Aggression Psychology

Social Psychological Theories of Aggression Social learning theorists propose that behaviour, such as aggression is learnt through observation, imitation and behaviour shaping. This behaviour is learnt automatically through observation of male and female role models, for example parents, peers and media characters. Whether or not this behaviour is imitated depends on the type of reinforcement that the role model receives. Vicarious reinforcement involves the outcome of a role models behaviour, for example if a child observes a parent acting aggressively and receiving positive rewards for they are more like to be imitate this behaviour in the future, than they would be if the role model

For many years, girls have been bullying other girls. However, this bullying isn’t usually physical like the type of bullying seen in boys. Girls tend to bully each other through types of alternative aggression. These alternative aggressions are invisible to most, except by the bully and the victim. Along with alternative aggression, girls use relational aggression to bully one another. They ruin each other’s social statuses, sometimes to raise their own. Girl bullies are sneaky, they find ways to avoid confrontation. These girls will cyberbully and gang up on someone with other girls. Girls know how to sneak around and have awful outcomes.

Bandura and his colleagues, the scientists of the Bobo Doll Experiment, believed there was some reason children learned the behaviors that was important to them in their lives. “Bandura anticipated that children that viewed aggressive models would behave in a similar fashion as the model and those that had non-aggressive models would behave in the same fashion and not have aggressive actions” (Green, 1961). The purpose of this experiment was to demonstrate one of the ways children learned aggression. The researchers were hoping to find the proof that children learned aggression from viewing it by another person.

The Bobo Doll Experiment was a study on aggression conducted by Albert Bandura at Stanford University in 1961 because there was a lot of debate about whether a child’s social development was due to genetics, environment factors, or social learning from others around them. The purpose of the study was to give credit to Bandura’s claim that children behavior can be acquired by observation and imitation of a trusted adult role model. The experiment was performed by a team of researchers who physically and verbally mistreated a 3- and 5-foot painted cartoon clown doll, that is designed to sit back upright when knocked down, in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later copy the behavior of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion.

This theory has played a significant role in helping mankind in the formation of social movements especially within contemporary society. It is imperative to note that Social movements are organized and sustained collective efforts that focus on some aspect of social change, and tend to persist over time in a more aggressive way compared to other forms of collective behaviour. Social movements may include actions that protect environments, defend the rights of the minority or promote social justice. The frustration- aggression theory argues that social movements are formed when frustration results in collective aggressive behaviour.

During the aggressive model scenario, the adult would begin by playing with the toys for around one minute. Then the adult would begin to show aggression towards the Bobo doll. The aggressive adult would also verbally attack the Bobo doll shouting things like "Sock him," "Hit him down," "Kick him," or "Pow". After about 10 minutes, the experimenter came back into the room, dismissed the adult, and took the child into another playroom. The non-aggressive adult model simply played with the other toys for the entire 10 minute-period. In this situation, the Bobo doll was completely ignored by the model, then the child was taken out of the room. However children in the aggressive scenario showed much more imitation of of the adults physical and verbal

In the Bobo Doll Experiment conducted by Bandura in 1961, researchers wanted to know if social behaviors could be learned by observation. The experiment mainly consisted on showing, to a certain number of kids, a video that included violence. By doing this, they could later conclude how children learn aggression through observation. They took 36 girls and 36 boys and randomly assigned them into groups. The participants were from 3 to 6 years old. It is important to point out that the researchers did some testing to the participants before performing the experiment. They observed how aggressive the participants were before the experiment took place to have information on their daily behavior. The procedure consists of having three different groups: one called aggressive model, another called non-aggressive model and another one called control condition.

The stories were scored ranging from 1 (no secure base script) to 7 (secure base script). Both content elaboration and prototypic scriptedness of the story completions were carefully assessed during the scoring procedures (Waters et al., 1998). The appendix includes examples of stories that received both high and low scores. Two raters scored the stories. Cohen Kappa for interrater reliability between the two raters was .80. For secure base scripts, principal component analysis indicated that all items loaded on one factor. For female participants, this factor contained 52% of the total variance (eigenvalue = 2.08), with an alpha of .69. For male participants, this scale contained 55% of the total variance (eigenvalue= 2.23), with an alpha

First, an adequate description of the subject’s behavior and actions are needed to determine an appropriate response to the situation. Is the subject resisting? Is the resistance passive or active? Is the subject aggressive? Is there any attempt to comply? All of these questions would have to be interpreted in person to gauge how best to respond.

This approaches contribute to knowledge in different ways regarding aggressive behavior. In aetiological approach, behavioral genetic studies compare the degree of similarity in a behavioral phenotype that is attributable to additive genetic influence. Molecular genetic approach is a means for examining the aetiologic contributions to behavioral phenotypes such as aggression. Longitudinal-developmental research provide a basis for gathering aetiologic influences because of its temporal relations between outcome variables and putative causal factors which can be identified with quantitative models.

In Chapter 1, aggression is identified as a social issue in connections amongst individuals and between groups, resulting from the joint influence of the individual attributes of the actors and the situational and societal conditions in which their behavior takes place. (Krahe 2013) In other words, it can be any type of physical or verbal behavior intended toward the goal of harming or destroying an individual. And for that reason, aggression is defined by healthline as “Behavior that can cause physical or emotional harm to others, ranging from verbal abuse to physical abuse.” (Gabbey and Jewell 2016) Thus supporting the definitions in the book.

While analyzing responses to the questionnaire, it was revealed that a majority of answers came from MATES, a school directed towards students with a, generally, more scientific way of thinking. Furthermore, most respondents were in the ninth grade. Finally, as there were eight respondents with no charted signs of homophobia, they were removed and the scales were measured out of nineteen (rather than the initial twenty-seven). The subscales, negative affect, behavioral aggression, and negative cognition, respectively, are 0.17, 0.21, and 0.22 with a total HS score of 0.17 (Table 2).

Institutional Aggression can be defined as aggressive behaviour that occurs within an institution and is motivated by social forces, rather than anger or frustration. An institution usually refers to an organisation or place of confinement with its own social roles where behaviour is formally restricted and under the control of specific staff; for example, prisons, hospitals, army camps and boarding schools.

As Humans, we use the word aggression in our day to day conversation to characterize our behavior and perhaps behaviors of others. We conclude that people are aggressive if they scream at or hit another individual, however, other harmful acts such as the killing of enemy soldiers during the war might be regarded as an aggressive act by everyone. Social psychologists have spent lots of time trying to determine what should be considered aggression and reasons why individuals exhibit aggressive behaviors towards other. Hence, for many decades social psychologists have carried out various psychological research on aggression and new evidence has emerged on the problems that researchers are exploring the fundamental construct of aggression for a long time continue to experience, raising new questions and posing new perspectives about aggressive behaviors.

Aggressive behavior in children brought by genetic factors increases or decreases depending on environmental factors, according to the researchers at Université de Montréal. A candidate for PhD in sociology, Stéphane Paquin, led the study on 555 sets of twins to determine the prevalence of proactive and reactive aggression.