Aggression

Aggression

1. Social learning Theory

   • Observation
     • Operant Conditioning
       • learning takes place through direct reinforcement
     • Vicarious Reinforcement
       • Children witness many examples of aggressive behavior at home or at school. Children learn the behaviors through observation and they also learn when such behaviors are worth repeating through vicarious reinforcement.
   • Bandura et al (1961)
     • Children observed aggressive and no aggressive adult models
       • Male and Female children aged 3-5
         • Half exposed to adults who were violent/ aggressive towards a doll, and the other half exposed to adults who were pleasant and nice to the doll.
           • Children shown toys they weren't allowed to play with so built up frustration
             • Then taken to the room with the bobo doll in and told they could play with it.
               • The children exposed to aggressive behavior showed signs of aggressive behavior towards the doll and similar acts to what the adults had done
     • Evaluation
       • Boble (1975)
         • Demand characteristics- reports one child when arriving said 'look mummy, there's a doll, we have to hit it'. These focus on a doll rather then a real person, they may act different if it ewas an actual person wo can hit back.
         • Badura produced another experiment with a live clown, same thing happened as the bobo doll and they reacted in the same way by hitting and punching it.
   • Evaluation
     • Cultural Differences- can explain cultural differences in aggression.
     • Ethical issues- exsposing children to aggression is wrong, they may fel tha is the correct way to behave and later in life cause damage or hurt to someone else.

2. Deindividualisation

   • In a crowd the combination of anonymity, suggestibility and contagion means that collective minds takes possession of the individual. as a conseguence the idividula loses self-control and becomes capable of acting in a way that goes against social norms
   • Zimbardo (1969)
     • Group of female undergraduates asked to electric shock to other students to aid learning.
       • Half participants wore bulky lab coats and hoods to hide their faces. other participants were given huge name badges and were introduced by name.
         • participants in the deindividuation condition shocked the learner for twice as long as the identifiable participants.
     • Evaluation
       • Unethical
       • Gender bias
   • Diener et al (1976)
     • 27 women asked to give out sweets to 1000 trick or treaters
       • half children asked for name sand addresses others were annoymous
         • Whilst chatting to the children the phone rang and the women said take 1 sweet and she went to answer the phone
           • The participants who were anonymous were more likely to take more than one sweet.
     • Evaluation
       • Ethical problems
       • Just children hard to generalise
       • high ecological validity

3. Institutional Aggression

4. Neural and Hormonal

5. Genetics

   • Twin studies
     • Cocarro et al (1997)
       • 182 MZ and 118 DZ adults, Genes responsible for 50% of individual differences in direct aggression = 50% concordant rate
         • Environment likely responsible for 50%
           • Found environment responsible for 70% of individual differences in verbal aggression

6. Evolutionary Explanation

7. Group Display