What are the types of aggression
- Physical force (violence such as hitting or punching)
- Verbal (name calling, being rude)
- Social (ruining friendships, leaving someone out)
- Aggression can be direct and indirect
What are the categories of aggression?
- Affective aggression (reacting to something)
- Instrumental (beneficial, helps to get ahead)
- Some may have elements of both (reactive vs proactive
What is 2D:4D Ratio?
- Ratio is used for a proxy measure for testosterone
- The length of your index (pointing finger) vs. the length of your ring finger
- Men often have shorter index than ring fingers (low 2D:4D ratio)
- Levels of testosterone effects length of fingers
- Low 2D:4D links to higher levels of testosterone, making someone generally more aggressive
- Lower testosterone (feminine), less aggressive
What did Millet and Dewitte, 2009 find about 2D:4D ratio?
- Given an amount of resources, have an option whether to share resources with someone else
- 2 conditions were given, either given aggressive or neutral cues
- Measure 2D:4D ratio
- Primed with aggression, gave less (higher testosterone)
- Controlled condition gave less, goes against hypothesis
- Low testosterone, used to being less aggressive, assume their opponent may be stronger, used to being vulnerable, more agreeable, don’t like aggressive feelings, get rid of negative aggressive thoughts
How is testosterone linked to aggression?
- High levels lead to aggression
- Consistently found 0.14 correlation between aggression and levels of testosterone
- Berman, Gladue and Taylor (1993)
- More aggressive with the combination of type A personalities and testosterone
- Would administer higher levels of testosterone
Is testosterone correlation or causation?
- Competitive activities can also increase aggression, however this is only temporary
- Aggression is based more on general levels
- People undergoing sex reassignment administered with sex hormones showed increased or decreased aggression proneness
How can gender affect aggression?
Gender: may be more than hormones, might be linked to socialisation e.g. expecting to be more aggressive and manly
-Men more likely to be physically aggressive, whereas females are more likely to be verbally aggressive (e.g. verbal insults, spreading rumours)
How can personality affect aggression?
Personality: being aggressive is part of their personality, learnt to respond aggressively to different situations, due to ego being threatened, high sense of self
-Type A: overactive, competitive
How can alcohol affect aggression?
Alcohol: acting more primitive brain activity, detracts cortical control, more alcohol is more likely to make you more aggressive, less control over actions
What is the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis?
- Frustrating event leads to aggression, depends on how intense the frustration is
- E.g. being held up in a long queue
- Depends on the legitimacy of the situation (situation could be avoided or made easier)
What is the Catharsis Hypothesis?
- Aggression is an outlet for pent-up emotion
- Letting off steam to deal with frustration
- Can make the situation worse, can elevate levels of testosterone (poorly supported) and won’t get rid of aggression
What is Crowd Baiting?
- Crowd baiting, large crowds giving encouragement to commit suicide
- Similar to online chatrooms, people being nasty online
- Crowd baiting online, people giving encouragement online
What factors did Mann (1981) found affect crowd baiting?
- Deindividuation: sense of anonymity, less likely to be caught and punished (Ku Klux Klan, etc), loss of self can lead to aggressive behaviour
- More likely to happen if the crowd was big, at night time (less likely to be seen), physical distance (if the victim and crowd have distance between them), increased amount of time, factors such as heat (can make people restless), more likely to happen in cities (only because there is more people around), not identifying with the victim
What are examples of ritualsed aggresion?
- Ritualised ways of behaving in groups, higher social status
- Football hooligans, facing off and looking aggressive but no violence occurs, legitimate part of their lifestyle
- Acting violent to gain a place (e.g. in gangs), higher social status
- Agreed ‘codes’ which might not lead to violence
How does aggression differ between cultures?
- Western culture present non-violence and human rights as core cultural values
- Aggression can be linked to geographical factors (e.g. history of invasions, competition for resources)
- Can serve a function, can be due to human nature
What did Darwin 1872 find when looking at aggression and animals?
- Animals indicate signals with how they will react next e.g. puffing feathers, becoming bigger
- Posture and submission
- Emotional expressions, facing an enemy, realising when aggression is being shown, communicate aggression
- Likely to back down if aggression is being shown
- Shown in humans through facial expressions, recognise that aggression is being shown
What does aggression show in primates?
Aggression shows social competence, younger chimpanzees may act aggressive but inhibit this behaviour when approached by a dominant adult
-Monkeys who have been reared in isolation may show signs of inappropriate aggression
Acting aggressive can be beneficial in society…
- Co-opting others’ resources
- Defending against attack
- Inflicting costs on same sex rivals
- Negotiating status and power hierarchies
- Deterring rivals from future aggression
- Deterring mates from sexual infidelity
Reducing resources spent on genetically unrelated children
Can killing be evolutionary?
Chimps have been found to carry out planned killing – e.g. suggests that war can be an evolutionary response
- Suggests that humans live in larger groups to defend against other groups
- Can be difficult to find a link between animals and humans
What did Anderson and Bushman (2001) find about video games?
- Supports that violent video games can cause aggression, increases physiological arousal
- Decreases pro-social behaviour
- Reviews have said that this study is bias, however there is strong evidence to support this study
What is the Excitation-transfer model (Zilman, 1979, 1988)?
-Expression of aggression is due to:
1. Learned aggressive behaviour
2. Arousal/excitation from another source
Interpretation of arousal state
