TOPIC III: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED TO AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE
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In society aggression is usually inflicted on the civilian population, claiming the lives
of innocent people or destroying their livelihoods.
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Social Psychology tries to find the cause and origins of aggressive behaviour and what
can be done to control and reduce the incidence of aggressive acts.
AGGRESSION AND VI0LENCE : DEFINITION AND MEASUREMENT
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Defination focuses on different aspects e.g.
(a) Observable behaviour and not intentions or motives
(b) Verbal and non physical aggression.
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Buss defines aggression as a response that delivers noxious stimuli on others and should
encompass the following:
1. Intention to cause harm to a person or damage to an object (driver killing pedestrian is
not included).
2. Expectancy – that the behaviour will lead to harm to target.
3. Willingness to avoid the harm on the part of the perpetrator ( excludes doctor – operating
on an individual)
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Disciplinary measures e.g. by teachers are examples of aggression because of intention,
expectation – however they are covered by norms which make them acceptable. But said
norms different because in other countries child beating is not accepted.
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Baron and Richardson (1994) define aggression as any form of behaviour directed
towards the goal of harming or injuring another human being – who tries to avoid such
treatment.
1. Hostile aggression is elicited by anger -affective and retaliatory aggression.
2. Instrumental aggression, calm, pragmatic (practical consequences) accepting beliefs as
true without enough evidence. Predatory or goal directed aggression.
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Research indicates that those with tendencies toward affective aggression have lower IQs
than those with tendencies towards predatory aggression.
THEORETICAL EXPLANATION OF AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE
1) Aggression as an innate instinct
Aggression as expression of genetically rooted instincts which is innate Freud (1920).
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Frued `s Dual instinct theory – individual is driven by two instincts thanatos (death
instinct – self destruction) and eros (life instinct) pleasure seeking.
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The two are opposite and therefore lead to intra-psychic conflict – directed towards other
people – and this is cathartic.
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Catharsis according to Freud is the possibility of releasing destructive energy through
expressive behaviour. According to this view, aggression is an inevitable part of human
nature beyond control of the individual.
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Lorenz studied animal behaviour – found that aggression serves an adaptive function in
the evolutionary development of species by favoring the survival of the strongest. He
assumes that the organism continuously builds up aggressive on two factors
(a) the amount of aggressive energy accumulated inside the organism at any one time and
(b) The strength of the external stimuli (e.g. smell of a predator). The lower the energy level
the stronger the stimulus required to elicit an aggressive response and vise versa (Inverse
relationship) if the energy level becomes to high without being released, it will overflow,
leading to spontaneous aggression.
2) Aggression As Goal Directed
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There is a force within the individual –a drive that motivates aggressive behaviour. A
drive is not ever present as an instinct. It is not a continuously increasing source of
energy but activated if organism is deprived of means to satisfy vital needs.
3) Frustration aggression hypothesis
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Dollard et al 1939 – aggression a result of drive to end a state of frustration with a goal
directed behaviour.
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Whether frustration will lead to aggression depends on mediating variables, punishment
and overt behaviour.
4) Aggression as mediated by cognitive appraisal
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Whether a person reacts aggressively to a stimuli depends on a person’s cognitive
appraisal of the stimuli. Deliberate and unjustified stimuli leads to aggressive behaviour.
Attributions will be at work here.
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Excitation transfer model – Zillman (1978) people who carry residual arousal from a
physical activity into on unrelated social situation in which they are provoked are more
likely to respond aggressively to the provocation than an unaroused individual.
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According to the social cognitive approach, social behaviour in general and aggression in
particular is controlled by behavioural repertories acquired during socialization.
5) Aggression as learned behaviour
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Produced by nature acquired through the learning process.
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Reinforcement , punishment and observational learning rewards for aggressive
behaviour, pushing another child and bullying – wrestling
AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE AS SOCIAL PROBLEMS
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Violence manifest in two main contexts
(i)
Interpersonal aggression
(ii)
Intergroup encounters
1) Interpersonal aggression
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This is aggression from one person to another
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Various means are employed (direct vs. indirect and verbal vs. physical)
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Also there is need to look at the severity of the aggression.
a) Criminal homicide
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Murder – premeditation, intent and malice
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Manslaughter- behaviour which leads to death of another person – if consequences were
the result of prior provocation or caused by criminal negligence.
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Besides those with pychiatric disorders violence results from adverse socialization
experiences e.g. childhood abuse socio-economic status can also contribute.
b) Bullying
- on imbalance of power and strength leaving the victim not able to defend himself
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Occurs continuously over periods of time
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Direct form – open physical harassment
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Indirect form – isolation a exclusion
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Prevalence high among high school children
c) Abuse and neglect in the family
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Shown as physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children, sibling aggression and
marital violence
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Children are at risk but many forms of aggression go unreported.
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Violence between spouses -according to Straus and Gelles – males and females are
equally involved in violent exchanges- women retaliate – they do not initiate.
d) Sexual Aggression
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Usually aggression against women- psychologists look at the short term and long term
effects of abuse.
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Sexual abuse can occur in the context of norms and gender roles.
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Freud advocates for release of aggressive energy in a healthy manner e.g. sports
competition.
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SP is concerned with the reaction of the legal system to sexual violence usually there is
biased perceptions and unfavorable evaluations.
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Attributes in sexual offenses – low social class---- pre-rape behaviour ---- higher
attributions of the irresponsible.
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Secondary victimization – caused by institutional and individual responses to victims of
rape.
2) Aggression as an intergroup phenomenon
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Driven by group processes within the group or to a targeted group
a) Rioting, hologasm , and gang violence
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Being a member of a group predisposes one to aggression than what would happen when
an individual was on his own.
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According to Zimbardo belonging in a group leads to deindividuation - people loose
sense of personal identity and responsibility therefore are less inhibited to show negative
social behaviour.
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Gang violence most prevalent in USA with a ratio of 20:1
b) Ethnocentric a racial aggression
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Bowling (1993) – racial harassment of members of ethic minorities presents a large scale
problem.
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Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe
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Prejudicial attitudes against members of different racial and ethical groups have been
investigated as potential predictions of heightened aggression against those groups.
c) Political violence : terrorism and war
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Terrorism refers to acts that are aimed at making an impact on power holders within a
country, wars involve the use of force against another nation (unless if they are civil war).
REDUCING AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE
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Intervention strategies are hampered by lack of understanding of why and when
aggressive behaviour occurs and to what extend different forms of aggressive behaviour
share the same underlying mechanisms.
1. Individual Centered Interventions
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Punishment as the individual level is meant to decrease the frequency with which
aggressive behaviour is shown by the individual in future.
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Factors increasing the effectiveness of punishment are intensity, immediacy
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reinforced aggression convey that it is okay to use force.
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Such methods have negative effects on the punished individual.
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Rewarding desired behaviour is most appropriate.
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Help person to catharsise
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Develop new skills in anger control
ii)
Societal level strategies
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Most effective is the imposition of legal sanctions.
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In after war period there is need for legal firearms restrictions.
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Goldstein (1994a) advocates for a crime prevention approach based on creating a
physical and socio environment that restricts the opportunity for aggressive behaviour eg
banning sell of alcohol at sports.
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Others argue that this only leads to displacement of criminal behaviour towards less
protected targets.
TOPIC 9: APPLICATION OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TO JOB SATISFACTION.
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Social psychology provides many insights into the complex world of work.
Work Related Attitudes
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Attitudes concerning one’s own job or work are generally referred to by the term job
satisfaction(JS).
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J S refers to a range of very positive (high job satisfaction) to very negative (low job
satisfaction / high job dissatisfaction) (Halin, 1991).
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In contrast, attitudes towards one’s company are known as organizational commitment.
This term refers to the extent to which a person is willing to be identified with and stay at
his / her company.
Factors affecting job satisfaction
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Although some jobs may be boring and repetitive people usually report high JS this may
be a result of cognitive dissonance (job changes are risky therefore cannot leave boring
job – saying they are not satisfied with their jobs creates dissonance and to avoid this they
report high JS and they believe this rating)
Two factors affect JS and these are:
(a) Organizational factors
(b) Personal factors
Organizational Factors
1) Company’s reward system – the way in which raises, promotions and other rewards are
distributed.
Fairness is important – JS is high when people believe their rewards are distributed fairly
2) Perceived quality of supervision – the extend to which employees believe that their
bosses are competent, have employee’s best interests at heart and treat then with respect
3) Being able to participate in organizational decision making (the higher the participation
the high the JS) (Callon, 1993)
4) Nature of the job – not only do boring monotonous jobs reduce satisfaction they
undermine psychological and even physical health too.
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Jobs that expose people to under load (do not give pple enough to do or below their
capacity cause strong feelings of monotony therefore produce low JS, psychological
distress and even physical illness)(Malemed et al 1995)
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Repetitive jobs are hectic (person does the same job repetitively and has to be quick.
Personal factors
1) Job satisfaction is related to several personal traits, such as Type A behaviour pattern
who tends to more satisfied than Type B.
2) JS is also related to status and seniority the higher the person’s position within a company
the greater his/her JS
3) The longer the person has been on her job the higher the satisfaction (Zeitz, 1990)
4) The greater the extend to which are congruent with people’s interest the greater the
satisfaction.
5) JS is related to general life satisfaction.
Organizational commitment
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Altitudes held by people towards their companies. It refers to the extend to which
individuals identify with, and are willing to leave their organizations (universities etc)
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A model by Allen and Meyer (1990) reveals that organizational commitment involves
three separate components.
Affective Component
Continuance Component
Organizational Commitment
Normative Component
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Affective Component – this involves emotional attachment to and identification with the
organization. A person high on this feels good about his/ her company.
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Continuance component – refers to potential cost in leaving the company – after working
for a long period a person may have a lot of money in pension funds – if he leaves is may
be lost.
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Normative Component – feelings of obligation to stay with the company because of
norms and values indicating that loyalty is desirable.
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These three combine to form an individual’s level of organizational commitment.
Research shows that some different conditions play a role in each of the three components

Affective component – referenced by quality of supervisory feedback ,autonomy
(freedom to structure one’s work), task identity (being able to complete a whole piece of
workfrom beginning to end), skill variety (working on a job that requires a variety of
activities), Tenure (length of time with the company) the more people have stayed with a
company the more they loose if they leave.
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Normative component – influenced by commitment on the part of one’s co workers and
the extend to which individual are allowed to participate decision relating to their jobs –
more leads to a sense of obligation to stay with a company.
Effect of organizational Commitment
People high in OC show lower levels of absenteeism and voluntary turnover. Also people will
be more willing to make scarifies for their company even to their own cost.
Such actions are known as organizational citizenship behaviour.
Organizational Politics
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Actions taken by individual to further their own goals, often at considerable costs to
others or their organization. It is the opposite of organizational citizenship behaviour.
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OP represents various forms of social influence applied to purely selfish ends.
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Tactics used by individual in Organisational Politics
1) Controlling access to information
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Information is power in any organization, those who have information, know how to use
it and can get want they want.
People in OP manipulate information- they hold
information so that others will not know what is happening. They Conceal information
that make them look bad, protecting own image.
2) Cultivating a good image
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People in OP use tactics to make them look good better than their rivals. They do this by
associating themselves with successful persons and projects, by drawing attention to their
own accomplishments.
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People who do this are called organizational chameleons – they will do whatever it takes
to make a favourable impression to others and build their own reputation.
3) Developing a base of support
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People ensure that others are committed to then and will support them in times of trouble.
Use the principle of reciprocity – doing small things to people inorder to get big things
they get what they want with little effort.
4) Dirty Tricks
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Actions people would view as down night unethical one common one is hidden agenda
eg meeting called – issues not on agenda discussed – people will not be prepared and the
person in OP will usually win.
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Another dirty is spreading false rumors about office romances.
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OP occurs when there is a lot to be gained by winning, when individual or group in an
organization have conflicting interest, when parties involved have equal power so that no
party can demand.
Reducing Organizational Politics
a) Clarify job expectations – understand what is expected of your job. You will not be
manipulated or treated unfairly.
b) Insists or encourage open communication help to reduce manipulation
c) Be on the lockout for and do not tolerate political game players.
Cases of conflict in Work settings
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Conflict are actions taken by individuals to block or interfere with others interest because
of perceptions of incompatible interest and the belief that others may be interfering with
the perceiver’s interests.
Organizational Causes of Conflicts
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Competition over resources
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Power differentials
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Ambiguity over responsibility or jurisdiction
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Interdependence with respect to work
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Competitive reward system
Interpersonal Causes
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Faulty Communication
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Faulty attributions
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Stereotypes
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Prejudice
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Grudges
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Feelings of in equity
Dealing with conflict
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Research shows that in times of conflict people may
(a) Compete – get as much as possible for oneself / group
(b) Compromise – split everything equally
(c) Accommodation – give up and let others take all benefits
(d) Avoidance – avoid conflict-in any possible way including withdrawal from the situation
(e) Collaboration- try to maximize everyone’s gains
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The above reactions are related to two underlying dimensions
(i)
Concern with one’s own outcomes
(ii)
Concern with others outcomes
Competition
Collaboration
Concern with
One’s own
Outcomes
Compromise
Avoidance
Accommodation
Concern with other outcomes
Perceiving causes of other individual’s performance
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Casual attributions of other peoples` emotional and behavioral reactions to an event at
work
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Weiner et al (1971) put forward a model for categorizing the kinds of casual explanations
that people give 4 success a failure outcomes. They use internal and external dimensions.
(a) Internal Dimension – distinguishes between factors pertaining to the person whose
performance led to the outcome e.g. ability(a characteristic of the individual) a stable
XCT
(b) External dimension- The environment in which the performance occurred e.g. Luck
unstable and con D
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A student’s failure because of lack of effort- on internal stable, is more shameful than
failure due to difficulty task.
Perceiving one’s own performance
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Wilson and Linville (1982) investigated the impact of attributionally
relevant
information on students in the 1st year of university studies- there were two groups
(i)
No information group
(ii)
Group given information – experimental group given the following information 1)*
eg statistical data showing that majority of students grades improve one time *2)
other students describing how their grade points increased over the later years.
Results – there were greater grades points in the information or experimental group and higher
dropouts in the non information group.
The explanation for higher performance that was found in the group shows a link between
attributions to specific cases and motivation to strive in failure performances.
Attributes and employee development
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For new comers in an organization, attribution training is useful with positions in which
there are many things to learn e.g. undergraduates students
How do you achieve attribution retraining
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Self efficiency
(belief that one has the ability to perform effectively in a particular manner/ activity- without
these beliefs people are not motivated because there is no reason to exert effort .
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Self efficiency is instilled by vicarious experience and by direct experience.

Preferential hiring
(hiring according to sex, gender and race) Acc to the attribution theory when individual are
aware that there are factors that have attributed to their hiring they question Whether their
abilities are equal to those not hired.
Experiments show that women`s evaluations of their leadership abilities suffered when told they
have been given leader because of their gender.
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Supervisor’s response employee performance
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After discovering poor performance the supervisor forms causal attributions. This is
influenced by situational factors e.g. the behavior. The explanations of the behaviour may
be an outcome of baises that the supervisor may have.
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e.g nurse fails to put a rail on patient’s bed- do other nurses do the same (consensus
information)- was the rail left down in other cases (distinctiveness)
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Blame is put on the nurse when consensus is low, consistency is high and distinctiveness
is low.
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Attributions to personal characteristics are also made when outcomes are severe
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In organizations people have baises-this hinders rational and systematic information
processing. The fundamental attribution error- refers to attributing causes internal factors
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Poor performers in organizations should be given remedial lessons and those outstanding
performers should be rewarded.