Human Aggression

1. Human Aggression PSY 321 Sanchez

2. “In all of nature, there is nothing so threatening to humanity as humanity itself.” Lewis Thomas, 1981

3. Today’s Agenda: • DEFINITIONS • CAUSES AND DETERMINANTS OF AGGRESSION • SPECIAL CASE: MEDIA VIOLENCE • REDUCING AGGRESSION

4. Aggression • Aggression -- Intentional action aimed at doing harm or causing harm

5. Aggression • Aggression -- Intentional action aimed at doing harm or causing harm • Aggression? • Injuring someone accidentally? • Swinging a stick at someone but missing? • Insulting someone? • Deliberately failing to prevent harm?

6. Types of Aggression: Instrumental • Instrumental aggression • Harm inflicted as a means to some goal other than causing pain • Goals include: • Personal gain • Attention • Self-defense

7. Rewards/Costs Aggression as means Opportunity Types of Aggression: Instrumental Aggression • Immediate conditions • Opportunity for gain with high reward and low perceived risk • Long term conditions • Poverty or other challenging economic factors • Perceive crime as primary means to resources/respect • Norms foster aggression as way to achieve resources

8. Types of Aggression: Emotional • Emotional aggression • Harm inflicted for its own sake, to cause pain • Often impulsive • But can be calm, calculating

9. Threat to self Aggression as an end Anger Types of Aggression: Emotional Aggression • Immediate conditions • Threat to self-esteem, status, or respect, particularly in public situations • Aggression to save face • Long term conditions • Repeated threats to self-worth or status

10. Emotional Aggression: A Case Study (Katherine Newman, 2004) • School shootings • Commonalities: • Perpetrators had low social status, respect, and self-esteem • Communities were small, tight-knit, and isolated • Associated masculinity = violence • The small-town social structure prevented people from heeding the warning signs

11. Distinguishing Emotional from Instrumental Aggression • Example: Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield’s ear • Instrumental? • Emotional? • Maybe both mechanisms are operating in most cases • Can think of any purely emotional aggression example?

12. The United States: How aggressive are we? • The Violent Nature of American Society 1963-1973 46,121 Americans killed in the Vietnam War 84,644 Americans shot to death in America • Homicide-by-gun rate in America 35 times higher than Germany, Denmark, or England, 7 times higher than Canada or France

13. Table 11.1: The Violent Crime Clock

14. Gender Differences • Universal finding that men are more violent than women. • Differences stable over time and place. • However….type of aggression matters

15. Gender & Aggression • Intent to Harm • What ways can we inflict harm on others other than physical violence? • Direct aggression: Verbal or physical aggression • Indirect aggression: Inflicting harm in covert (nonphysical) ways • Relational aggression

16. Gender and Indirect/Direct Aggression

17. Darwin Freud Why Are People So Aggressive? • Instinct theories • Freud • Psychoanalytic theory • Death instinct vs. life instinct • Aggression – death instinct is turned outward at others • Evolutionary theories • Darwin • Genetic survival • Genetic selection for aggression

18. Social Learning Theory(Bandura) • “Modeling” • Learn how to behave prosocially • Learn how to behave aggressively

19. Social Learning Theory(Bandura) • “Bobo” doll study • ½ kids watched adult beat up doll • ½ kids not exposed to the behavior • Kids allowed to play with doll • Results??

20. Social learning clip 19 (Bobo doll)

21. Why Are People So Aggressive? • Evolutionary theories • Social learning theory a better question may be … • When do people aggress? • Under what conditions are people likely to aggress? • What situational factors cause people to aggress?

22. When Are People Aggressive? • Situational Factors • Frustration-Aggression theory -- frustration always leads to aggression • Study • Young children in room with toys • ½ can’t play with toys, then allowed to play • ½ can play with toys • Results: frustrated kids destroyed the toys

23. When Are People Aggressive? • Situational Factors • Frustration-aggression theory • Closeness of goal as a factor of frustration-aggression link • Study • Confederate cut in line in front of people • ½ time cut in front of 2nd person in line • ½ time cut in front of 12th person in line • Results: people standing behind intruder more aggressive when confederate cut 2nd person in line (closer to their goal)

24. When Are People Aggressive? • Situational Factors • Frustration-Aggression theory • Aggression increases when frustration is unexpected • Study • Students hired to call strangers for donations • Students worked on a commission • ½ students expected a high rate of contributions • ½ students expected far less success • Experiment rigged so donors did not donate • Results: callers with high expectations were more verbally aggressive toward the non-donors

25. When Are People Aggressive? • Situational Factors • Displaced aggression • Aggression not directed at source of the frustration, but at a different, lower status target • Remember Dollard et al. (1939): as cotton prices went down (i.e., less income), lynchings increased

26. When Are People Aggressive? Berkowitz’s modification of frustration-aggression theory • frustration leads to anger • anger with an aggressive cue leads to aggression • aggressive cue: object associated with aggressive responses (e.g., a gun)

27. When Are People Aggressive? Berkowitz’s modification of frustration-aggression • Induced Ps to feel angry • Left in a room with gun (violent) or racket (neutral) • Ps allowed to administer “shocks” to other P • Ps gave more shocks to other when gun present

28. When Are People Aggressive? • Alcohol myopia (Steele & Josephs, 1990) • Intoxication facilitates aggression by impairing cognitive processing, narrows attention • Results is more extreme, less moderated behavior • Aggressive response: often powerful and simple • Inhibiting response: often weaker and more complex

29. Heat • More violent crimes (rape, murder, riots, assaults) • In summer months • In hot years • In hot cities • Heat increases • Hit by pitch incidents • Horn-honking • Interpret ambiguous event in hostile terms

30. Summary: People are more aggressive when they are… • Frustrated • Angry • Exposed to aggressive cues • Drunk • Hot

31. Special Case: Media Violence • Does violence in the media make people more aggressive? • Statistics • TV is on 28 hrs/wk for preteens and 23 hrs/wk for teens • Prime shows average 5 or 6 acts of violence per hour • Sat morning kids’ programs average 20-25 per hour • Most violent TV appears before school and after school

32. Special Case: Media Violence • Does violence in the media make people more aggressive? • Conflicting opinions: • Catharsis Hypothesis • Watching violence purges aggressive tendencies • vs. Social learning • Watching violence increases aggressive tendencies • Correlational and Experimental Evidence

33. Special Case: Media Violence • Procedure (Liebert & Baron, 1972) • ½ children exposed to an extremely violent show • ½ children exposed to nonviolent sporting event • Each child allowed to play in another room with a group of children • Observed aggression/violence in children’s playing

34. DV: Average duration of aggressive responses Television show

35. Effects of Other Violent Media • Video Games • 8 to 13-year-old boys in U.S. average 7.5 hours of video games per week • 15% of male entering college students play at least 6 hours/week

36. America’s Army

37. “It’s awesome,” says James Parker, 27, a Washington computer network administrator. “You can carjack any car, go to the seedy part of town, beep the horn and pick up a prostitute. Then you take her to a dark street and the car starts shaking. When the prostitute jumps out, your money is down but your energy is full” Note: People can recover their money by killing the woman. Source: The Washington Post 8/24/02, p. A1

38. What does the research say? • Anderson & Dill, 2000 Study 1 • examined correlation between amount of time playing violent video games and aggressive delinquent behavior • r = .46!! (quite high)

39. Anderson & Dill Study 2: Experiment • College students randomly assigned to play a video game 3 times over a week • Wolfenstein 3D: violent game • Myst: nonviolent game • DV: Level/duration of noise blast given to opponent after losing a game in the lab

40. Results of Study 2

41. Dr. Bushman Recent Meta-Analysis (Anderson & Bushman, 2001) • Reviewed 54 studies with 4,200 participants • Playing violent video games resulted in • Increased aggression • Decreased helping • Increased aggressive thoughts • Increased anger • Increased arousal • Same effects for males and females, children and adults

42. How does violent media cause aggression? • Short-term effects • Primes aggressive cognitions • Increases arousal • Increases anger • Long-term effects • Teaches people how to aggress • People develop aggressive schemas • They become desensitized to violence

43. How Can Aggression Be Reduced? • Catharsis: Doesn’t work • Punishment: Not a simple solution • Deterrence Theory: Punishment has to be severe, certain, and swift • Corporal punishment increases aggression (Eron et al., 1991; Straus et al., 1997; Gershoff, 2002) • Remove Cues to Aggression (Berkowitz) • Provide Better Role Models (Bandura)