EXPLANATIONS OF AGGRESSION

EXPLANATIONS OF AGGRESSION

1. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF AGGRESSION

   • Institutional aggression
     • SITUATION MODEL - behaviour is due to the environment within the prison
     • IMPORTATION MODEL - behaviour brought in

2. BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF AGGRESSION

3. EVOLUTION AND AGGRESSION

   • GROUP DISPLAYS
     • lynch mob
       • These occurred in the 19th century .. promotion of survival of the group - discrimination against outsiders - MINORITY GROUPS GAINING POWER - whits attempt to maintain dominance through fear
         • THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!! WHYYYY????!!! ... psychology not excuseiology
         • THE POWER THREAT HYPOTHESIS - groups that pose a threat to the majority more likely to be discriminated
     • The evolutionary approach = "humans are animals" therefore we have an 'innate desire' to do 3 things ...
       • GAINING TERRITORY + DEFENDING AGAINST ATTACKS
       • 1.PROTECT OURSELVES 2.PROTECT OUR OFFSPRING 3.PASS ON OUR GENES
     • SPORTS EVENTS
       • Xenophobia - suspicion about strangers, adaptive as it helps avoid attack. Demonstrated in xenophobic responses of italian football crowds, xenophobia more evident with national sides rather than club sides (clubs more ethnically diverse)
         • FOLDESI (1996) found a link between xenophobi outburst and crowd violence among hungarian football crowds.
           • "exaggerating a threat is ultimately safer than ignoring it"
         • AO2 - "Shaw and Wong" argue that mechanisms prompting suspicion toward strangers would be favoured by natural selection
     • CRED violence
       • also known as hazing - similar to initiation - showing commitment to a group through doing something violent to themselves
         • EG: ANT GLOVES
           • SUPPORTS EVOLUTIONARY THEORY = Because belonging to a group increases chances of survival the EEA is about survival therefore the genotype for this who didn't adapt are less likely to have survived
             • the predisposition of attempting to be part of a group = CRED is evolutionary