Transcript Human Aggression - Stigma, Health and Close

Human Aggression
PSY 321
Sanchez
“In all of nature, there is nothing so
threatening to humanity as humanity itself.”
Lewis Thomas, 1981
Today’s Agenda:
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DEFINITIONS

CAUSES AND DETERMINANTS OF
AGGRESSION
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SPECIAL CASE: MEDIA VIOLENCE

REDUCING AGGRESSION
Aggression
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Aggression -- Intentional action aimed at doing
harm or causing harm
Aggression
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Aggression -- Intentional action aimed at doing
harm or causing harm
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Aggression?
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Injuring someone accidentally?
Swinging a stick at someone but missing?
Insulting someone?
Deliberately failing to prevent harm?
Types of Aggression: Instrumental
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Instrumental aggression
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Harm inflicted as a means to some goal other than
causing pain
Goals include:
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Personal gain
Attention
Self-defense
Types of Aggression:
Instrumental Aggression
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Immediate conditions
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Opportunity for gain with high reward and low perceived
risk
Long term conditions
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Poverty or other challenging economic factors
Perceive crime as primary means to resources/respect
Norms foster aggression as way to achieve resources
Opportunity
Rewards/
Costs
Aggression
as means
Types of Aggression: Emotional
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Emotional aggression
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Harm inflicted for its own sake, to cause pain
Often impulsive
But can be calm, calculating
Types of Aggression:
Emotional Aggression
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Immediate conditions
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Threat to self-esteem, status, or respect, particularly
in public situations
Aggression to save face
Long term conditions
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Repeated threats to self-worth or status
Threat to
self
Anger
Aggression
as an end
Emotional Aggression:
A Case Study
(Katherine Newman, 2004)
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School shootings
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Commonalities:
– Perpetrators had low social
status, respect, and self-esteem
– Communities were small, tightknit, and isolated
– Associated masculinity = violence
– The small-town social structure
prevented people from heeding
the warning signs
Distinguishing Emotional from
Instrumental Aggression
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Example: Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield’s
ear
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Instrumental?
Emotional?
Maybe both mechanisms are operating in most
cases
Can think of any purely emotional aggression
example?
The United States:
How aggressive are we?
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The Violent Nature of American Society
1963-1973
46,121 Americans killed in the Vietnam War
84,644 Americans shot to death in America
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Homicide-by-gun rate in America
35 times higher than Germany, Denmark, or
England, 7 times higher than Canada or France
Table 11.1: The Violent Crime Clock
Gender Differences
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Universal finding that men are more violent
than women.
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Differences stable over time and place.
However….type of aggression matters
Gender & Aggression
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Intent to Harm
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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
Gender and Indirect/Direct
Aggression
Why Are People So Aggressive?
• Instinct theories
• Freud
• Psychoanalytic theory
• Death instinct vs. life instinct
• Aggression – death instinct is
turned outward at others
Darwin
• Evolutionary theories
• Darwin
• Genetic survival
• Genetic selection for aggression
Freud
Social Learning
Theory (Bandura)
“Modeling”
Learn
how to behave
prosocially
Learn
how to behave
aggressively
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??
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Social learning clip 19 (Bobo doll)
Why Are People So Aggressive?
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Evolutionary theories
Social learning theory
a better question may be …
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When do people aggress?
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Under what conditions are people likely to aggress?
What situational factors cause people to aggress?
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
When Are People Aggressive?
• Situational Factors
• Frustration-aggression theory
• Closeness of goal as a factor of frustration-aggression link
• Study
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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)
When Are People Aggressive?
• Situational Factors
• Frustration-Aggression theory
• Aggression increases when frustration is unexpected
• Study
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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
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
When Are People Aggressive?
Berkowitz’s modification of frustrationaggression theory
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frustration leads to anger
anger with an aggressive cue leads to aggression
aggressive cue: object associated with
aggressive responses (e.g., a gun)
When Are People Aggressive?
Berkowitz’s modification of frustrationaggression
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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
When Are People Aggressive?
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Alcohol myopia (Steele & Josephs, 1990)
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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
Heat
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More violent crimes (rape, murder, riots, assaults)
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In summer months
In hot years
In hot cities
Heat increases
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Hit by pitch incidents
Horn-honking
Interpret ambiguous event in hostile terms
Summary: People are more
aggressive when they are…
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Frustrated
Angry
Exposed to aggressive cues
Drunk
Hot
Special Case: Media Violence
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Does violence in the media make people more
aggressive?
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Statistics
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TV is on 28 hrs/wk for preteens and 23 hrs/wk for teens
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Prime shows average 5 or 6 acts of violence per hour
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Sat morning kids’ programs average 20-25 per hour
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Most violent TV appears before school and after school
Special Case: Media Violence
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Does violence in the media make people more
aggressive?
Conflicting opinions:
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Catharsis Hypothesis
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vs. Social learning
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Watching violence purges aggressive tendencies
Watching violence increases aggressive tendencies
Correlational and Experimental Evidence
Special Case: Media Violence
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Procedure (Liebert & Baron, 1972)
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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
DV: Average duration of aggressive responses
6
5
4
Boys
Girls
3
2
1
0
nonviolent
violent
Television show
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
America’s Army
“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
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)
Anderson & Dill Study 2: Experiment
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College students randomly assigned to play a
video game 3 times over a week
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Wolfenstein 3D: violent game
Myst: nonviolent game
DV: Level/duration of noise blast given to opponent
after losing a game in the lab
Duration of Noise After
Losing
Results of Study 2
6.85
6.8
6.75
6.7
6.65
6.6
6.55
Nonviolent
Video Game Played
Violent
Recent Meta-Analysis
(Anderson & Bushman, 2001)
Dr. Bushman
• Reviewed 54 studies with 4,200 participants
• Playing violent video games resulted in
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Increased aggression
Decreased helping
Increased aggressive thoughts
Increased anger
Increased arousal
• Same effects for males and females,
children and adults
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
How Can Aggression Be Reduced?
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Catharsis: Doesn’t work
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Punishment: Not a simple solution
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Deterrence Theory: Punishment has to be severe, certain, and
swift
Corporal punishment increases aggression (Eron et al., 1991;
Straus et al., 1997; Gershoff, 2002)
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Remove Cues to Aggression (Berkowitz)
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Provide Better Role Models (Bandura)