Aggression

• Aggression: intentional behaviour at causing physical/psychological pain to another person
• Instrumental aggression is aggression as a means to a goal
• Hostile aggression stems from feelings of anger and aimed at inflicting pain
• Children imitate aggressive adults and treated Bobo Doll in abusive ways (Bandura, 1961)
• Frustration Aggression Theory states that when prevented from attaining a goal, frustration leads to possible aggressive responses
• Frustration-Aggression Theory supports the idea that discomfort increases aggression e.g. heat, offensive odours
• Dollard et al. (1939) found that frustrated children who had to wait to play showed aggressive playstyles compared to control group
• Relative deprivation: occurs when people see a difference between what they have and what they expect, leading to frustration
• Testosterone may lead to aggression by reducing our ability to control impulses - reduced activity in the orbitofrontal cortex which is key brain area for self-regulation and impulse control
• The Challenge Hypothesis: states that testosterone and aggression are only related when opportunities for reproduction are high (Buss, 2002)
• Dual-Hormone Hypothesis: testosterone relates to dominance-seeking behaviour only when the stress hormone is low (Mehta & Josephs, 2010)
• Social Learning Theory suggests we can learn aggression through observational learning
• Games that directly reward violent behaviour are likely to increase feelings of hostility and aggression (Anderson et al., 2010)
• Exposure to violence may lead to desensitisation (Thomas, 1982)
• Habituation: our bodies respond to a stimulus less and less as we are exposed to it repeatedly
• Exposure to media violence leads to desensitisation due to 3 reasons: increases physiological arousal, triggers automatic tendency to imitate violence, and they activate aggressive ideas/expectations
• Students either watched a violent episode of police drama or a non-violent sport event, results showed that those who watched the police drama played much more violently with toys compared to those who watched the sporting event (Liebert & Baron, 1972)