Aggression and violence

1. Aggression and violence

2. Lecture contents • Aggressive definitions • Learning aggression • Berkowitz’s cognitive neoassociation analysis • Sex and violence in the media • Dispositional considerations

3. What is aggression? • Aggressionmay be defined as behaviour intended to harm. (Lots of other definitions are possible.) • Instrumental aggression is harm inflicted as a means to a desired end. • Hostile (a.k.a., ‘emotional’) aggression is harm inflicted for its own sake. • Violence is defined by Brehm et al. (2002, p. 392) as “extreme acts of aggression”.

4. Operant conditioning • Reinforcement • Behaviour acquired if rewarded • Positive reinforcement (add positive) • Negative reinforcement (remove negative) • Behaviour extinguished if punished • Add negative or remove positive • Boldizar (1989) • Discriminative reinforcement • Shaping

5. Straus et al. (1997) Smacking promotes antisocial behaviour?

7. Eron et al.’s (1972) cross-lagged correlations ViolTV @ 19 ViolTV @ 9 .05 .31 .21 -.05 .01 Violboy@9 Violman@19 .38

8. Incentive Instigators: Models & authority • Incentive instigators • “The pull of expected benefits, rather than the push of painful treatment” (Bandura, 1983, p. 17). • Anticipated consequences, internal and external (i.e., cognitive instigators). • Cues to such consequences can be suggested by authority and models. • Obedience is usually rewarding (and non-obedience punishing) and thus is habit-forming. • Models can (i) direct, (ii) stimulus-enhance, (iii) emotionally arouse, and/or (iv) disinhibit.

9. Regulation • Outside of coercion, behaviour regulation is determined largely by its consequences. Gain, pain, and the removal of the same, can come from: • External sources. • On tangible, social, or status dimensions • Vicarious sources. • As above, but (i) similarity issues and (ii) variable observed consequences not effective. • Self-regulatory sources. • Including distortion or disengagement of self-regulation. • Extinguishing behaviour is best achieved by making possible incompatible behaviours more rewarding.

10. Berkowitz’s (1993) cognitive neoassociation analysis • Various thoughts and behavioural tendencies are associated with certain emotions and therefore become ‘primed’ when those emotions exist. • Negative emotions tend to elicit cognitions leading to the experience of anger or fear, depending on: • individual differences • interpretation of the arousing event, and • consideration of the likely consequences from any given behaviour. • This ‘clarifies’ the nature of their arousal and predicts their likely behavioural response, freeze, friend, fight, or flight.

11. Sex and violence (1): Non-sexual violent imagery • Short term effects • Media violence increases immediate aggression in adults and children (Geen, 1998; Wood et al., 1999). • Long term effects? • Amount of exposure to media violence at age 8 predicts men’s aggression at age 30, even when controlling for social class, intelligence, and parenting style. • Habituation: Physiological and psychological responses become less pronounced to stimuli with repeated exposure. • Increases ‘unthinking acceptance’ of that (class of) stimuli. • Do we need to distinguish between (i) increasing tolerance/ignoring of such stimuli, and (ii) imitating of such stimuli? • Cultivation: Mass media ‘defining’ nature and appropriate responses to it.

12. Sex and violence (2): Non-violent sexual imagery • Short term effects • Non-upsetting sexual images mildly increase arousal which is labelled pleasant and leads to reduced aggression towards same-sex confederates (Donnerstein et al., 1987). • Longer term effects: Zillman & Bryant (1984) • Male and female college students were shown 0, 18, or 36 non-violent sexually-explicit films over a six week period. • Clear habituation effects: The greater the exposure, the less arousal from new stimuli of the same class. • Habituation effects led to reduced excitation-transfer: The greater the exposure, the less sexual images intensified retaliatory same-sex aggression (36 film participants less aggressive than controls). Cf. Donnerstein et al (1987) study, reviewed above. • Habituation/cultivation effects seemingly decrease feminist attitudes: The greater the exposure, (i) the lighter the recommended sentence for a convicted rapist, and (ii) the lower the support expressed in favour of the women’s liberation movement.

13. Sex and violence (3): Violent sexual imagery • Check & Guloien (1989) • Male participants who viewed pornography trivialising rape reported a greater willingness to force women to do something sexual against her will, and rape if guaranteed not to be caught. • Malamuth & Check (1981) • Male participants viewing films showing females aroused by and attracted to sexual assailants showed increased acceptance of interpersonal violence and ‘rape myth acceptance’. • Female viewers showed decreased acceptance of both.

14. Sex and violence: Tom’s conclusions (so far) • From Brehm et al.’s review, I tentatively and provisionally agree with Linz et al. (1992). • Aggression and negative gender stereotyping tend to encourage more of the same. • Sexual imagery which (i) does not evoke aversive arousal, and (ii) does not incorporate aggression or negative sexual stereotypes is unlikely to have detrimental effects. • However, • People will differ in what counts as negative sexual stereotypes. • People do habituate to sexual imagery and may ‘escalate’ sexual imagery to obtain equivalent levels of arousal. Escalated sexual imagery may be more likely to incorporate aggression and/or negative gender stereotypes. • As always, you should, of course, make your own (justified - hopefully) decisions about this topic.

15. Aggressively disposed people • Bushman (1996) • Aggressive people associate significantly more cues with aggression and hostility. • They are thus especially prone to automatic activation of aggression-related thoughts. • Dill et al. (1997) • Chronically aggressive adults are particularly likely to expect and perceive hostility in others’ motives and behaviours. • Crick & Dodge (1994) • Chronically aggressive children “see hostile intent where other’s don’t” (Brehm et al., 2002, p. 415).