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What Is Aggression?
 Aggression
 Physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm
 The definition excludes unintentional harm
 Hostile Aggression
 Aggression that springs from anger; its goal is to injure
 Instrumental Aggression
 Aggression that is a means to some other end
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Philosophical Views of Aggression
 Philosophers have debated whether our human nature
is fundamentally bad or fundamentally good.
 The 18th century Jean-Jacques Rousseau had argued
that we are basically good, and society is to blame for
social evils
 The British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
had argued that we are basically evil and need to be
restrained by society.
 The idea that aggressive drive is innate and thus
inevitable was promoted by Freud and Konard
Lorenz.
•Study well the section on gender similarities and differences. Why were social psychologists reluctant to explore this area in th
•Note areas of gender differences, such as independence (male), and connectedness (female), social dominance, aggression, and se
•Note how males and females differ in their mating preferences. Give examples. Pp. 176-178
• Note impact of sex hormones, especially testosterone. P. 180
•Note issue of gender roles and how they vary with culture and over time. 182-184
•Note Harris’ ideas of peer-transmitted culture. 184-185
Freud and Lorenz
 Freud saw aggression as the expression of the death
instinct, the Thanatos, that is directed outwardly
 Lorenz, and animal expert, saw aggression as adaptivethe member of the species who is more aggressive
controls more resources and have higher lieklihood to
survive
 Aggressive energy is seen by Freud and Lorenz as
instinctive, that is, unlearned and universal; if not
discharged, it build up until “explosion”
 Instinct theory fails to account for the variation of
aggressiveness' from person to person and from culture to
culture
What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Aggression as a Biological Phenomenon
 Instinct theory and evolutionary psychology


Innate, unlearned behavior pattern exhibited by all members
of a species
Evolutionary psychology sees aggression as a strategy for
gaining resources, defending against attacks, etc
 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: Unleashes aggression when people are
provoked. Alcohol enhances aggression by reducing selfawareness and by focusing attention on the provocation



Testosterone
Poor diet
Biology and behavior interact
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Biochemical (cont-d)
 Testosterone: Hormonal influences appear to be much
stronger in animals than in humans, but aggressive
behavior does correlate with the male hormone
testosterone
 Drugs that diminish levels of testosterone in violent
human males will subdue their aggressive tendencies
 After age 25 the testosterone levels diminish and so
does violent behavior
 Testosterones levels tend to be higher in violent
criminals
Testosterone (cont-d)
 Testosterone levels tend to be higher among prisoners
convicted of planned and unprovoked violent crimes
 High testosterone levels in men are related to
delinquency, hard drug use, and aggressive responses
to provocation
 In men, testosterone increases the width of the face
relative to the length of the face, and men with
relatively wider faces display more aggression
Low levels of Serotonin
 Serotonin is one of the brain’s neurotransmitters
 Low levels of serotonin were found to be related to
difficulties in impulse- control
 Biology and behavior interact: Testosterone may
facilitate aggressive and dominant behaviors, but
dominating behavior (such as winning a soccer
match) boosts testosterone levels.
What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Aggression as a Response to Frustration
 Frustration

Blocking of goal-directed behavior
 Frustration-aggression theory

Theory that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress
 Displacement because of fear of punishment
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What Are Some Theories of
Aggression?
 Frustration-Aggression Theory Revised
 Original theory overstated the frustration-aggression
connection
 Frustration produces anger, an emotional readiness to
aggress

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
 Explains why happiness tends to be lower and crime rates
higher in communities and nations with large income
inequality
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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

We learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by
being rewarded and punished
 Family
 Culture
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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Aversive Incidents increase the likelihoods of acting
aggressively
 Pain: aversive stimuli
 Heat: as well as offensive odors, cigarette smoke, air
pollution
 Studies found that when the weather is hot, violent
crime is more likely
 Attacks


Includes insults
Over-crowding
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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
 This is the Two-Factor Theory of Emotion (Schachter
and Singer, 1962)
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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Aggression cues:
 Violence is more likely when aggressive cues release
pent-up anger
 The sight of a weapon is such a cue
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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
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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Television and the Internet
 Media’s Effects on Behavior

Correlating Media 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
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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Media Influences: Television and the Internet
 Media’s Effects on Behavior

Violence Viewing Experiments
 Anderson (2003) and Coyne (2008)
 Showed college students and girls exposed 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
 Media’s Effects on Behavior

Why Does Media 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
 Media’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
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What Are Some Influences on
Aggression?
 Another Media Influence: Video Games
 Effects of Video Games


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?
 Another Media Influence: Video Games
 Effects of the games kids play







Increases aggressive behaviors
Increases aggressive thoughts
Increases aggressive feelings
Habituation in the brain
Greater likelihood of carrying a weapon
Decreases in self-control and increases in antisocial behavior
Decreases in helping others and in empathy for others
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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
 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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