Ch.9, Aggression

Question 1

Aggression:

Answer 1

physical or verbal behaviour intended to cause harm; EXCLUDES UNINTENTIONAL HARM

Question 2

Social, physical, and hostile, instrumental aggression

Answer 2

Social Aggression: insults, harmful gossip, social exclusion, cyberbullying, bullying
Physical Aggression: physical harm
Hostile Aggression: springs from anger, aims to injure
Instrumental Aggression: it is in the pursuit of another goal and also aims to injure

Question 3

Terrorism/war and aggression

Answer 3

MOST TERRORISM IS INSTRUMENTAL AGGRESSION: usually have a higher strategic goal in mind
^^Terrorism is rarely committed by someone with a mental illness: it is about seeking personal significance
Most wars are also instrumental aggression
Most direct murders are hostile aggression

Question 4

Freud vs Lorenz aggression

Answer 4

Freud: argued that human aggression springs from a self-destructive impulse: DIRECTS THE DEATH INSTINCT at others Lorenz: aggression is adaptive, not self-destructive, involves instinctive behavior and is innate and unlearned, universal

Question 5

Status Based Aggression:

Answer 5

wanting to maintain or increase status through aggression: highest for men during adolescence and early adulthood

Question 6

Neural influences on aggression

Answer 6

Hypothalamus: hostility increases when activated
Stimulation of the amygdala may also produce the same result
Raine’s Work on Brain Abnormality and Aggression: in murderers, prefrontal cortex is 14% less active than normal and 15% smaller in antisocial men, also had reduced amygdalas

Question 7

Mental Illness and Violence

Answer 7

People with mental illness are more likely to be the VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE THAN THE PERPETRATORS

Question 8

MAOA-L gene; Monoamine Oxidase A

Answer 8

been linked to aggression “warrior” or “violence” gene, those with this gene are 13 times more likely to have repeatedly committed violent crimes
Combining the MAOA-L gene and childhood abuse IS SEVERELY PREDICTIVE OF VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION
However, nature and nurture interact and genes arent all destiny

Question 9

Biochemical influences on aggression, alcohol

Answer 9

Alcohol unleashes aggression when people are provoked
By reducing people
By reducing self awareness, focusing attention on provocation, and by people mentally associating alcohol with aggression IT NATURALLY INCREASES AGGRESSION
Alcohol both deindividuation and disinhibits
Rates of abuse go up with alcohol consumption in a relationship
50% of murders involve alcohol, same with sexual assaults

Question 10

Biochemical Influences, Testerone

Answer 10

After age 25, rate of crime and testerone decrease together
Testerone levels are higher in criminals of violent crime, aggressicve responses to provocation, and drug use

Question 11

Poor Diet and Aggression

Answer 11

Prisoners who received extra nutrition were involved in less violent incidents
Omega 3 and calcium guards against impulsivity

Question 12

Frustration Aggression Theory, Dollard:

Answer 12

frustration is anything that blocks us from a goal, grows when our motivation to achieve a goal is very strong—frustration therefore causes aggression

Question 13

Berkowitz Revision of the Frustration Aggression Theory

Answer 13

Said that the original theory oversttaed the frustration aggression connection
Theorized that frustration produces aggression only when people actually become upset

Question 14

Relative Deprivation: and frustration

Answer 14

Relative Deprivation: explains why happiness tends to be lower and crime rates higher in nations with large income gaps–the greater the gap, the more sense that others are getting something you’re not
Media turns absolute deprivation (lacking what others have) into relative deprivation (merely feeling deprived)

Question 15

Bandura, Observational Learning and Aggression

Answer 15

Bobo doll experiment
Believed that when aggression was modelled, kids would be aggressive

Question 16

“Culture of Honor” and aggression

Answer 16

“Culture of Honor” insults deserve retaliation to defend honor = leads to extensively increased aggression

Question 17

Arousal and aggression

Answer 17

Arousal: Schachter and Singer Experiment, a state of arousal can be interpreted differently depending on the context (feeling hot,out of breath etc during sex vs hot and out of breath during a test)

Question 18

“Weapons Effect”: and aggression cues

Answer 18

Violence is more likely when aggressive cues release pent up anger
“Weapons Effect”: mere presence of weapons increases aggressive thoughts and behaviours

Question 19

Impacts of porn on aggression

Answer 19

Porn can distort perceptions of how women actually respond to sexual coercion and increase male aggression against women
Porn that portrays sexual aggression as pleasurable for the victim increases the acceptance of the use of coercion in sexual relations
Exposure to violent pornography increases punitive behaviour toward women

Question 20

Violence viewing

Answer 20

Viewing violence at a young age modestly predicted aggressiveness later in life, but did NOT predict viewing violence later in life
VIEWING VIOLENCE DOES INCREASE VIOLENCE

Question 21

Why does media affect behaviour

Answer 21

Viewing violence produces arousal and energizes aggression
Viewing violence disinhibits: primes the viewer for aggressive behavior by activating violence related thoughts
Evoke imitation
Desensitizes people to violence
Social Scripts: culturally provided mental iunstructions for how to act (media portrayals implant social scripts)
Media portrayals mould our conception of the real world
Cognitive priming for aggression

Question 22

Why Video Games have a Worse Effect than TV

Answer 22

Requires the person to identity and play the role of a character
Actively rehearse violence instead of just passively watching it
Engage with continual violence
Get rewards for violent acts
APA found enough evidence to require video game companies to include a violence rating
Creates habituation in the brain: frequent gamers reacted less strongly to negative images
Decreased empathy, more antisocial behaviours,
CONTRADICTS THE CATHARSIS HYPOTHESIS: idea that violent games allow people to safe;ly express their aggressive tendencies

Question 23

Massacres and genocides: violence in groups

Answer 23

Social Contagion: groups magnify aggressive tendencies,
Massacres/genocides: social phenomena fed by moral imperatives: a collective mentality that mobilizes and group or culture for extraordinary actions

Question 24

Social Contagion: groups magnify aggressive tendencies,
Massacres/genocides: social phenomena fed by moral imperatives: a collective mentality that mobilizes and group or culture for extraordinary actions

Question 25

Berkowitz, Frustration/Aggression Study

Answer 25

See if participants can generate good or bad ideas under stress
Other person will shock you if they don’t like your idea (participants did it in pairs, other person was a confederate)
One small shock up to 7 shocks if they thought the idea was terrible
One condition: person’s idea would always be accepted
Other condition: participant receives 7 shocks for having a bad idea
In the room, there were either weapons or non aggressive items present in the room
Weapons Effect: people more likely to shock others when in the mere presence of weapons (Weapons prime us), ALSO HAS TO HAVE SOME COGNITIVE AWARENESS OF PERCEPTION OF WHY THIS OBJECT IS THERE AND IF WE PERCEIVE IT AS A TOOL FOR VIOLENCE

Question 26

Berkowitz, Frustration-Aggression Adjusted Theory

Answer 26

Aggression only results when we actually get upset
Weapons/aggression cues also play a role = PRIMING
Weapons effect increases aggressive thoughts, hostile appraisals, and overall aggression

Question 27

Group exclusion to the weapons effect

Answer 27

HUNTERS ARE THE ONE GROUP THAT VIEW GUNS AS SOMETHING NOT AGGRESSIVE:THEY VIEW IT AS FUN AND LEISURE
In open-carry states, even mere presence of unloaded gun can lead to more aggression

Question 28

Radicalization:

Answer 28

process which you gradually come to believe the extremist ideology

Question 29

Early Explanations by Psychologists for Terrorism (1970s-1980s)

Answer 29

Morf: Theorized that terrorism was due to rejecting a person’s father and therefore driven for sexual lust, craving for notoriety, and power
Sullwood: Theorized that it was driven by neurotic hostility and extreme extraversion
Razzaque: theorized that terrorists had strict fathers and obsessive personalities

Question 30

Why were all early theories of terrorism wrong?

Answer 30

WHY THESE THEORIES ARE WRONG: All of these theories claimed that people engaging in terrorism weren’t “normal” but this isn’t true, stereotyping them and making a fundamental attribution error, as well as form of denial

Question 30

Mental Illness Explanation of Terrorism

Answer 30

All terrorists are just “mentally ill”
HOWEVER, there is no dis

Question 31

No Mental Illness Explanation

Answer 31

Later, once there was enough data, theorists began believing that no terrorists have mental illness whatsoever

Question 32

Personality Traits and terrorism

Answer 32

Personality traits are ABSENT FROM ALL OF THE PREVIOUS MODEL: this makes it seem like anyone who is exposed to these previous factors can become a terrorist
This is not true: individual factors play an EXTENSIVE role, but there is NO “terrorist personality”, there is no homogenous profile of what a terrorist will be like
Systemic research shows no significant sign of a special psychological makeup of terrorists
Only three studies actually show evidence for some personality traits common across failed suicide bombers, however, the case is not closed

Question 33

Specificity Problem of Terrorism

Answer 33

Whatever “single cause” we think causes terrorism has not held up
People can’t just experience x = terrorism y
There is no one way formula to get one to equal the other