What is aggression?
- behaviour directed toward another individual that is carried out with the immediate (proximate) intent to cause harm
- have to rule out consensual harm
What is violence?
Aggression that has extreme harm as its goal (severe injury / death)
All violence is aggression
What are the forms and functions of aggression?
Forms: physical, verbal, relational (hurting another person’s relationships), digital (hurting someone online), direct / indirect
Functions:
reactive (hot, hostile, angry aggression - emotionally reactive),
proactive (instrumental aggression, hurting someone because you want to get something from them) and
automatic (automatic response - respond to the same triggers so many times it becomes reflexive)
What dimensions capture instances of aggression?
- degree to which the goal is to harm the victim vs benefit the perpetrator
- level of hostility / agitated emotion
- degree of thinking through the act
Animal behaviour - aggression
- gender differences; male animals are more aggressive, more likely to attack / fight
- Hydraulic hypothesis: idea that aggression builds up over time and is released or unlocked in certain circumstances –> lack of empirical support
Clinical psychology - aggression
DSM-V disorder categorised by aggression
- anti-social, narcissistic, borderline, paranoid personality disorders
- conduct disorder (children)
- addiction (esp. alcohol, amphetamines)
- paranoia, delusions, psychosis
- sadism, masochism
- intermittent explosive disorder
- conflict management, anger management, counselling
- therapeutic interventions
Cognitive psychology - aggression
- Aggression neural networks - establishing links /pathways in the brain: the more aggression / violence we experience, the greater the number of nodes and strength of connection –> creates a script
- Cognitive neo-association theory: assumes that memories, emotions, thoughts and plans for action are linked together in the brain in this neural network –> connecting these cognitive pathways to behaviours and emotions
–> either fight or flight tendency will dominate - if ‘fight’ dominates, the thoughts, feelings and plans of actions are more likely to be aggressive
Developmental psychology
= aggression peaks in toddler years
- declines with age and conflict/relationship strategies
- physical aggression becomes replaced with forms that have fewer consequences (relational, indirect aggression) –> developing better strategies
- gene-environment interactions (parents, media, environment)
- hostile-attribution bias
Emotion psychology
- anger tied to aggression
- shame (humiliation) tied to aggression
- jealousy tied to aggression (evolution)
Frustration Aggression Hypothesis (Dollard)
- when blocked from attaining a goal, frustration ensures which leads to aggression (but not all aggressive acts can be traced back to frustration)
Evolutionary psychology
- aggression is ‘hard wired’ and instinctual
- aggression is linked with reproductive success and survival of the fittest (coopting resources of others, defending against attack, inflicting costs on rivals, status and power, deterring infidelity)
Health Psychology
Increased risk of poor health, early mortality, mental health problems, decreased life satisfaction
Injury, trauma related to being a victim of aggression / violence
Learning theories
Much of aggression is learnt
- classical conditioning: one thing is associated with another
- operant conditioning: rewarding or punishing aggression
- if someone is aggressive with no consequence, it reinforces the behaviour
Social Learning Theory:
- people acquire aggressive tendencies through direct or indirect experience –> Bobo doll experiments
- more likely to copy aggressive models who are respected or liked or high status, who are familiar or similar, who are rewarded for their behaviours, if we have self-efficacy for aggression
Neurological / biological approachces
Genetics: twin studies suggest substantial heritability of trait aggression in children
Epigenetics: gene-environment interactions (negative maltreatment in childhood expresses aggressive behaviour)
Dopaminergic genes
- g allele and a allele are related to aggressive behaviour when in nteraction with negative environmental factors
NT linked with aggression
- serotonin deficits linked to aggression
- hi GABA levels in rodents linked with aggression
- dopamine and impulsivity linked with aggression
Hormones lined
- high testosterone (especially when low cortisol and serotonin)
- low cortisol, low oxytocin
- low oestrogen, progresterone
Biological Approaches
Accelerator: activation of limbic system (rewards, instincts, survival) especially in the amygdala (emotion centre)
Brake: poor function / damage to frontal lobes (deficits in orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral pfc)
Attenuation of stress system: underarousal
- lower resting heart rate
- under arousal of CNS and ANS
Organisational Psychology
- bullying in the workplace
- aggression
- indirect aggression
- dominance and status
Perception
- cues for fight or flight mechanisms
- noise, heat, aggression
- concerns about global warming and increasing aggression
Personality
- aggressive drive (Freud) - every person has innated aggression and sexual drives that provide their energy to push them through life
- the more advanced the animal, the more able it is to inhibit aggressive urges
- trait aggression
- impulsivity
- emotional susceptibility
- callous and unemotional traits (psychopathy, machiavellianism, narcissism)
- shame proneness
Big 5 personality
Low:
- aggreeableness (compliance)
- conscientiousness (deliberation)
- extraversion (warmth)
High: neuroticism (angry hostility)
Relationship psychology
- indirect aggression and relational aggression –> DV, child abuse
- power and dominance
- jealousy
- overlap with evolutionary psychology
Social psychology
- aggression elicited by the situation rather than by personality
- cognitive dissonance theory
- aggressive schemas and knowledge structures (learned social behaviours, triggers)
- social interaction theory: aggression as a means of achieving desired goals (instrumental)
The General Aggression Model
Craig Anderson and Bushman
- aggression depends on the nature of the situation (triggering facets) and what the person brings to it (beliefs, personality, memoires)
- whether or not someone responds to a situation with aggression depends on the nature of their thoughts, feelings, phsyiological responses, etc
Person variables and situation variables feed into cognitions, accessible affects (emotions) and arousal –> immediate appraisal, whether they have resources to reappraise, their response
Person inputs in the GAM
- evolutionary factors and drives
- biology
- personality
- cognitive (beliefs, attitudes, scripts)
- emotional tendency
- gender
- perceptions
Situational factors
Aggressive cues
procovation
frustration
pain
drugs
triggers
What is the I^3 model
Three I’s
- instigators
- impellers (trait aggression)
- inhibitors (self-control, sobriety, etc)
Net effect of the risk factors and protective factors
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