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Summary CHAPTER 10: Aggression and Antisocial Behaviour
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CHAPTER 10: Aggression and Antisocial BehaviourDefining Aggression, Violence and Antisocial Behaviour.
Aggression: behaviour intended to harm another person who does not want to be harmed.
This definition includes 3 important features:
(1) Aggression is a behaviour – you can see it. Aggression is not an emotion, such as anger.
Aggression is a thought, such as mentally rehearsing a murder.
(2) Aggression is deliberate and intentional and the intent is to harm
(3) Victim wants to avoid the harm
It is useful to distinguish among various forms and functions of aggression. By “forms” we mean how
the aggressive act is expressed, such as physically (hitting, kicking, stabbing, shooting) or verbally
(yelling, screaming, swearing, name calling).
Displaced aggression: substitute aggression target is used.
Different forms of aggression can be expressed:
a. Direct aggression: the victim is physically present
b. Indirect aggression: the victim is absent
To capture different functions or motives for aggression, psychologists make a distinction between
the following:
Reactive aggression (hostile aggression): ‘hot’, impulsive, angry behaviour motivated by the desire
to harm someone.
Proactive aggression (instrumental aggression): ‘cold’, premeditated, calculated harmful behaviour
that is a means to some practical or material end.
Bullying: persistent aggression by a perpetrator against a victim for the purpose of establishing a
power relationship over the victim
Cyberbullying: the use of the internet (email, social networking sites, blogs) to bully others.
Violence: aggression that has as its goals extreme physical harm, such as injury or death.
Antisocial behaviour: behaviour that either damages interpersonal relationships or is culturally
undesirable.
Is the world more or less violent now than in the past?
Aggression and violence are decreasing over time is consistent with nature says yes and
culture says no.
Main goals of culture is to reduce aggression.
Culture offers other, better ways of settling conflict: negotiation, property rights, money,
courts of law, compromise, religious and moral rules.
, Is aggression innate or learned?
Aggression gradually emerged as the essence of the problem, however. If aggression comes from
frustration, exploitation and injustice, then if one designed a perfect society, there would be no
aggression.
If people are naturally, innately aggressive, then no amount of social engineering will be able to get
rid of it. No matter how well a society is designed, people will still be aggressive.
If people are inherently aggressive, then aggression will always be with us, and society or culture
needs to find ways of living with it, such as by passing laws to punish wrongful aggression.
Instinct Theories
Promoted by Charles Darwin
Views aggressive behaviour as an evolutionary adaption that had enabled creatures to
survive better.
Theory suggests that this instinct developed during the course of evolution because it
promoted survival of individuals.
Sigmund Freud argued that human motivational forces, such as sex and aggression, are
based on instincts.
An instinct is an innate tendency to seek particular goal, such as food, water or sex.
Freud proposed the drive for sensory and sexual gratification as the primary human instinct.
He called this construct, life-giving instinct eros.
After witnessing World War I, he proposed, therefore, that humans also have a destructive,
death instinct, which he called Thanatos.
Learning Theories
Aggression is not an innate drive like hunger in search of gratification.
People learn aggressive behaviours the same way they learn other social behaviours – by
direct experience and by observing others.
The shift is from internal causes to external ones.
According to this theory, people observe and copy the behaviour of others.
This is called modelling, it can weaken or strengthen aggressive responding.
If the model is rewarded for behaving aggressively, further aggression becomes more likely.
If the model is punished for behaving aggressively, further aggression becomes less likely.
Nature and Nurture
Both learning and instinct are relevant.
People learn and mostly obey complicated rules about aggression.
As for nature, it is hard to dispute that aggression is found all over the world, and indeed
some of its patterns are universal.
As for nature, it is hard to dispute that aggression is found all over the world, and indeed
some of its patterns are universal.
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