
other theories (that we fit animal models)
are not well supported by research for
humans.

Differences between humans and

animal models:
Animals have ritualized aggressive acts
that release aggressive energy without
leading to injury (deer head wrestling
by interlocking their antlers).
Animals have clear stimuli or conditions
that trigger aggression one animal
sniffing around the primary source of
food for another animal.
Animals have clear signals to stop
aggression dogs lie on their backs to
submit and the aggressor stops.

Differences between humans and

animal models, cont:
Animals tend not to aggress on their own
species or on their own family members.
Again, if they do, clear signals make them
stop.
Humans (and some social primates) are
the only member of the animal kingdom
that regularly engages in violent
aggressive attacks against other members
of our own species in staggering
magnitudes. Humans aggress against
their spouses and children.

Variables leading to or influencing Aggression:

I. Biological causes
Innate Psychoanalytic/dynamic
Evolutionary Theory
Biological brain structures, hormones,
genetics

Biological causes brain

structures, hormones,
genetics.
1. There is empirical support for some
biological bases of human aggression, but it
rarely explains the large part of the picture in
human aggression. Read all 3 pages of the
following website:
http://brainconnection.positscience.com/topi
cs/?main=fa/aggression

Biological brain
structures
A. certain brain structures when electrically
stimulated will lead to aggressive behaviors,
showing there is an anatomical structure that
is involved in aggression, but most humans
have this structure and the differences in
level of aggression in people cannot be
explained by differences in the amount of this
structure being stimulated.

Biological - hormones
Regarding hormonal etiologies for aggression,
studies supporting hormonal causes focus on
physical aggression as opposed to verbal
aggression.
Positive correlations between testosterone
levels and amount of physical aggression
have been found.

Biological hormones,
Problems
Correlation does not mean Causation
Proving that Hormonal differences are
causing differences in aggression is
difficult to prove, as acting aggressively
causes increases in hormones just as
increases in hormones cause increases
in aggression.
Plus, if it were truly hormones then all
males would be more aggressive than all
females and that isnt the case. See
Gender Differences Discussion below.

Biological hormones,
alternative explanations
It may be that a third variable (extroversion,
social dominance, impulsivity,
competitiveness or nonconformist thinking)
is increased by testosterone and that leads
to the likelihood of problems being solved
via aggression.
Operant conditioning also is involved in that
if aggressive behavior is emitted due to this
extroversion or nonconformist thinking and
if this behavior is reinforced as a child, that
child grows up to continue using aggression,
since it works.

Gender Differences
studies
Research finding Gender differences in
aggression state that these differences prove
that males are more aggressive than females
and that this means biology (usually
testosterone) is the cause of aggression.

Problems with Gender

Differences studies:
Operational definition of aggression
(physical vs verbal or direct vs indirect)
Method of study (if participants know they
are being observed, they do gender
leading males to be more physically
aggressive than females;also, self report vs
observation).
Thus, Gender differences in Aggression
seem to be due more to socialization than to
different levels of aggression or hormones.

Biological - Genetics
Twin studies- do not support a genetic cause
of aggression or criminality. Environment is
imp.
Some genetic abnormalities (XYY) have higher
rates of criminality (1/1000 births but 1/35100 in jail), but they also have lower IQs and
tend to not do violent crimes and most XYYs
dont become criminals. So, they may just be
people who are too big to go unnoticed or are
not smart enough to get away with their
crimes vs someone more aggressive.

Variables leading to or influencing Aggression:

I. Biological causes- summary
Innate Psychoanalytic/dynamic
Evolutionary Theory
Biological hormones, brain structures,
genetics

Research support shows these variables are

not capable of explaining or predicting most
of human aggression