Chapter 13: Aggression Flashcards
General aggression model
A broad approach to understanding the causes of aggression through a focus on situational factors, construal factors, and biological and cultural contributions
Hostile aggression
Behavior intended to harm another person, either physically or psychologically, and motivated by feelings of anger and hostility.
Instrumental aggression
Behavior intended to harm another person in the service of motives other than pure hostility (such as attracting attention, acquiring wealth, or advancing political or ideological causes).
Bartholow & Anderson Study
Aim: Test if violent video games make people more aggressive
Procedures: Undergraduate women and men with an average amount of experience playing video games were
randomly assigned to play one of two games: Mortal Kombat or PGA
Tournament Golf. All participants played several rounds of one of these two games against a confederate. When participants lost, the confederate punished them with an unpleasant, loud burst of white noise, and vice versa.
Results: Participants who had played Mortal Kombat gave longer and more intense bursts of white noise to their competitors than those who had played the golf game.
How does playing violent video games inclines us toward greater aggression?
- Increase aggressive behavior
- Reduce prosocial behavior
- Increase aggressive thoughts
- Increase aggressive emotions
- Increase blood pressure and heart rate
What are features of a situation can lead to higher levels of aggression?
Hot weather, violent media, social rejection, income inequality, and living in environments lacking in green spaces
Anger’s role in aggression
Anger leads to aggression
Argues that any pleasant stimulus can trigger a fight or flight response of anger.
Dehumanization
The attribution of nonhuman characteristics and denial of human qualities to groups (generally to groups other than one’s own)
It can unleash aggression since it’s easier to harm people when they seem less human and less like ourselves.
How can people avoid tendencies associated with anger and dehumanization?
By distancing themselves from your anger
This allows people to think of the frustrating event as just one moment in time.
Culture of honor
A culture defined by its members’ strong concerns about their own and others’ reputations, leading to sensitivity to insults and a willingness to use violence to avenge any perceived slight
Also gives rise to firm rules of politeness and other ways people recognize the honor of others
Cohen Study on Anger
Aim: To examine participants’ sensitivity to slights and insults of Southern and Northern White men
Procedures: An accomplice of the experimenter bumped into each participant and called him an “asshole”.
Results: Insulted participants from Southern states showed more anger in their facial expressions and higher levels of testosterone and cortisol than did insulted Northerners.
Following the insult, the
Southerners shook another person’s hand more firmly and refused to move out of the way of an imposing confederate walking toward them down a narrow hallway.
Rape-prone cultures
A culture in which rape tends to be used as an act or war against enemy women, as a ritual act, or as a threat against women to keep them subservient to men.
More likely to have high levels of violence generally, a history of frequent warfare, and an emphasis on machismo
Stereotypes and biases that relegated women to a lower status in society are seen in these cultures
Inclusive fitness
According to evolutionary theory, an individual’s reproductive success, which ensures the transmission of an individual’s genes to future generations
What is evolutionary theory regarding stepfamilies?
Stepparents are more likely than genetic parents to behave in violent ways toward children
Precarious manhood hypothesis
The idea that a man’s gender identity, which significantly involves strength and toughness, may be lost under various conditions and that such a loss can trigger aggressive behavior
What are the differences in aggression between gender?
Males tend to be more aggressive than females partly because such behavior can help them attain status and gain access to females.
Females tend to be more relationally or emotionally aggressive than males
How do construals fuel conflict?
They lead people to believe that conflicts are polarized, that on all sorts of issues, people fall into one of two opposing camps.
Leads to reactive devaluation
Reactive devaluation
The tendency to attach less value to an offer in a negotiation once the opposing group makes it
Even when one side makes a concession, the proposal may be perceived by the other side as not being favorable to them.
How is the complexity (or simplicity) of a position defined?
The level of differentiation, or the number of ideas in the position
The level of integration, or the connections drawn among the different ideas
What is a solution to the biases exacerbated by misperception and simplistic rhetoric?
Encourage communication between people in conflict
By allowing people on both sides of a conflict to give their perspectives
By asking people on both sides of an issue to actively imagine other people’s perspectives
Restorative justice
The process of having perpetrators of harm take responsibility and apologize to those they’ve harmed, and for those individuals to express their grievances
