Social Relations:
Aggression
Chapter 16, Lecture 4
“Asking what causes violence is…like asking
what causes cancer.”
- David Myers
Aggression
First, look at Handout 16-11
in groups of 2 to 3…
Aggression can be any physical or verbal
behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
It may be done reactively out of hostility or
proactively as a calculated means to an end.
Research shows that aggressive behavior emerges
from the interaction of biology and experience.
The Biology of Aggression
Three biological influences on aggressive
behavior are:
1. Genetic Influences
2. Neural Influences
3. Biochemical Influences
Influences
Genetic Influences: Animals have been bred for
aggressiveness for sport and at times for research.
Twin studies show aggression may be genetic. In men,
aggression is possibly linked to the Y chromosome.
Neural Influences: Some centers in the brain,
especially the limbic system (amygdala) and the
frontal lobe, are intimately involved with aggression.
Influences
Biochemical Influences: Animals with diminished
amounts of testosterone (castration) become docile,
and if injected with testosterone aggression
increases. Prenatal exposure to testosterone also
increases aggression in female hyenas.
The Psychology of Aggression
Four psychological factors that influence
aggressive behavior are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
dealing with aversive events;
learning aggression is rewarding;
observing models of aggression; and
acquiring social scripts.
Aversive Events
Studies in which animals and humans experience
unpleasant events reveal that those made
miserable often make others miserable.
Jeff Kowalsky/ EPA/ Landov
Ron Artest (Pacers) attack on Detroit Pistons fans.
Environment
Even environmental temperature can lead to
aggressive acts. Murders and rapes increased
with the temperature in Houston.
Frustration-Aggression Principle
A principle in which frustration (caused by
the blocking of an attempt to achieve a
desired goal) creates anger, which can
generate aggression.
Learning that Aggression is
Rewarding
When aggression leads to desired outcomes, one
learns to be aggressive. This is shown in both
animals and humans.
Cultures that favor violence breed violence.
Scotch-Irish settlers in the South had more violent
tendencies than their Puritan, Quaker, & Dutch
counterparts in the Northeast of the US.
Observing Models of Aggression
Sexually coercive men are
promiscuous and hostile in
their relationships with
women. This coerciveness
has increased due to
television viewing of Rand X-rated movies.
Acquiring Social Scripts
The media portrays social scripts and generates
mental tapes in the minds of the viewers. When
confronted with new situations individuals may
rely on such social scripts. If social scripts are
violent in nature, people may act them out.
Do Video Games Teach or Release
Violence?
The general consensus on violent video games
is that, to some extent, they breed violence.
Adolescents view the world as hostile when
they get into arguments and receive bad grades
after playing such games.
Recently, Sarah Coyne and her colleagues examined the
impact of observing relational violence on viewers.
Relational violence can take different forms ranging
from spreading rumors about another to threatening
social exclusion. Do filmed portrayals of relational
violence make viewers relationally and even physically
aggressive?
In their study, the researchers asked 53 college women
to watch one of three video clips, featuring either
physical aggression (a knife fight from Kill Bill),
relational aggression (a montage from Mean Girls), or
no aggression (a séance from the horror movie What
Lies Beneath). After the participants completed a brief
survey, they were allowed to leave.
Immediately outside the laboratory room was another
researcher who asked if they would like to participate
in a second study involving reaction times. When they
agreed, the researcher acted rudely by telling them to
hurry, and then, when the participants hesitated, she
said, “Great! This is really going to screw things up!”
After the researcher left the room, the participants took
two tests that are often used to assess aggression. One
enabled them to deliver a sharp noise to the researcher
by pushing a button (physical aggression); the other
asked them to complete an evaluation that supposedly
was going to be used to decide whether the researcher
should be hired (relational aggression).
The results indicated that those who viewed clips from
Kill Bill and Mean Girls reacted in similarly aggressive
ways. They turned up the sharp noise delivered to the
researcher louder than the control group. They also
gave the researcher lower scores on the evaluation form
than the control group did. Coyne and her colleagues
concluded that their findings provide evidence for a
generalization or cross-over effect of viewing media
violence. Viewing one form of violence can influence
the manifestation of other forms.
Coyne suggests that parents pay greater attention to
relational violence and perhaps even push to make it
part of movie and TV ratings. She concluded,
“Everyone’s concerned about violence in the media, as
they should be, but we’re missing out on lots of
violence out there. We need to look at these other types
of aggression because we know they’re having an effect
of aggression.”
Coyne is now studying reality TV shows that are filled
with instances of relational violence. She worries that
young children in particular are vulnerable. It’s
“almost always portrayed as justified, almost always
portrayed as rewarded,” she says.
Summary
Homework
Read p.705-712
“Why do we kill people who kill people to
show that killing people is wrong?”
- National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty