Lecture 10 -Aggression

• Aggression


  A behaviour that results in personal injury or destruction of property
• Aggression


  Behaviour intended to harm another of the same species
• Aggression


  The intentional infliction of some form of harm on others
• Most common ground in defining aggression is "the intent to harm"
• Frameworks for explaining aggression

  • Biological
  • Social
• Biological accounts of aggression

  • Aggression as an innate instinct
  • Aggression as a drive
• Aggression as an innate instinct


  Aggression has some survival value, an inherent part of human nature, commonalities with other species
• Lorenz's fighting instinct


  Helps protect offspring and young, useful to defend territory, leads to survival of strongest
• Frustration-aggression hypothesis


  Aggression is the direct result of frustration, energy has to be released if the objective of an activity cannot be performed
• Frustration does not always lead to aggression and frustration is not always necessary for aggression
• The frustration-aggression hypothesis cannot account for learned or inter-group aggression, or 'symbolic' aggression
• General Learning Model of video game effects

  • Affects perceptual-cognitive constructs, cognitive-emotional constructs, emotional constructs
• Pornography exposure


  Increases tolerance of sexual violence towards women
• Some studies suggest an inverse relationship between pornography and sex crimes
• Aggressive people prefer certain types of pornography
• Cognitive neo-associationistic model


  Cues in the environment will increase aggression, subjective frustration causes aggression
• Social learning theory


  Aggressive behaviour is reinforced if rewarded, learned through observation and imitation
• Deindividuation


  State of mind where one 'gets lost' in the group and ceases to see oneself as an individual, based on anonymity, diffusion of responsibility and short time perspective
• Realistic Conflict Theory


  Competition between groups arises because groups compete for scarce resources
• Perceived Relative Deprivation (PRD) Theory

  Conflict arises from an unacceptable discrepancy between what people think they are entitled to and what they realistically can attain
• Egoistic relative deprivation


  Feeling of personally having less than we feel entitled to, relative to personal aspirations or other individuals
• Fraternalistic relative deprivation


  Sense that our group has less than it is entitled to, relative to the collective aspirations or other groups
• Personal relative deprivation is associated with increased aggression and can spread through social networks
• Improvements in socioeconomic conditions of disadvantaged groups can lead to increased aggression due to relative deprivation and rising expectations
• Traditional agricultural societies tend to have less violence due to lower levels of relative deprivation
• Factors affecting relative deprivation

  • Strong group identification
  • Perceived effectiveness of action
  • Perceptions of injustice
  • Ingroup-outgroup comparisons
• Male warrior hypothesis


  Men display more xenophobic and ethnocentric attitudes than women, and are more likely to dehumanize outgroup members