Aggression in teenagers
Aggression: “Behaviour directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment.” (Baron, 1977)
Aggression, a feeling of anger resulting in hostile or violent behaviour. In psychology, aggression is a behaviour expressed in order to harm or cause pain to an individual. It can either be verbal or physical. Aggression can be: hostile, instrumental, passive or active.
• Hostile aggression is an impulsive behaviour with the goal being to cause harm to the victim.
• Instrumental aggression is a cold, premeditated behaviour.
• Passive aggression is a behaviour displaying aggression in an unassertive passive way such as sarcasm or stubbornness.
• Active aggression is a deliberate behaviour aimed to cause physical harm to the victim.
Behavioural Approach
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Repeated play of violent video games causes children learn thought patterns that will stick with them and influence their behaviours as they grow up. Children start to think more aggressively and when provoked in a situation, they can react to it much like they do when playing a video game. Douglas Gentile said. “With violent games – you practice being vigilant for enemies, practice thinking that it’s acceptable to respond aggressively to provocation, and practice becoming desensitized to the consequences of violence.” Repeated practice of aggressive ways of thinking can drive the long term effect of violent games on aggression. (Iowa State University)
“Violent video games model physical aggression. They also reward players for being alert to hostile intentions and for using aggressive behavior to solve conflicts. Practicing such aggressive thinking in these games improves the ability of the players to think aggressively. In turn, this habitual aggressive thinking increases their aggressiveness in real life.” (Anderson,
Another set of randomized experiments also examined the effects of violent video games on psychology. In these experiments, after two groups of participants played violent or nonviolent video games, they were required to list their thoughts on paper to assess their aggressive cognition. Unfortunately, the results tell us that violent video games appear to make people generate more aggressive thoughts than those who played nonviolent video games
Video games have become very influential on children and adults (Stafford, 1999). With violent video games humans are more prone to act aggressively, to have aggressive thoughts and become numb towards violence (Harding, 2009). Apart from these they are
Aggressions can be broadly divided in to two types: Reactive/ Impulsive aggression (RA) refers to aggression that is impulsive, emotionally charged, affective and uncontrolled. It has its theoretical roots in the frustration-tolerance theory. It is most often observed in response to a perceived threatening stimulus and is frequently accompanied by negative affect, facial expressions described as hostile, temper tantrums,
Aggression during an episode that is out of proportion to the triggering event. The aggressive episodes are not premeditated. They are not performed for vengeance, money, power, or other gain.
There are several sources that have recognized a two-way association between alcohol consumption and violent or aggressive behavior. Not only may alcohol consumption promote aggressiveness, but victimization may lead to excessive alcohol consumption. Violence may be defined as behavior that intentionally inflicts, or attempts to inflict, physical harm. Violence falls within the broader category of aggression, which also includes behaviors that are threatening, hostile, or damaging in a nonphysical way.
Explanation of concept: Aggression is an act of physical or verbal violence that is intended to hurt somebody. Aggression may be caused by something happening in the moment or it could be something that has been planned out. Anything that causes frustration could lead to aggression (Stewart, 2014, book
Aggression is defined as behaviour directed towards another living being with the intent of harming or injuring them in someway, and can be defined as either
Two psycho-biologically distinctive modes of aggression, affective and predatory, have received substantial experimental and clinical attention during the past 30 years. Affective aggression in humans is a defensive mode of violence that is accompanied by high levels of sympathetic arousal and emotion, usually anger and fear, and is a time-limited reaction to an imminent threat. Predatory aggression in humans is an attack mode of violence that is accompanied by minimal automatic arousal, and is planned, purposeful, and emotionless.
There are many different ways that behavior can be explained, especially on the terms of nature vs. nurture. Aggression is a behavior that has been extensively analyzed in a complex manner and the causes of it can be explained many different ways. Aggression can be defined as hostile or destructive behavior that can cause injury or destructive outlook especially when caused by frustration. Nature can be defined as aspects of behavior that have been inherited or are genetic, while nurture is all aspects that are influenced by environmental characteristics and experience. Many factors, both biological and environmental, influence and promote aggressive behaviors, such as hormones and neurotransmitters, genetics, family life, past experiences, and hobbies.
Some may perceive aggression as unhealthy and anti social but managed in a positive way can be empowering and enabling to individuals, groups and society as a whole.
Aggression is distinguished in two forms, affective aggression and instrumental aggression. Affective aggression is aggression that is caused by emotions such as anger and frustration whereas instrumental aggression is aggression that is used as a means to some other goal. In the below, I will discuss both using the example of a child bullying another as instrumental aggression and a recent fatal stabbing of a young girl as both instrumental and affective aggression.
Meyers and Dewall 2015, has defined aggression as “any act intended to harm someone physically or emotionally.” Ferguson and Beaver 2009 defines aggression as “behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of the organism relative to the dominance position of other organisms.” This definition is more directed towards the evolutionary influences of violence. Human ancestors lived in a survival of the fittest world. In order to survive, they needed to be the strongest, smartest and most dominant. Another definition from The World Health Organization (2009) states that violence is “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual against oneself, another person pr against a group or community, that either results in or has high like hood of resulting injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.” Aggression does not always have to be negative. Violence is accepted in some forms such as for sport, self-defense, defense of others, war, etc. For the purpose of this paper, aggression will be looked at in a negative way. To try to understand violence, the Nature verse Nurture lens will be
There are indicators that links playing violent video games to increasing aggression in young people. Teenagers who are expose to violent games are more supposable to increase the likelihood of experiencing aggressive thoughts, in which turns into the likelihood of engaging in physical aggression against another person. Furthermore, violent video games produce an emotional desensitization to aggression and violence to the youth (Anderson). Based on the observation teenagers are exposed to when they are playing violent video games, they will reenact almost immediately in real life if the situational contact is sufficiently similar to the ones in the games. Therefore, consumption of violent video games produces negative behaviors that are controlled by negative
But, what is aggression in the first place? Aggression is a behavior that causes or intends to cause harm to others. Accidental harm does not count as
“Recent contents analyses of video games show that many as 89% of games contain some violent contents” (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, Walsh 3). More than half of video games being sold around the world contain some form of violence. All of the violence involved in the video games being played by children is a pattern leading to aggression. Aggression can be caused by many things; however, violent video games are the main cause of aggression in young adults. “If a child began playing violent video games at a young age, then he might think that violence in real life is the same as the game violence and that it doesn’t have a real impact on others” (Gilad, Alto 1). Thinking that violence in the virtual world is the same as in the real world is the first step to showing aggression. Aggression in children caused by video games is the biggest effect parents and researchers worry about. Violent video games teach children that shooting and killing people are