Ethological

• Ethology is the study of naturally occuring animal behaviour including human behaviour
• Lorenz proposed aggression thoery based on animal behaviour applying to humans
• Lorenz believed in an innate response
• Lorenz: innate aggression as innate tendency triggered by environmental stimuli

  • Urge to engage in aggressive behaviour builds up continuously
  • Eventually stimulus trigger aggression
  • Strength of stimulus needed to trigger aggression decreases over time
  • Stimulus triggers innate releasing mechanism
  • Fixed action pattern instinctive behaviour identical across a species
• Aggression observed in red-bellied sticklebacks

  • Males seeing red on other male belly stimulates innate releasing mechanism triggering fighting
  • Tinbergen found response triggered more by unrealistic models with red bellies
  • Support that aggression is instinctive
• Lorenz: Aggression is ritualised

  • Animals don't pass genes if killed
  • Sport is an example of ritualised aggression in humans
• Strengths of ethological explanation for aggression

  • Aggression does occur as FAPs seen in some animals
  • Theory able to explain why humans kill one another
• Weaknesses of ethological explanation for aggression

  • Thoery doesn't explain aggression which isn't an immediate response to a stimulus
  • Arms et al found watching aggressive sport increased aggression