1
Q
What is aggression?
A
Behavior that is intended to and in fact does harm another person by inflicting pain or injury
It is sometimes difficult to determine whether an action was intentional or accidental
2
Q
What do alternatives definitions of aggression focus on?
A
- The form of the act
- The outcome of the act
3
Q
What does the best definition of aggression focus on?
A
- the aggressor, the victim, and the community
- An act is aggressive if the aggressor intends it to harm the victim, the victim perceives it to be harmful, and it is considered aggressive according to the norms of the community
4
Q
What is proactive aggression?
A
Behavior in which a person is hurt or injured by someone who is motivated by a desire to achieve a specific goal (instrumental aggression)
5
Q
What is reactive aggression?
A
A form of hostile behavior in response to an attack, threat, or frustration, usually motivated by anger (hostile aggression)
6
Q
What is physical aggression?
A
Hostile behavior that inflicts physical pain or discomfort
7
Q
What is verbal aggression?
A
Words that inflict pain by yelling, insulting, ridiculing, humiliating
8
Q
What is relational aggression?
A
Behaviour that damages or destroys interpersonal relationships by means such as exclusion or gossip
9
Q
What is social aggression
A
Verbal attacks or hurtful nonverbal gestures, such as rolling the eyes or sticking out the tongue
10
Q
what is direct aggression?
A
Physical or verbal hostile behavior that directly targets another person
11
Q
What is indirect aggression?
A
Hostile behavior by an unidentified perpetrator that hurts another person by indirect means
12
Q
What are examples of indirect and direct physical aggression?
A
Direct: Pushing, hitting, kicking, punching, or shoving a person
Indirect: Destroying a person’s property, getting someone else to physically hurt the person
13
Q
What are examples of direct and indirect verbal aggression?
A
Direct: Insulting, putting down, name-calling, or teasing a person
Indirect: Gossiping, saying mean things behind a person’s back, urging someone else to verbally abuse the person
14
Q
What are examples of direct and indirect relational aggression?
A
- Excluding, threatening to stop liking a person
- Spreading rumors or lies, exposing secrets about a person, ignoring or betraying the person, building an alliance that excludes the person
15
Q
How can aggression be adaptive in early childhood?
A
-Early childhood - aggressive interchanges can teach young children how to settle conflicts and disputes and promote their social-cognitive growth
16
Q
How can aggression be adaptive in middle childhood?
A
-Middle childhood: aggression can be used as a way to attract peers and impress them with the aggressor’s toughness
17
Q
How can aggression be adaptive in adolescence?
A
Adolescence: demonstration of aggressive prowess may be a key to maintaining membership or rising in the status hierarchy of a gang
18
Q
How might adaptive advantages be mixed with maladaptive outcomes?
A
Gaining status with peers especially deviant peers can lead to increases in deviant activities and increased contact with authorities including law enforcement
19
Q
Who is more likely to be involved in direct physical aggression incidents?
A
By toddlerhood boys are more likely than girls to instigate and be involved in direct physical aggressive incidents
20
Q
among 3-5 year olds, who is more physically aggressive?
A
boys are more physically aggressive than girls and this difference persists through adolescence
21
Q
Who is more likely to disapprove of aggression?
A
Girls are more likely than boys to disapprove of aggression and to anticipate parental disapproval for acting aggressively
22
Q
In what ways are girls aggressive?
A
- Relational aggression is used as early as preschool and continues to grow in sophistication during middle childhood and adolescence
- BUT boys use relational aggression as much as girls do–although they use physical aggression more than girls
23
Q
What have researchers found about aggression for early and late starters?
A
- Researchers have found that aggression is relatively stable over time for both boys and girls, especially physical aggression
- Early starters - Children who start to behave aggressively at a young age - often remain aggressive through childhood and adolescence
- Although a small % remain aggressive (12% boys; 1% girls)
- Late starters - Children who begin to act aggressively in adolescence - tend not to continue their aggressive behavior in adulthood
24
Q
_______ twins are rated more similarly than _______ twins on aggressive behaviour
A
identical; non-identical
25
What type of aggression is more heritable?
Physical aggression (50%) appears to be more heritable than social aggression (20%)
26
The antisocial behavior of _____ starters is more heritable than that of ______ starters
Early; Late
27
How are temperament and aggression related?
- Infants with an irritable, irregular, or difficult temperament in the first year of life are more hostile at age 3
- Children who are rated as noncompliant, overactive, and ill tempered at age 3 have externalizing behavior problems, including physical aggression at age 9
- Young children who lack self-control are more likely to become aggressive at an early age and to remain so
- Fearful toddlers are more likely to display aggression through age 8
28
What links have been found between aggression and neurotransmitters?
Serotonin - regulates endocrine glands, alters attention and emotions, and is linked to aggression
- Deficits in CNS serotonin are linked to heightened levels of severe aggression in adults
- The link between serotonin and aggression has not been as clear in research with children
29
What are the links between hormones and aggression?
- Links between testosterone and aggression in nonhuman animals and humans (e.g., Adolescent violent offenders have higher levels of testosterone than nonviolent offenders)
- May be an indirect effect. Testosterone → Irritability → Aggressive Behavior
- Aggression may also lead to increases in testosterone
30
What prenatal conditions could affect levels of aggression?
- Smoking by women who are pregnant lowers their babies’ birth weight and doubles the risk that the children will later exhibit antisocial, aggressive behavior
- Children are also more aggressive if they were exposed to cocaine prenatally
31
How can parents and attachment to them affect children's aggression levels?
- Children are less likely to become aggressive if they establish secure relationships with their parents in their first year
- Children are more likely to become aggressive if parents are critical and negative, or controlling
- Children are more likely to become aggressive when physical punishment is used, especially when the parent-child relationship lacks warmth or physical punishment is unusual in the culture
32
How does abusive parenting affect aggression?
- Abusive parenting increases children’s aggression and other antisocial behavior, even after controlling for genetic transmission
- It is likely that abuse has both direct and indirect effects on children’s aggression
- Develop with less empathy and decreased ability to “read” others’ emotions
33
What is the Coercion model of aggression (Patterson)?
- Parents and children inadvertently “train” each other via mutually coercive behavior
1) Parents interfere with children’s ongoing activity (i.e., turn off TV)
2) Children respond by complaining, whining, protesting
3) Parents give in to the children’s complaints
4) Children stop their defiance and noncompliance, but next time have to ramp it up in a subsequent “battle” because the same complaining does not work.
5) Children have learned that coercive (aggressive) behavior controls parents; parents have learned that child compliance requires firmer and firmer control
34
How do parents involvement shape their children's aggressive development?
- development through their management of the children’s activities
- Lack of monitoring can contribute to an increase in children’s aggressive behavior. Some parents know where their children are and with whom, others do not know where their children are
- Children are more likely to develop aggressive patterns of behavior if their parents are unaware of their activities and make no effort to prevent negative experiences
35
How do peers influence aggression?
- Peer rejection contributes to greater aggressive behavior over time
- Aggression is a cause and a consequence of peer rejection
- If the peer group is aggressive, the adolescent is also likely to be aggressive
36
What is deviance training?
Amplification of aggression that occurs when adolescents are with and learn from aggressive peers
37
How do neighbourhoods act as breeding groups for aggression?
- Children living in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and unemployment are more likely to experience aggression from adults, and, in turn, become more aggressive themselves
- Exposure to neighborhood violence (gun shots) contributes to distress and aggressive behavior
38
How can culture act as a determinant of aggression?
-Rates of death by homicide (an index of aggression) per 100,000 people
Norway = 1.0
Canada = 1.4
United States = 7.6
Brazil = 25.8
-Individualistic cultures have more child and adolescent aggression than collectivist cultures
-Societies that place a high value on hierarchy, status, and power have higher levels of aggression than cultures that emphasize egalitarianism
39
How many estimated murders and violent acts has a child seen by the end of elementary school?
- Estimated that by the end of elementary school, the average U.S. child has seen more than 8,000 murders and 100,000 other violent acts on network television
- Both physical and relational aggression are portrayed on many shows intended for children
40
How much variance does Tv account for in childrens aggression and how long does this aggressive behaviour last?
- TV viewing accounts for 10% of the variance in children’s aggression
- Impact of TV violence on aggressive behaviour lasts into adulthood
- Longitudinal studies following children into in their 20’s show this
41
What do experimental and correlation studies show about violence in the media?
- Both experimental and correlational studies document a link between television viewing and increased aggressive behavior
- TV and film violence has a particularly strong effect on children who are already aggressive
42
How might video/computer games contribute to children's aggressive behaviour?
- Video games and computer games offer children images of violence and the opportunity to act aggressively in a virtual world and may contribute to increases in children’s aggressive behavior
- Longitudinal and cross-cultural evidence
- The effect of exposure is similar for both sexes
43
When are children most likely to be criminals?
- Children who have both an adopted and a biological parent who are criminals are much more likely than children with only one such parent to become criminals themselves
- Thus, the combination of genetic and environmental influences makes aggressive behavior particularly likely
44
What types of temperament/traits predict later aggression?
Difficult, ill-tempered, or impulsive early temperament is more likely to predict later aggression when conditions in the environment support aggressive behavior
45
What are some protective factors for aggression?
- Adolescents living in poor neighborhoods are less likely to be affected by exposure to community violence if they have positive relationships with parents
- Aggressive children are less likely to be violent at age 18 if parents monitor their activities and they attended religious services at age 15
- Physically abused children are less likely to be violent if involved in a religious community and have parents and peers who disapprove of antisocial behavior
46
What is the social information processing theory?
Children may view other children’s behaviours as aggressive when they may not be (i.e., bumping into someone in the hall is an act of aggression vs. an accident.
47
What is hostile attribution bias?
A tendency to interpret neutral or ambiguous social behavior of another person as being hostile
48
What are the 5 steps of the social information processing theory?
1) Encode cues (aggressive children attend selectively to aggressive cues – and do not recognize cues as other possibilities, i.e., a busy crowded hallway)
2) Interpret the cues (aggressive children interpret cues as intentionally hostile vs. accidental or harmless). This is called hostile attribution bias.
3) Review possible behavioral responses (aggressive children generate fewer and lower quality responses on how to deal with an “incident”)
4) Choose a response (aggressive children less likely to consider the consequences and expect more payoff and success from aggressiveness)
5) Translate the selected response into action – and aggress. (aggressive children less competent at enacting nonaggressive responses)
49
What type of aggression do bullies use?
- Bullies use direct, indirect, physical, and relational aggression
- Girls are more likely to use relational aggressive tactics; boys are more likely to use physical aggressive tactics
50
What can bullying result in for the bullies?
Bullying can result in gains in status. Bullies choose victims not likely to be defended by socially significant others
51
What in terms of bullying, increases and decreases with age?
Acceptance of bullying increases and defense of victims decreases with age
52
What is victimization?
- The process of being threatened or harmed on a consistent basis by a more powerful peer
- Boys more likely to be physically attacked; girls more likely to be relationally attacked
53
Describe passive victims
are anxious or appear weak and respond nonaggressively to bullying (most victims are passive)
54
Describe Proactive victims
engage in aggressive behavior when attacked
55
What consequences may bullies develop?
- conduct disorders,
- have elevated levels of school disengagement,
- suffer from severe depression
56
What consequences are victims likely to experience?
- be rejected by peers
- experience problems in school
- have low social status and low self-esteem
- experience depression
- have difficulty forming new friendships
- suffer in terms of academic achievement
57
What consequences are bully-victims likely to experience?
Bully-victims (both bullies and victims at the same time) are:
- even more likely than either bullies or victims to be avoided by their classmates
- to show high rates of conduct problems and school disengagement
58
What is cyberfighting?
- when children or adolescents videotape a fight and post it on a site such as YouTube or MySpace
- Posting the record of the fight on the Internet gives the attackers attention, torments the victim, and provokes copycat conflicts
59
What is cyberbullying?
Making threats or using embarrassment or humiliation directed at a victim with some form of interactive digital medium such as the Internet
60
what are the differences between cyberbulling vs. in person bullying?
- Can occur at any time of the day or night
- Messages and images can be distributed quickly to a wide audience
- Often done anonymously, which makes it difficult (and sometimes impossible) to trace
- Cyberbullying has led to suicide
61
What kinds of cognitive modification strategies have led to decreased aggression?
- Teaching aggressive children how to read other people’s behavioral cues has led to decreased hostile attribution bias and decreased aggression
- Additional strategies that can reduce aggression include having children…
- -Make aggressive children stop and think about their social problems
- -Consider alternative responses
- -Contemplate negative consequences of aggression for themselves and others
- -Cooperate and take turns
62
What is parent management training?
Goal is to extinguish parents’ coercive behavior in favor of consistent, and clear rules that lead to child compliance (often based on the interactions cycles – Patterson et al.)
- Helps to reduce child aggression, especially for children under age 10
- Other programs focusing on changing similar parenting behaviors have also been successful in reducing child aggression
63
What is the steps to respect program?
- school wide antibullying policies and procedures
- classroom-based cognitive-behavioral curriculum to address peer norms about bullying and teach children social-emotional skills for responding to bullying and increasing peer acceptance
- a selective coaching intervention for students involved in bullying
- Program helped to reduce bullying incidents and reduce encouragement of bullying by others.
64
When were the results of the steps to respect program most effective?
- when the amount of time in the program was longer
- for those who did the most bullying before the program
- for those who received individual coaching.
65
What is the most effective approach to reducing aggression?
- Because many factors determine aggression, taking a multifaceted approach to reducing it may be most effective
- Significantly reduced aggression in 4th – 7th grade
66
What are the 4 goals of the multipronged program developed by Dan Olweus?
(stemmed from 3 bullied boys committing suicide in Norway in 1983)
1) to increase public awareness of the problem
2) to actively involve teachers and parents
3) to provide support and protection for victims of aggression
4) to develop clear classroom rules to combat aggressive behavior
67
Aggressive behaviour is affected by both....
- social factors (television, parents, peers) and
| - biological factors (prenatal problems, genetic influences, temperament )
