David Myers

11e
Aggression: Intending to Hurting others

“…nothing so threatening to humanity as humanity

itself.” (Lewis Thomas 1981)

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Aggression
 Defined
 Theories of aggression
 Influences (causes)
 How it can be reduced
 Reforming a violent culture

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What Is Aggression?

 Aggression
 Physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm
 Hostile Aggression (“social”)
 Aggression that springs from anger; its goal is to injure
 Instrumental Aggression (“silent”)
 Aggression that is a means to some other end
 E.g. terrorism,
 To displace occupiers or get to heaven

 E.g. boxing
 For $$$ reward

 E.g. war
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What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Aggression as a Biological Phenomenon
 Thomas Hobbes – “by nature” (also Freud)
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau – “society causes it”
 Instinct theory and evolutionary psychology
 Innate, unlearned behavior pattern exhibited by all members of a species
(Lorenz)
 “naming error”
 Its adaptive
 What happened with Charles Barkley?
 Neural influences
Abnormal brains can contribute to abnormally aggressive behavior
 Genetic Influences
 Heredity influences the neural system’s sensitivity to aggressive cues

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What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Aggression as a Biological Phenomenon
 Biochemical influences
 Alcohol –
 reduces self-awareness,

 accuracy of social perception

 Testosterone
 Poor diet –eat a lot of omega-3-fatty acids and calcium
 Biology and behavior interact

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What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Aggression as a Response to Frustration
 Frustration
 Blocking of goal-directed behavior
 Frustration-aggression theory (Dollard, .39)
 Theory that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress
 Displacement

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What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Frustration-Aggression Theory Revised (L. Berkowitz, ’78)
 Original theory overstated the frustration-aggression
connection
 Frustration produces anger, an emotional readiness to
aggress Frustration-> Anger> Responses (lots possible)
 Theory is designed to explain hostile aggression, not
instrumental aggression

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What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Aggression as a Response to Frustration
 Relative deprivation
 Perception that one is less well off than others with whom one
compares oneself (notice the cognitive component here)
 Explains why happiness tends to be lower and crime rates
higher in communities and nations with large income
inequality
 But must consider perceptions of

 “justice” & “perceived equity”

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What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Aggression as Learned Social Behavior
 Rewards of aggression
 Through experience and by observing others, we learn that
aggression often pays

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What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Observational Learning
 Social learning theory (Bandura)
 We learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by
being rewarded and punished
 Bandura’s bobo doll experiment

 Family

 Culture

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Aversive Incidents
 Physical pain
 Psychological pain
 Heat
 Attacks
 Includes insults
 Southern vs. northern reactions (Cohen et al., ‘96)

 What are some other “cultures of honor” other than the

southern U.S.?

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Arousal
 A given state of bodily arousal feeds one emotion or
another, depending on how the person interprets and
labels the arousal
 Schachter & Singer, ‘62
 Without a known source of arousal, we look or external
sources & our mood.

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Aggression Cues
 Violence is more likely when aggressive cues release
pent-up anger (Berkowitz, ‘68)
 Re: incidence of violence and gun possession rates
 We must look closer
 Cf Maryland and Montana

 Guns are owned and used for different purposes

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Pornography and Sexual Violence
 Distorted perceptions of sexual reality
 Studies confirm that exposure to pornography increases
acceptance of the rape myth

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Pornography and Sexual Violence
 Distorted perceptions of sexual reality
 Aggression against women
 Studies suggest that the exposure to violent pornography
increase punitive behavior toward women
 Ted Bundy was not “normal” –so he can not speak for others

 “…the most damaging kinds of pornography...involving

sexual violence……you keep craving something [more)
…which gives you a greater sense of excitement..”
Impulse control (e.g. sex and violence) varies among individuals.
“Exposure to violence porn increases punitive behavior toward
women”….for some who are predisposed….not all
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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Pornography and Sexual Violence
 Distorted perceptions of sexual reality
 Medial awareness education
 Media awareness training as an alternative to censorship

 Should violent porn be banned?

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Television and the Internet
 Television’s effects on behavior
 Correlating TV viewing and behavior
 Frequent result of correlating children’s TV viewing with
aggressiveness is the more violent the content the more
aggressive the child
 Extends to indirect aggression

 Should media violence be banned?

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Television and the Internet
 Television’s effects on behavior
 TV viewing experiments
 Ross Parke (1977) and Jacques Leyens (1975)

 Showed institutionalized American and Belgian delinquent

boys a series of either aggressive or nonaggressive
commercial films
• Findings: Exposure to more violence led to an increase
in viewer aggression

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Television and the Internet
 Television’s effects on behavior
 Why does TV viewing affect behavior?
 The arousal that it produces

 Viewing violence disinhibits

 Media portrayals evoke imitation

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Television and the Internet
 Television’s effects on thinking
 Desensitization
 Social scripts
 Culturally provided mental instructions for how to act in
various situations
 Altered perceptions
 Media portrayals shape perceptions of reality

 Cognitive priming
 Media portrayals prime thinking

 Time drain

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Video Games
 The games kids play
 Games are becoming more violent and sometimes include
 Carjacking

 Shooting

 Sex

 Murder

 Games that are rated “M” for mature are often marketed to
those younger

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Video Games
 Effects of the games kids play
 Increases aggressive behaviors
 Increases aggressive thoughts
 Increases aggressive feelings
 Decreases helping others
 Decreases empathy for others
 Desensitized to violence
 Should violent video games be banned?

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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Group Influences
 Can amplify aggressive reactions partly by diffusing
responsibility
 Increases with distance and number
 deindividuation
 Social contagion

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How Can Aggression Be Reduced?

 Catharsis?
 Contrary to the catharsis hypothesis, expressing
aggression by catharsis tends to breed further
aggression, not reduce it

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How Can Aggression Be Reduced?

 A Social Learning Approach

 Controlling aggression by counteracting the factors that
provoke it
 Reducing aversive stimulation
 Rewarding nonaggression
 Modeling nonaggression
 Eliciting reactions incompatible with aggression

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How Can Aggression Be
Reduced?
 Culture Change and World Violence
 Cultures can change

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