Aggression A2 Psychology

Aggression A2 Psychology

1. Psychological Explanations

   • Deindividuation
     • Not all aggressive behavior is within an individual, people tend to behave more aggressively when in a large anonymous group
       • Presence of a large group
       • Decreased self awareness and self evaluation by others
       • Anonymity
       • Diffused responsibility, guilt and accountability
         • DEINDIVIDUATION
           • You become more responsive to situational cues and have a loss of social inhibition
       • EVIDENCE
         • Trick or Treat, Deiner et al 1976
           • 27 women gave out sweets to 1000 children
           • Half were asked their names and addresses, the other ha;f remained anonymous
           • Women answered a phone call and told the children to only take one sweet
           • Anonymous children took the most sweets and were most likely to steal
             • children are more likely to steal when anonymous in a group due to deindividuation. +high ecological validity. - child sample. - operationalisation of aggression
         • Zimbardo 1969
           • groups of 4 female undergraduates delivered electric shocks to 'aid learning'
             • STRENGTHS
               • Watson: gathered data from the HRAF database and found that tribes who altered their appearance before going to war correlated with high instances of torture, mutilation and murder of their opponents. Whereas 7/10 societies who didn't change their appearance were less brutal towards their victims.
               • Francis et al, 2006. Adolescents were more comfortable seeking help on online chatrooms compared to the circumstances of a personal appointment with a doctor.
           • Half of participants wore lab coast and hoods, and sat in cubicles and remained anonymous. The other half wore name tags and could see each other
             • This suggests that anonymity is a key feature in deindividuation, and increased levels of aggression. - Gender bias. - Ethical Issues.
           • Anonymous participants shocked the learner for twice as long as the other participants
   • Social Learning Theory
     • Bandura believed that both operant and classical conditioning ignore the inner person, and so he argued that these ideas cant be used to explain behaviour
       • Children observe role models and imitate their behavior.
         • They also learn through VICARIOUS LEARNING, which means they learn through watching people either be rewarded or punished for aggressive behavior. iIf a role model is rewarded then children are more likely to imitate the behavior.
           • Characteristics and status of role models makes a child more likely to imitate their behavior.
             • There are certain conditions necessary for modeling to be effective...
               • ATTENTION
                 • The individual must first pay attention to the model.
               • RETENTION
                 • Individual must be able to remember the observed behaviour
               • MOTOR REPRODUCTION
                 • Individual must be able to replicate the behaviour
               • MOTIVATION
                 • Individual must want to replicate the behavior.
       • EVIDENCE
         • Bandura (1961) conducted the 'Bobo Doll' experiment. he used children aged 3-5 years old. Children observed an adult behaving either aggressively or passively towards a Bobo Doll in a room full of toys. Children were then frustrated by not being allowd to play with attractive toys before being put in a room with the Bobo Doll.
           • children who saw an adult behaving violently and aggressively, responded by imitating this behavior and attacked the Bobo Doll. Those who observed more passive behavior didn't behave aggressively and played with the toys.
         • CRITICISMS
           • Low ecological validity - as it uses a doll and so its hard to say whether the results would be the same with a real person. Although a follow-up study was conducted using real life clowns and the results were the same.
           • Demand Characteristics - there is potentially a risk that the children knew what was happening, one child said "Look mummy, that's the doll we are supposed to hit".
           • Ethical Issues - by teaching children aggressive behavior that they will potentially learn and reproduce.
         • STRENGTHS
           • A number of follow up studies have found similar results. One study using observation through TV showed consistent results.
           • Can explain cultural differences in aggression, some cultures hide aggression from children and hence form a more passive culture.
           • Follow up study showed evidence for Vicarious Learning. They found that those who saw a role model being rewarded for aggressive behavior reproduced such behavior more than those who saw models being punished. Vicarious Learning can be used to explain aggression from a learning perspective without the need for direct reinforcement.
           • Can explain individual differences in aggression
         • IDA
           • Nature vs. Nurture... completely ignores the nature argument for aggression as it weighs heavily on the Nurture side of the argument, Social Learning Theory says that aggressive behavior is a learned behavior.