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Aggression Theory Detail

Studies Evaluation Evaluation

Social Learning Theory &

Mental Representation

Bandura & Walters suggested that aggressive behaviour is learnt by observing others – in our immediate social environment. They also said our biological make-up can create potentials for aggression - where the actual expression is learnt.

Children learn aggressive behaviour by observing then imitating the behaviour. They will see the consequences of their behaviour and if they are punished for it, it is unlikely they would repeat it again – vicarious reinforcement.

For SLT to take place, children must create mental representations of events in their social environment and decide whether the reward is greater than the punishment – enough to repeat their behaviour again, in the future.

The BOBO Doll Study: Bandura et al: Children observed aggressive and non – aggressive adult models. Then they were tested for imitation of the models. Male and Female children 3 – 5 years old were divided into two groups plus one control. One group were shown adults being aggressive toward the doll (Hitting the doll saying “POW”) and the other were shown no aggression at all. When the children were shown toys they could not play with, it annoyed them. Then they were taken into a room with the doll to see their behaviour. The aggressive group showed more significant imitations of the aggressive behaviour of the adults with the doll than the other group and 1/3 of aggressive-condition group repeated verbal abuse. Boys were seen to be more aggressive than girls.

Motivation to Aggress: Bandura et al: Children were split into 3 groups each seeing a different ending to a film of an adult behaving aggressively to a BOBO doll. Group 1: Shown model rewardedGroup 2: Shown model punishedGroup 3: Shown model with no consequences at allAll 3 were influenced by the ending they saw. High reward = More aggressive behaviour seen. No consequence = Varied levels of aggression. Clearly, children learnt aggression through observing and imitating.

Unlike operant conditioning: SLT can explain aggressive behaviour when there is no direct reinforcement – even though the aggressive group saw someone being aggressive to the doll – he wasn’t rewarded.

Individual differences can explain differences between aggressive and non-aggressive behaviour both between and within individuals. The culture of violence theory proposes that in some societies, there is a norm of violence and aggressive behaviour. People respond differently in different situations as they have observed aggression being rewarded or not.

Validity: It’s possible that the children in Bandura’s studies knew what was expected of them = demand characteristics. Considering the Doll was designed to be hit.Noble: One child arriving at the study said to his mother – that was the doll to hit.

Cultural Differences: In Kung San, when two children argue, neither are rewarded or punished but physically separated so they focus of different things. Parents do not use physical punishments. There is little motivation for the children to be aggressive, so they’re not.

Gender Differences: Boys seem to be more aggressive than the girls in Bandura – doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

BOBO Doll was not a real person, so we’re not aware how children would act toward a real person. - Johnston et al (1977) found correlation between play

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Philips: Daily homicide rates in US always increased in the week following a major boxing match – suggesting that viewers were imitating the boxers.

aggression and real aggression so proved that the BOBO doll has validity.

SLT is also present in adults.

Nature/Nurture: Some would argue that aggression is purely a learnt behaviour. SLT ignores biological influences like genetics.

De - individuation

Theory is based on the classic crowd theory of Gustav Le Bon – How an individual was transformed when part of a crowd. Collective mid takes possession of the individual.A psychological state characterized by lowered self-evaluation and decreased concerns about evaluation by others. Increase in behaviour not expected due to social norms(E.g.: Anonymity – wearing uniform)People who normally refrain from acting aggressively – because there are no social norms that accept this – are identifiable. Being anonymous in a crowd has the consequence of reducing inner restraints and increasing behaviours that are usually inhibited.

Anonymity: Zimbardo: Female undergraduates with one group having their faces covered and wearing bulky lab coats with hood and no name tag. The other group had normal clothes, name tags and facing each other. They had to shock each other. The group with no name tag shocked twice as much because they were unidentifiable.

Johnson & Dowling: Participants wearing nurse’s uniforms delivered significantly less shocks than those who were masked.

Colour Shirt: Rehm: Germal school children had one group with orange shirt and the other with mixed clothing. They played handball. Orange shirt played more aggressively.

Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo 1973: Prisoners were dressed in smocks and nylon caps and were addressed only by their numbers. Guards wore uniforms and reflective sunglasses = Deindividuated = Guards became abusive and extremely aggressive towards prisoners. But it is argued that guards were acting on their own terms of perceived social roles = conformity.

The Faceless Crowd: Mullen: Analysed newspaper cuttings of 60 lynching’s in US. He found that the more people in the mob, the greater the aggressive behaviour to the victim.

The Baiting Crowd: Mann: When suicide is threatened by disturbed people, baiting/jeering crowds gathered. Studies of 21 suicide leaps in the US showed 10 out of the 21 leaps had a crowd watching them jump – they even urged them to jump. Baiting occurred more at night in a large crowd as unidentifiable. And the crowds usually

Zimbardo’s study outfit resembled the outfit worn by the Ku Klux Klan Therefore, could’ve triggered a need for demand characteristics from the female participants.

No explanation to why crowds and groups do not engage in aggressive behaviour because Deindividuation is shown to increase compliance with situational norms. If norm is aggression, Deindividuation should increase aggression.

Deindividuation using evidence from George et al’s Black Room Study leads to anti-social behaviour in only particular situations = so Deindividuation is not a good enough explanation for aggression.

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Zimbardo – “Being part of a crowd can diminish self-awareness of their own individuality. Each person is faceless”

jeered from the bottom = distance.

Black Room Study: George et al: Participants spent an hour together in a darkened room after exploring the physical space and engaging in the conversation. 90% deliberately touched each other and 80% reported sexual feelings. Although deindividuation created by the darkened room reduced inhibitions, it resulted in positive and friendly behaviour.

Silke, 2003: Studied 500 violent assaults that had occurred in Northern Ireland and 206 cases were carried out by people wearing masks/disguises. It was found that the severity of violence was related to whether the offender was disguised or not – supporting Zimbardo’s anonymity theory.

Reduced Private

Awareness

Prentice – Dunn: Offers an alternative perspective to Zimbardo’s conclusion that anonymity is an important determinant. Reduced self-awareness rather than anonymity leads to de-individuation.

If an individual is self-focused, they are less likely to lose identity. If individual submerges in a group, and loses focus, deindividuation occurs.

Johnson & Dowling: Any behaviour produced could be a product of local social norms. Same experiment as Zimbardo’s but used masks to maintain anonymity.

Zimbardo: Prison Experiment

Lack of support: Meta – Analysis of 60 studies provides insufficient support to the major claims of deindividuation

Postmes et al: Disinhibition and anti-social behaviour are not more common in larger groups. Not much evidence that deindividuation- may also increase the incidence of pro-social behaviour.

Conformity to own perceived social roles or deindividuation?

Gender Differences: Are males more aggressive?

Cannavale et al: Male and Female groups respond differently under deindividuation conditions. Increased aggression only visible in males = more prone.

Cultural Differences: 23 societies changed their appearance before going to war – so they’re not identifiable = They were more destructive to their victims than if they didn’t change their appearance at all.

Institutional Aggression

(Within Groups): Importation

Model

Irwin & Creesey: Suggested that prisoners bring their own social norms and traits with them into prison.

They influence the behaviour of the prison.

Research: Study of individual factors such as age, educational levels and race. 58 US Black prisoners were violent. White prisoners were alcohol and drug abusers.

Individual Differences: Not all black/white people can be classified as this

Culture Bias: Studies were only done in the US

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This behaviour was the same outside of prison.

Poole & Regoli, 1983: Involving 4 juvenile correctional institutes found that pre – institutional violence was a reliable predictor of inmate aggression

DeLisi et al, 2004: Found prison records of 831 male inmates from the south western US – being violent caused by deprived means like sub-cultural gang membership.

Racial and ethnic tensions remain in mainstream American society and are imported into prisons, playing a huge role in the levels of violence.

Gender Bias: Research was only done on males so we cannot generalise this to everyone

This model fails to provide an explanation for the reduction of aggressive behaviour or its practical uses.

Institutional Aggression

(Within Groups): Deprivation

Model

Prisoners or patient aggression is the product of stressful and oppressive/deprived conditions in the institute. Prison length of sentences affect level of aggressive behaviour.

More experienced officers are less likely to suffer assaults.

Deprivation of: - Autonomy: Little control of

themselves and require permission for everything. Inducing feelings of helplessness.

- Goods & Services: Little availability of material possessions. Inducing feelings of failure

- Security: Fearing their well-being/physical threat. Inducing feelings of insecurity and low-esteem.

Research: Peer Violence is used to relieve the deprivation imposed by institutional cultures such as prisons. Overcrowding and lack of privacy induces violence.

Keller & Wang, 2005: have shown that higher levels of assault on staff by inmates happen in high-security prisons than in low security prisons

Richards, 2007: Examined inmate on staff assaults and inmate on inmate assaults in 900 US State prisons during the years 198 – 1995. Some prison programmes increased male rates of assaults in prisons, while others decreased.

Individual Differences: Not all Black/White people can be classified this way

Culture Bias: Research in US only

Gender Bias: Research only done on males, what about female aggression in female prisons?

Levels of deprivation remain constant in institutions and burst of violence are spontaneous – like prison riots. This model does not explain this.

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McCorkle et al, 1995: Study of 371 state prisons in US challenged Deprivation Model. Little evidence of a relationship between violence and over-crowding.

Simplistic: Too simplistic a model to be a whole explanation. Behaviour is the interaction of personality and the situation and it’s complex.

Institutional Aggression

(Between Groups): Dehumanization

Humans normally have social norms about killing each other but this changes as target groups are dehumanized.

Members may be seen as worthless animals and prey = easier to kill.

This may explain reasons for violence against immigrants

Holocaust: Nazi attitude toward Jews and other “Inferiors”

Abu Ghraib: Iraqi prisoners abused by guards.

Socially sensitive topic

Ecologically Valid: Huge social norms and research support from many different areas but none are really easily generalised

Individual Differences: Usually involve case studies

Culturally biased: Different societies have different norms and not all have been investigated

Institutional Aggression

(Between Groups): Obedience to

Authority

Milgram: Believed that the Holocaust was primarily the result of obedience to authority, regardless of any personal moral obligations.

If someone can be so influenced by uniform, they can be influenced by others to kill

Mandel: REJECTS Milgram’s idea saying that Milgram ignores other possible factors

Lack of valid research.

Ecologically valid reason

Individual Differences: Not everyone is the same as those who are easily pressured into acting

Culturally Biased: Not every society is the same

Biological Neural:

Neurotransmitters: Serotonin

& Dopamine

Biological explanations suggest that aggressive behaviour can be in the make-up of the individual rather than in the environment.

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that enable impulses within the brain to be transmitted from one area of the brain to another.

Violent criminals had high testosterone

Low levels of serotonin = More aggression

Mann et al: Gave 35 healthy participants Dexfenfluramine (reduces serotonin in brain) then using a questionnaire, he found that the drug caused Men to become more violent.

Popova et al, 1991: Evidence shows that animals that have been selectively bred for domestication and for increasingly docile temperaments, there is a corresponding increase, over generation, in brain concentrations of serotonin.

Diets high in serotonin used to monkeys

Evidence of serotonin in aggressive behaviour using animals cannot be generalised onto humans.

Also has low ecological validity.

Reductionist Theory: Not reasonable enough of an explanation to be sufficient enough for complex behaviours such as aggression.

Individual Differences: some people may be aggressive anyway.

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Serotonin has been seen to link to aggression

Low levels of serotonin = Aggression

High level of Dopamine = Aggression

caused a decrease in their aggressive behaviour.

Findings indicate that major metabolite waste products of serotonin tend to be low in the cerebrospinal fluid of people displaying aggressive behaviour.

Anti-Psychotic drugs which reduce dopamine activity in the brain have been shown to reduce aggressive behaviour.

Research: Fairly inconclusive

Therefore cannot generalise results

Lack of validity and Reliability.

Correlations do not show cause and effect. There may be other underlying factors.

Determinism: Dopamine may just be an effecter rather than a cause.

Biological Hormonal:

Testosterone

Male sex hormone is thought to influence

aggression from young

adulthood onwards due to its action on the

brain.

Dabbs et al: looked into salivary testosterone of violent and non-violent criminals. Those with highest testosterone levels had history of primarily violent crime

Archer’s, 1991: Meta-Analysis of 5 studies involving 230 males, found a low positive correlation between testosterone and aggression but there were methodological problems with this meta-analysis.

Cross Cultural evidence that physical violence is most common among those who would be expected to have the highest level of testosterone – Young adult males.

Small samples tested = Unreliable

Gender Bias: Only men are used in studies!

Cultural Bias: Only US society studied

The measurement of aggression was not consistent across the studies, for example.

Bain et al, 1987: found no significant changes in levels of testosterone in violent men who had been charged with murder/assault and those who have been charged with non-violent crimes.

Tomaszewski et al, 2002: Examined 933 healthy young men and found that there was no difference in testosterone levels between the most angry and aggressive men.

Determinism: Hormones cannot determine a particular behavioural outcome. Individual differences in testosterone levels do not predict aggressiveness. Since, it’s present in males aggressive or not, other factors are obviously involved like cognition and environmental.

Biological Appears to have mediating effect Not much conclusive Inconclusive research on

The Role of Dominance: Mazur, 1995: argued that aggression is a form of dominance behaviour. In non-human animals, the influence of testosterone on dominance behaviour might be shown as aggressive behaviour. In humans, dominance is likely to be shown in many different other ways that increase status or achievement, for example – mostly non-aggressive.

Evidence: Dominant but non-aggressive criminals also have high levels of testosterone.

Direction of Causality: Sapolsky, 1997: argues that aggression drives testosterone levels – that testosterone is an effect, not a cause.

Evidence: Testosterone levels rise in the winners and fall in losers in games like chess matches.

(Bernhardt, 1997) Same with mice and monkeys

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Hormonal: Cortisol

on other aggression linked hormones such as testosterone = increasing anxiety.

Low levels of cortisol increases testosterone levels = aggressive behaviour

Not only affecting testosterone

research has been brought yet.

Research: Investigators measured levels of cortisol in male violent prisoners and make schoolchildren and found that the most violent had lowest cortisol levels.

whether it does have an effect or not lowers reliability and validity

Gender Bias: Only males were used

Unreliable evidence as some studies contradict others

High ecological validity as all research has been on real people.

The Challenge Hypothesis

Wingfield et al: Monogamous Species levels should only rise above the baseline breeding level in response to social challenges or threat to status.

Such as male – male aggression.

Albert et al: Despite many studies, showed positive correlation between testosterone and aggression. Mostly prison men tested.

Small samples tested = Unreliable

Gender Bias: Only men

Cultural Bias: Only US society studied

Biological Genetic: Twin

Studies

Trying to determine the role of genetic factors in aggression with the Nature vs. Nuture debate.

M/Z twins share their genesD/Z Twins only share 50%

If M/Z twins aggressive behaviour is genetic, then both must have the same levels of aggression

Adoption Studies: Hutchings & Mednick, 1973: 14000 adoptions in Denmark studied and were found that a significant number of adopted boys with criminal convictions had biological parents who had criminal convictions.

Sharma et al, 1998: Parents who gave away their children showed much more anti-social behaviour than adoptive parents.

Rhee & Waldman, 2002: Suggest that variability of the findings may be partly due to methods used to assess aggressive behaviour.

Meta – Analysis: Miles & Carey: 51 twin and adoption studies investigated genetic bases for aggression. It was seen to have strong genetic correlation/link and that aggressive behaviour was more from older cases via genes than younger.

Case Studies are not all too easy to generalise because not everyone has been adopted or have parents with criminal backgrounds.

Research is inconclusive.

It relied on self-reports which means there isn’t much reliability/accuracy

Little was observed.

Age differences are very important and environmental factors are only important when younger

Sharma et al research on aggression shows that it is difficult to draw conclusions because the behaviour could’ve been down to genetics or environments.

Biological (All):

MAOA

No identifiable gene has been found for aggression yet.

Dutch Family: 1960, found that lots of males in their family had been very violent

Case study: Lack of generalisabilityGender Bias: Only males studiedEcological validity is there because real people in natural environment studied

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MAOA protein regulates the serotonin in the brain

It is responsible in breaking down serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline.

Gene responsible for MAOA production correlates with aggressive behaviour positively

and aggressive and had very low levels of MAOA in their bodies

Gene Environment Interaction: Caspi et al, 2002: Studied 1037 children, 442 males born in 1972, New Zealand, till they were 26years old. and saw that those with low levels of MAOA were seen to grow up aggressive but only if they were mistreated as children

It is difficult to establish genetic contributions to aggressive behaviour because there may be more than one gene responsible.There may be other non-genetic influences

The results rely on self reports of children from institutions – Social desire-ability effect.

Individual Differences due to environmental and genetics

Samples seem to be of criminals compared against each other which is a small minority, therefore cannot generalise it to the public = Low reliability

The theory that: X Chromosome for girls cancels out the other version of the MAOA gene so don’t show much aggression could be true. This limits generalisation of findings on MAOA.

Evolutionary: Infidelity &

Jealousy

Evolutionary psychologists argue that the different reproduction challenges faced by our ancestors led to a number of evolved sex differences including sex differences in jealousy

Daly & Wilson: Men have evolved several different strategies to deter women from committing adultery. Violence is fuelled by male jealousy evolved to deal with the threat of paternal insecurity (cuckoldry)

Buss: Males have a number of direct guarding techniques that have evolved to specifically keep the mate

Wilson et al, 1995: found that women who agreed with questionnaire items such as ‘he is jealous and doesn’t want you to talk to other men’ were twice as likey to have experienced serious violence from their partners – 72% having required medical attention.

Dobash & Dobash, 1984: Studied battered women of which they cite extreme jealousy on part of their husbands or boyfriends as the key cause.

Correlations do not show cause/effect.

Sexual jealousy seems to be the key motivator of same sex aggression and homicide – with men more than women but there are other explanations.

High ecological validity since all studies based on real people from natural environment.

Evolutionary: Homicide & Uxorocide

Murder or Wife-Killing triggered by extreme bouts of aggression caused by sexual/insecurity or threats to status etc.

Daly & Wilson: Death of a partner from physical violence may be unintended outcome of an evolutionary adaptation that was used for control rather than death.

Majority of studies show that males are both the victim and killer.

Individual Differences: Not all males are violent toward their wives

Gender Bias: Research only done on males where women can be abusers also

Sampling Problems: Those being seriously abused would not have agreed to do a questionnaire.

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Socially sensitive subject

May lie on questionnaire to avoid husband knowing – social desirability.

Younger women much more likely to be killed regardless of husband’s age/ women’s reproductive age.

Homicide can be seen as costly: So if it’s evolutionary, why do they do it? It’s technically pointless.

Evolutionary: Lack of

resources & Status

Research shows that women are attracted to males who are dominant over other males and are therefore, able to provide for potential offspring through the resources they can provide.

Daly & Wilson, 1988: Summary of 8 studies of same-sex killing involving love triangles found 82% were male-male homicides and 8% female-female.

In another study by them, over conflicts that resulted in murder in Detroit throughout 1972 revealed that the main motive was status = offenders likely to be unemployed, unmarried young men.

Meta-Analysis: shows sex-differences in aggression exist for both direct physical and indirect, and verbal and psychological aggression. Females exceed males in indirect aggression.

Reductionism: Evolutionary explanations have been accused of being reductionist because of all their emphasis on adaptiveness but it has been recognised that previously, it would’ve promoted fitness to an environment unlike the current.

Determinism: Evolutionary explanations accused of being determinist because it views genes determining aggression/behaviour. It reduces an individual’s responsibility (Free-will) over themselves but it has been recognised that genes can influence behaviour and that it can be modified by other factors including culture.

Adaptive Response:

Group Display

It reinforces feelings of in-group/out-group and may serve an important adaptive function for the individuals within those groups. A benefit of intra-group solidarity is the ability of a united group to compete and defend itself.

Evolutionary psychologists would argue that natural selection favoured those genes that caused humans to be altruistic towards members of their own group but intolerant of outsiders. It may be an adaptive response, to exaggerate negative stereotypes about outsiders – over-perception of threat is less

Studying: the growth of xenophobic political organization (Northern League) in Northern Italy accompanied overtly racist chants and banners at football games.

Evan & Rowe, 2002: Examined data from 40 football matches played in Europe during 1999/2000. They found that there was more disorder with games involving the National side than

Correlations do not show cause/effect

Real-Life Application: Power of xenophobia to invoke violence has motivated football clubs to take steps to minimize its influence. Thus, there is a real potential for real life application of research in this area.

Reductionism: May have promoted fitness of the species in different, past environments but it doesn’t really fit anymore because of its huge emphasis on adaptiveness.Determinism: Genes cannot always determine behaviour but it has been recognised that it can influence behaviour as well as

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costly than not. club sides. So, one interpretation is that Nationalism and xenophobia is more likely to occur when the national team plays.

adapt and be tempered with using other factors like culture etc.

Adaptive Response: Religious Rituals & Warfare

Rare in the animal kingdom – only social insects, chimpanzees, dolphins and humans appear to form coalitions to attack other members of their species.

Fighting to the end is a bad strategy as it reduces the chances of that group’s ability to pass on their genes etc. Their opponents may even have evolved to gain the same resources and strategies too.

Logically, it would be better for two parties to agree on the likely winner beforehand because otherwise, both would have paid for their loss/win with energy and resources.

Group displays include demonstrations of military strength = Soldiers marching. Or religious rituals. By making membership costly, group solidarity is increased.

But, sticking together means winning and more benefits than fighting alone.

Sosis et al, 2005: Collected data from 60 societies on the cost of group rituals and the frequency of warfare.

Found that the frequency of warfare was the strongest predictor in the costliness of that society’s male ritual displays.

Also found that the type of displays favoured within a particular society as a signal of commitment depended on the nature of warfare common in that society.

This research showed a positive correlation between external warfare and permanent badges of group memberships which supports the theory that costly signalling has evolved to signal commitment and promote group solidarity.

Nature vs. Nurture: Difficult to provide evidence for the existence of the genetic contribution of group display of aggression.

Gender Bias: Most of the research into group display has involved males.

Reductionist: Gross & Rolls, 2009: argue out that there is no agreed definition for what constitutes group display. It is unclear if the term refers to a crowd or protest march. So, unlikely that a single explanation is suited to all the different types of behaviour.