CHAPTER 10 Hurting Others Why We Become Aggressive Defining Aggression Aggression as behavior that is intended to harm another individual who does not wish to be harmed Emotional or impulsive aggression refers to aggression that occurs with only a small amount of forethought or intent and which is determined primarily by impulsive emotions Emotional is the result of the extreme negative emotions we re experiencing at the time that we aggress and is not really intended to create any positive outcomes treated as second degree homicide in the United States legal system Instrumental or cognitive aggression on other hand is aggression that is intentional and planned Instrumental aggression is not that emotional and may be completely cold and calculating Instrumental aggression is aimed at hurting someone to gain something attention monetary reward or political power for instance serves some need for the perpetrator Violence aggression that has extreme physical harm such as injury or death as its goal Physical aggression is aggression that involves harming others physically for instance hitting kicking stabbing or shooting them Non physical aggression is aggression that does not involve physical harm Non physical aggression includes verbal aggression relational or social aggression defined as intentionally harming another person s social relationships for instance by gossiping about another person or excluding others from our friendship or giving them the silent treatment Biological and Emotional Causes of Aggression Is Aggression Evolutionarily Adaptive the goal of maintaining and enhancing the self will in some cases require that we prevent others from harming us and those we care about aggress against others because it allows us to gain access to valuable resources such as food and desirable mates or to protect ourselves from direct attack by others or if we feel like social status is threatened There is no doubt that aggression is in part genetically determined Animals can be bred aggression serotonin a neurotransmitter that influences mood appetite sleep and Evolutionary principles suggest that we should be less likely to harm those who are genetically related to us than we are to harm others who are different The Role of Biology in Aggression amygdala is a brain region responsible for regulating our perceptions of and reactions to aggression and fear When we experience events that are dangerous the amygdala stimulates the brain to remember the details of the situation so that we learn to avoid it in the future Activated when we look at others experiencing fear cerebral cortex the outer bark like layer of our brain that allows us to so successfully use language acquire complex skills create tools and live in social groups prefrontal cortex is in effect a control center on aggression more likely to control out impulses Testosterone heavily involved in aggression correlational influencing the development of various areas of the brain that control aggressive behaviors and also influences physical development such as muscle strength body mass and height that influence our ability to successfully aggress Alcohol and Aggression alcohol disrupts executive functions which are the cognitive abilities that help us plan organize reason achieve goals control emotions and inhibit behavioral tendencies alcohol myopia self focused and less aware of the social situation As a result they become less likely to notice the social constraints that normally prevent them from engaging aggressively and are less likely to use those social constraints to guide them Negative Emotions Cause Aggression Frustration anything that leads to discomfort or negative emotions can increase negative emotions do not always lead to aggression toward the source of our aggression frustration Displaced aggression occurs when negative emotions caused by one person trigger aggression toward a different person Can We Reduce Negative Emotions by Engaging in Aggressive Behavior Catharsis The idea that engaging in less harmful aggressive actions will reduce the tendency to aggress later in a more harmful way known as catharsis is an old one it was mentioned as a way of decreasing aggression increases when the country that one lives in is currently or recently fighting a war Violence Around Us Social situation Influence on Aggression Some aggression is learned through modeling the violence that we see all around us every day Violence Creates more Violence Television Video Games and Handguns students who had played one of the violent video games responded much more aggressively to the stories than did those who played the non violent games Aggression can be learned Why Does Viewing Violence Lead to Aggression We might try to escape the situation we might confront the person in a non violent way or we might choose to use violence The presence of guns reminds us that we may respond with violence When guns are around violence is highly cognitively accessible and this accessibility increases the likelihood of responding to provocation with violence Children and even adults may simply imitate the violence they observe Indeed there is substantial evidence that people do copy the aggression that they read about or see in the media desensitization the tendency to become used to and thus less influenced by a stimulus Personal and Cultural Influences of Aggression on average watching violence does increase aggression Individual Differences in Aggression Aggression is particularly likely among people who feel that they are being rejected by others that they care about individuals with inflated or unstable self esteem are more prone to anger and are highly aggressive when their high self image is threatened Gender Differences in Aggression Although these gender differences exist they do not mean that men and women are completely different or that women are never aggressive Both men and women respond to insults and provocation with aggression the differences between men and women are smaller after they have been frustrated insulted or threatened women are expected to have more highly developed other oriented attributes such as friendliness and emotional expressivity when women do aggress they use aggression as a means of expressing anger and reducing stress Men on the other hand are socialized to value more self oriented attributes such as independence and assertiveness they are more likely to use aggression to attain social or material
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