Development of

1. Development of Aggressive Behavior

2. Aggression Behavior – In childhood • Biology/Physiology (last two chapters) (pre-birth) • Environment (this chapter) (post-birth) • Chapter 1 • Instinctive Drives – Evolutionary Perspective • Externally created Motivations • Frustration-Aggression model • Aggressive Cue Theory • Excitation Transfer Theory • Cognitive Models • Cognitive Neoassociation Model • Cognition-Excitation Interdependencies • Learned Behavior • Social Learning Theory

3. Aggression Behavior – In childhood • Biology/Physiology (last two chapters) (pre-birth) • Environment (this chapter) (post-birth) • Chapter 1 • Instinctive Drives – Evolutionary Perspective • Externally created Motivations • Frustration-Aggression model • Aggressive Cue Theory • Excitation Transfer Theory • Cognitive Models • Cognitive Neoassociation Model • Cognition-Excitation Interdependencies • Learned Behavior • Social Learning Theory

4. Social Learning Theory • Aggression is Acquired through • Biological factors (mechanisms) • Learning (activation) • Aggression is Regulated through • External rewards/punishments • Vicarious Reinforcement • Self-regulatory Mechanisms

5. Acquisition - Learning • Direct experience • After doing it yourself, experience feedback (Rewards and Punishments) such as material incentives, money, desired objects, toys, candy, social approval, increased status • Observational Learning • What? Witness others (models) receiving rewards/punishments • Who? Family, Peers, Media

6. Regulation • External – Rewards and punishments • Successful aggression • Tangible rewards • Social rewards and approval • Reduction in pain/mistreatment • Emotions like pride, guilt • Vicarious – Rewards and punishments • Witnessing same things as above • Informs about likely consequences of self behavior • Self-administered – Rewards and punishments • Giving self the same things as above • Notice control when giving to self

7. Four conceptual categories for rewards and punishments: • Positive reward, which increases the frequency of approved behavior by adding something desirable to the situation • Negative reward, which increases the frequency of approved behavior by removing something distressful from the situation • Positive punishment, which decrease the frequency of unwanted behavior by adding something undesirable to the situation • Negative punishment, which decreases the frequency of unwanted behavior by removing something desirable form the situation

8. Acquisition – Learning (cont) • Family • Primary source of early socialization • Research on preschoolers overhearing affectionate or angry • At a very early age! • Family level • Chaotic and/or socially isolated = more aggression • Parent-child • Attachment Theory • Intergenerational transmissions of violence (victim, then perpetrator) • Sibling • Sibling violence predictive of self violence • Parental mediation may encourage aggression • Punishment (learning, arousal, not internalize standards) • High punishment = high aggression in child • No punishment = high aggression in child • Monitoring (supervision) • No monitoring = high aggression in child • Consistency (follow-up on commands same way every time) • No consistency = high aggression in child

9. Acquisition – Learning (cont) • Peers • “I didn’t know all these different ways to hurt someone, but now I do!” • More peer interactions = more aggression • More victimization = more aggression (provocative victims, not passive) • Media • Bobo doll – but problems…no generalization? • Experimental – but problems…no generalization? • Real-world – but problems…

10. Implications: Eron & Heusmann, 1985 Males 50 Females 40 30 20 10 0 Med High Low Med High Low Frequency of TV Viewing at Age 8 DV: Seriousness of Criminal Act by Age 30

11. Problem Many anti-social role models

12. Be Violent

13. Be A Crook Like Tony Soprano

14. Be a Jack-Ass

15. Modeling (summary) • Learn new information – new and different ways to be aggressive • Learn new information – cultural rules about what is appropriate, when, whom, etc. • Learn new information – the more you witness, the more desensitized, disinhibited • Learning new information – alter image of reality, as more violent, more hostile expectations

16. “Using” Social Learning • Path model of being able to use it • Attention (pay attention to model) • Retention (remember the behavior) • Motor Reproduction (ability to replicate) • Motivational (want to do it) • Path model of knowing what to do Textbook’s version is Dodge & Crick • Encode (aware) • Interpret (hostile) • Response search (options) • Response evaluation (choose one) • Response enactment (do it)