A2 Psychology- Aggression

Aggression

• - Social Psychological explanations of aggression- Deindividuation and Social Learning Theory
• - Institutional aggression- The importation model, Deprivation model, Hazing
• - Neural Mechanisms- Amygdala, Pre frontal cortex
• -Hormonal Mechanisms- Testosterone
• - Evolutionary explanations of human aggression including infidelity and jealousy
• - Genetic factors in aggressive behaviour- XYY Syndrome, MAOA gene
• - Group Display- war and sporting events

Deindividuation

• Assumptions of the theory- When a large group of individuals are together they are more likely to behave in an anti social manor.
• When an individual is submerged in a group they feel less identifiable, meaning they no longer govern them selves by societies norms. In a group there is shared responsibility for actions reducing the individual sense of guilt.
• Items such as uniform can reduce personal identity especially if the uniform involves covering part of the face- eg the KKK uniform or glasses worn in Zimbardo's prison experiment.
• The deindividuated state of feeling part of a crowd or group membership are likely to cause aggression to increase.
• Research evidence- Zimbardo
• The Stanford Prison Experiment (1973)- Male students from Standford uni, 24 selected after initial questionnaires, split into two groups- Guards or Prisoners.
• Guards- Reflective sunglasses, khaki outfit, batton.
• Prisoners- White smock, no underwear, assigned number instead of name, chains round ankle.
• The experiment was initially supposed to go on for two weeks but was cut short after 5 days due to extreme cases.
• The guards abused the prisoners eg- press ups, solitary, clean toilets, mild homosexual behaviour.
• Zimbardo (1969)- Female undergraduatesdivided into 2 groups, group 1 dressed in loose fitting lab coats and had hoods over their faces, group 2 wore own clothes and given name badges. All Ps watched a woman being interviewed and were asked to rate her performance (some interviewees mild mannered and other rude and obnoxious) the Ps evaluated the interviewee by electric shock. The Ps who were idnetifiable by name electrocuted the rude interviewee more however they found that those who were unidentifiable shocked both interviewees equally- concluded aggression is due to anonymity and is not based on the character of the individual.
• Real life Example- Abu Graibh prison
• Evaluation- All large grouos don't end in violence, support for deindividuation is mixed, ethical issues in supporting research.

Social Learning Theory

• Assumptions of the theory- social learning theory suggests we can learn through observing others rather than having to learn directly.
• SLT accepts that there are differences at a biological levels in individuals as to those who are more likely to be aggressive but believes it is the environment which affects how aggressive we are.
• Observation- aggressive behaviour is learned through observing others, namely role models, children watch how that behaviour is enforced or punished and then they may imitate the bahviour- This indirect learning is called Vicarious Reinforncement.
• Research-
• Bandura (1961)- Children aged 3-5, 36 boys and 36 girls.
• Adult in room with child and bobo doll begins aggressive attack on the bobo doll for around ten mins, kicking, screaming, punching, hammering.
• Found that every child who watched the atatck copied the actions of the adult, with adults of the same sex being more influential.
• Control group- adult treating doll well resulted in the child treating the doll well.
• The experiment used all matched pairs after children were previously tested for aggression.
• Philips (1986)- Daily homicides always increased the week following a major boxing match, suggesting that viewers were imitating behaviour they had watched on screen suggesting that social learning theory is evident in adults as well as children.
• Wolfgang and Farracuti (1967)- Proposes that some cultures violence us more sanctioned than others, usually in smaller subcultures.Some cultures may emphasise or modle non aggressive behaviour and so produce individuals with lower level aggression.
• Real life- James Bulger murdered by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson
• Evaluation- Cognitive processes accepted, research evidence supports theory.
• Bandura's research measures aggression in play, nature/nurture debate.

Institutional Aggression

• The Importation Model- Irwin and Cressey (1962)
• Claim that prisoers bring their own social histories into the prison and this influences their adaptation to prison environment. Suggest that prisoners are not blank slates when they enter the prison and many of the normative systems found outside would be imported into the prison.
• Haffer and Steffensmeir- information from 58 US prisons . Found that black males were more aggressive but had a lot less drug and alcohol convictions than white males. These parallel US societies and so support the model.
• The Deprivation Model- This model argues that prisoner or patient aggression is the product of the stressful and oppressive institutions (Paterline and Peterson) This includes crowding which is believed to increase fear and frustration.
• There is substantial evidence to support the claim that peer violence is used to relieve the deprivation imposed by the institutional cultures such as prisons. McCorkle et al (1995) found thatover crowding and lack of privacy and meaningful activity all significantly influence peer violence, however, research in this area is not consistent with this finding for example Nijman et al found that increased personal violence did not decrease the levels of violent incidents among patients.
• Hazing- Hazing is an initiation practice , most common among young people, in which members of a group eg fraternity, army, or sports team. They force new comers to do unpleasant, humiliating or dangerous tasks as a pre equisite to becoming a fully fledged member of the group.
• Genocide - 5 stages to Genocide.
• 1- Difficult social conditions
• 2- Scapegoating
• 3- Negative evaluation and dehumanisation
• 4- Moral values
• 5- Pasitivity

Neural Mechanisms

• Amygdala- Early research on animals as far back as 1930s has implicated the amgdala in the control of aggression.
• Narabayashi (1972)- 43/51 patients whos Amygdala was destroyed through psychosurgery showed reduced aggression afterwards.
• Mark and Ervin (1970)- Case study of female patients behaviour following electrical stimulation of Amygdala. She exhibited facial grimacing, extreme anger, and flung herself at the walls.
• Ashford (1980)- temporal lobe epileptics often become aggressive attacking furniture and people.
• Pre Frontal Cortex- Regulates the emotional responses and drives the Amygdala which is directly linked to the limbic system.
• Anderson et al (1999)- 2 case studies.
• Both damaged pre-frontal cortex during infancy before 16 months, both children showed anti social behaviour, including aggression, starting in child and persisting into adult hood. Their behaviour closely resembled that of 25 adults with adult on set damage. However, early on set sufferers performed very badly on tests of social and moral reasoning showing similar levels to that of a 10 year old. If damaged when younger it never forms properly.
• Raine Et Al (1997)- PET scans to look at 41 murderers brain activity. Found reduced glucose metabolism in the pre frontal cortex meaning it is not as active as non murderers. Found reduced activity in the Amygdala, these areas are also all critical for learning, memory, and morals. This supports the suggestion that violent offenders often have difficulty forming emotional responses and learning from experience so allows them to carry on aggressive acts more easily.

Hormonal Mechanisms

• Testosterone- Males produce testosterone in the Testes, women also produce testosterone but in smaller amounts by converting DHEA produced in the adrenal glands. The nature of the link between testosterone and aggressive behaviour is not a simple biological cause and effect mechanism. Testosterone makes it more likely that a particular behaviour will be expressed, whether or not increased levels lead to increased aggressive behaviour it is important to remember aggression can be the result of other factors such as previous experience.
• Research-
• Beetman (1947)- castrated male rats and found aggression decrease but only if castrated before puberty, the age at which the animal begins to develop aggressive behaviour. It suggests testosterone contributes to the development of aggressive behaviour but once the behaviour is established it does not seem to have an effect.
• Dabbs et al (1995)- Looked at relationship between crime and prison behaviour and testosterone. Measured testosterone in saliva of 692 adult male prisoners and found that those who had committed crimes involving sex and violence had higher levels of testosterone than those who had committed crimes like burglary and theft. Those with higher levels of testosterone also showed higher levels of confrontation within the prison.

Evolutionary explanations of aggression

• Mate retention strategies- Daly and Wilson (1988)
• Claim that men in particular have evolved a number of mate retention strategies to deter their mate from leaving them or committing adultery with another man. They have to ensure that their offspring is their own to avoid cuckoldry.
• Mate retention strategies include- Direct guarding- Males trying to restrict their partners sexual autonomy, no speaking to other men, always checking their texts, always going out with the women.
• Research-
• Shackelford (2006)- Studied a sample of 461 men and 560 women from US universities or the surrounding communities. All Ps were in committed heterosexual relationships.
• Study 1- Males- mean age of 24.2 years , mean age of partner 23.2 years. Mean length of relationship-37.3 months
• - Male Ps completed the Male retention inventory concerning their use of 104 male retention strategies in the previous month
• Found- Men's use of retention strategies correlated with their violence scores , men who used emotional manipulation were more prone to violence in their relationship.
• Study 2- Females- mean age 21.5 years, mean age of partner was 23.7 years, mean length of relationship 28.8 years.
• Female Ps answered questions about their partner's use of retention strategies towards them and the degree to which their partner was violent towards them.
• Found- these students results confirmed that of study 1.

Genetic factors in Aggressive behaviour

• XYY Syndrome- Some men are born with an extra Y chromosome, the male chromosome. Early work suggested that as males exhibit more aggressive behaviour having an extra male chromosome would heighten aggression. The incidence of XYY syndrome in the general population is 0.1% where as in prisons is 3%, it has been shown that these men are often taller than average, have higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of intelligence compared with XY males.
• Research- Witken et al (1973)
• Conducted a large scale study on the link between aggression and XYY syndrome and found no link. They did find a link between XYY syndrome and lower levels of intelligence, they were more likely to commit crimes but on closer inspection they didn't tend to be aggressive crimes, they were just more likely to get caught due to their low levels of intelligence.
• MAOA Gene- monamine oxidase A gene regulates the enzyme MAOA in the brain. This enzyme is known to breakdown several neurotransmitters such as serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine. By removing excess amounts of these chemicals MAOA helps neyrons communicate with each other more effectively.
• Research- Brunner et al (1993)
• Discovered mutations in the MAOA gene in a dutch family where only male members of the family showed violence. Investigators showed this gene to be defected in the X chromosomes only, as males only have one X chromosome and females have two, the females had a "spare" X chromosome they use this rather than the defective one.
• Cases et al (1995)- Turned off the X chromosome in mice and found that males become highly aggressive, females were unaffected by this procedure. Males lacking MAOA enzyme meant tehir neurotransmitter levels went too high causing aggression.
• Caspi et al - studied neurotransmitters and what happens when they are not properly metabolised. They found that when males had low MAOA and and also maltreated as a child they were more likely to manifest in anti social behaviour.

Group Display- War and Sports events

• Chagnon (1968)- Groups are more powerful and offer greater protection, the most intelligent species opt for external course of action.
• Pinker (1997)- Men are willing to fight if the odds of being killed are low, success in war can give a warrior status and increase attractiveness and therefore chance of offspring. The cause of battle tends to be the abduction of women and so aggression is to enforce dominance.
• Wrangham (1999)- Often deceive ourselves believing we can win, cohesion and co operation can improve a group. Self deception can lead to an inaccurate assessment of own abilities. Strategies of positive illusion only adaptive to humans if they succeed often enough for the benefits to outweigh the costs.
• Group Display- The Haka- Traditional Maori dance ritual designed to evoke the god of war, designed to show strength and prowess including contorting the face, sticking out of tongue, showing the whites of the eyes, foot stomping and body slapping. Words are also emitted and they chants, cry, moan and grunt.
• Maxwell and Viscek (2009)- 144 rugby union players questioned about aggression within the game. Other factors such as professionalism also taken into account, players higher in professionalism placed more emphasis on winning rather than playing fair. Players most likely to use unsanctioned aggression also scored highly in aggression. Also learned to execute illegal moves , evolutionary if you can cheat unnoticed and win you should.
• Marsh (1978)- Football hooligans human equipment of ceremonial conflict in animals, both exclusively male. Trials of strength but desire to minimise harm and death. Defend if attacked but do not start fight, the intention is to humiliate the opposition, evolution explains way of security, power and status.