Hormones

• hormones AO1

  hormones are biochemical messengers that have a slow but widespread effect.

  . testosterone is an androgen and is found to cause aggression, dominance, competitiveness. prenatal and around birth exposures are found to affect brain development eg in amygdala = aggression more likely as adult,
• hormones AO3 strength

  Dabbs: prisoners with higher T levels committed more violent crimes = validates explanation and supports role of nature in development of aggressive acts

  CA only used to understand aggression in criminal population, may not generalise to individuals in wider pop

  SW: measured under scientific conditions using objective tools = credibility to argument
• hormones AO3 weakness

  reductionist - assumes aggression is only due to hormones, no account for other factorsCA: useful to allow researchers to isolate variables related to aggression = lead to treatmentSA: however still does not account for many variables = not a complete explanation of aggression