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AGGRESSION
What is aggression?
What biological,
social, and situational factors lead to agg?
Does exposure to
media violence and pornography produce agg in viewers?
How can we reduce agg
beh?
Agg is (longer
version):
·
(Baron &
Richardson, 1994) Agg is any form of beh directed toward the goal of harming or
injuring another living being who's movtivated to
avoid such tx.
·
Provocations
must usually be regarded as intentional and malicious in intent before they
lead to agg.
·
They must also
be considered a violation of normal soc beh in the situation.
·
They must lead
to outcomes tt are regarded as alternatives to other outcomes
(i.e.,
they must be considered avoidable)
EX: The driver in front of me saw me coming up
behind them and had an opportunity to move to the right lane, but chose to sit
there in the fast lane.
Agg is (shorter
version):
·
an act of harm
doing against another person
·
the harm doing
is intentional
·
the victim
must regard the harm doing as aversive and unwanted
(this “excuses” sadistic and masochistic beh when the
receiver consents)
·
emphasis is
placed on the intent to harm, which leaves open the question of the means used
by the harm doer
Related Terms :
·
Violence: An extreme act of agg (Brehm and Kassin, 1996); applies
more to physical injury rather than psychological injury (Feldman pg. 297)
·
Hostility: longer lasting (enduring) feelings of anger, ill will,
unfriendliness, antagonsitic tendencies, feelings of enmity (a bitter att or
feelings toward an enemy, a strong, settled feeling of hatred whether
concealed, displayed, or latent)
·
Anger: a feeling of displeasure resulting from injury,
mistreatment, opposition and usually leads to a desire to fight back at the
supposed cause of this feeling; broadly applicable to feelings of resentful or
revengeful displeasure
Zillman (1988) defines anger: a conscious experience tt is generated by an increase in physiological arousal arising from soc or environmental conditions tt pose a threat to welfare and well-being .
·
Rage: a violent outburst in wch self-control is lost
·
Fury: implies a frenzied rage tt borders on madness
·
Ire: a literary word, a show of great anger in acts, words,
looks, etc.
·
Wrath: implies a deep indignation expressing itself in a desire to
punish or get revenge.
·
Hate: to have strong dislike or ill
will for; loathe; despise; abhor
1. Accidentally
injuring someone No
2. Shooting to kill
but missing Yes
3. Hurling insults at
someone Yes
4. Deliberately
failing to prevent harm Yes
5. Murdering for
money Yes
6. Striking out in a
rage Yes
·
We can’t see
another person’s intentions.
·
Ppl are
capable of lying about their intentions
·
We are charged
with the responsibility to try to determine a motive in legal proceedings; we
need to consider the cause of agg in the context and the causal attribution the
aggressor makes.
Hostile agg (a.k.a.
Emotional aggression): agg
motivated by anger and performed as an end in itself; hurting for the sake of hurting [goal is to
injure physically or psychologically]
EX after a play in rugby is over and a player
from the opposite team gives a knee jab. They weren't doing tt to help their
team win, they were doing simply for hurting the other
player.
EX: most homicides
EX: A bar brawl
EX: A husband and
wife hurting each other psychologically and/or physically in the heat of an
argument
Instrumental agg: agg tt's a means to some other end (than for hurting for
the sake of hurting)
EX: 1990 Persian Gulf
War. President Bush wasn't going to say hey we're killing Iraquis just to cause
harm, no..... we have to do this in order to
reliberate
EX: most
assassinations
EX: Contract killer /
mercenaries
EX: Erik and Lyle
Menendez murdered their parents so they could obtain their parents’ wealth.
Most cultures have
norms tt prescribes activity in the situation in ?.
These norms reflect
the basic values of the ppl involved and are determined by the cuture.
Most
cultures have a norm tt condemns the infliction of intentional malevolent harm
on another person.
Most
have a norm tt excuses or justifies the occasional infliction of intentional
but nonmalevolent harm.
EX pain caused by a
police officer in the line of duty
EX: police puts
handcuffs on criminal
EX: officer at the
detox when the kid was throwing stuff and spitting.
Passive Agg: A failure to act can be aggressive.
EX: Procrastination,
foot-dragging, avoidance of responsibility
EX: Someone who is
need of help and you knowingly withhold help.
EX: If you know your
boss is in a lousy mood and doesn’t want to see anyone, but you deliberately
decide not to warn a co-worker who is heading toward the boss’ office.
EX: You know that an
organization is dumping chemicals into the town’s water supply, yet you withold
this info from others.
Another norm: it's
wrong to do nothing to prevent a foreseeable act of harm to another person
[teens buying guns, knowing friends' intentions] to do nothing is still a
choice, it's not a nonchoice.
Indirect Agg: Involves the social manipulation of others in order to harm
a target.
EX: Spreading gossip,
false rumors
EX: Trying to get
others to stop liking a target
What Biological, Motivational, Emotional,
Cognitive, Social, and Situational Factors Lead to Agg?
1) Innateness: Are we born “that way?”
a) Instinct Theories:
· William James (1910) believed tt agg is so much a part of innate human nature tt it can be controlled only thru substitute activity where ppl drain off their instinctual agg drive into prosoc beh. He says our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow and thousands of years of peace won't breed it out of us.
·
McDougall (1908)
believed tt agg will not change in a person's lifetime. It's fixed and wired
into the person waiting only to be set off by some adequate condition.
b) Socio-biological
perspective:
·
Cosmides
and Tooby (1992) agree with Konrad
Lorenz (1966) that human warfare originated for the purpose of obtaining
valuable resources. Cosmides and Tooby also believe that our “stone age”
ancestors fought their earliest battles to have access to women, rather than
food or land. Sure you are more likely to spread your genes if you are well fed
and have a safe place to live, but you absolutely must have a mate first.
·
Socio-biologists
posit tt agg is but one act tt animals use to try to protect their kinship grp
(grp tt shares similar genes)
c) Behavioral
Genetics perspective:
·
Areas in the
brain have been identified as regulating emotions wch includes anger.
To what degree do hormones, neurotransmitters,
and cerebral matter influence agg beh?
·
Beh
Geneticists have studied lots of twins: monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ).
If
genetics/heredity had nothing to do with agg behs, then we would see great variation
among both mono and dizygot twins. But the results of testing twins on
variables such as altruism, empathy, nurturance, assertiveness, and
aggressiveness reveal higher covariations among MZ pairs than DZ pairs on all 5
variables!
How do we interpret this? Twin studies don't confirm tt agg is innate, but what it does show is a biological propensity, capacitiy for agg.
For
agg to actually occur, some condition of the environment must elicit it, draw
it out.
A
variety of twin studies, however have shown mixed results, meaning that the
evidence is hardly conclusive at this point in time.
·
Mednick
& Kandel (1988) reviewed the
criminal records of children adopted by nonkin btwn 1924 and 1947. They also
examined the criminal records of the children’s biological parents and adoptive
parents.
They
found that the biological parents’ criminality was a solid predictor for
property crimes, but not violent crimes. (They ended up only looking at male
children (the sons) b/c the criminal rate among females was too low to
adequately analyze.)
·
Males,
females, and hormones!
Several
studies have shown a relationship btwn testosterone levels and aggressive beh.
Maccoby & Jacklin (1974)
using both laboratory research and naturalistic observation of children around
the world found tt boys are consistently more agg than girls. For example, in
comparing the
Dabbs et al. (1987 & 1988 & 1995) found that female and male prison inmates who committed an
unprovoked violent crime had higher testosterone levels than did those who
committed a nonviolent crime.
Berman
(1993) found tt male college students w/ high testosterone levels were more agg
on an experimental task than those males w/ low levels of testosterone.
Aronson (1997) pg 440. Among adults worldwide, men are significantly more likely
to be arrested for criminal activity than are women. When women are arrested, it is more likely
for fraud, forgery, and larceny (theft of property)
Archer & McDaniel (1995)
recruited teens from 11 different countries to read unfinished stories
involving conflict among people. They asked the teens to complete the story by
providing their own solution. Boys provided a violent solution significantly
more often than girls.
Despite
the above pattern of gender difference findings, researchers caution the public
not to infer cause and effect from the testosterone-aggression relationship.
Some researchers suggest that perhaps aggressive beh leads to an increase in
testosterone instead (Baron & Richardson, 1994). Others posit that stress
may be a “3rd variable” that influences both testosterone and agg.
High levels of stress are linked to increases in both testosterone and stress
(Thompson et al., 1990).
2) Psychoanalytic
perspective
Freud (1920s) based
his theory on the nature of agg on the relation of the self to objects around
it and whether those objects evoke pleasure or pain.
When the object is a
source of pleasurable feelings we speak of the attraction exercised by the
pleasure giving object and say tt we love tt object.
When the object is
the source of painful feelings we feel a repulsion for the object and hate it ; this hate can be intensified to the point of an agg
tendency towards the object, w/ the intention of destroying it (Freud, 1915)
Later Freud linked
agg to the "death wish" (thanatos). The
death wish leads to self-destructive behs.
But if the person expresses anger and agg toward other ppl the consequences
of the death wish may be turned away from the self and the person will survive.
He says tt war is a
form of self-preservation: We kill each
other in order to avoid turning our destructive wishes against ourselves.
3) Motivation
perspective
Frustration-Agg
Hypothesis (FAH) by Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, & Sears (1939)
They
applied research findings from learning and motivation wch at tt time ruffled
the feathers of all of the Behaviorists (Behaviorists focus on observable beh).
FAH
- Frustration evokes a state of instigation to aggress, wch is a drive state tt
motivates beh in the same way as primary drives like hunger and thirst motivate
someone to obtain food and liquid.
Once
agg has occurred, drive reduction follows in much the same way as it does after
primary appetitive beh.
They
proposed tt:
-frustration will always
elicit an aggression motive
-all agg is caused by
frustration
They
referred to the drive reduction component of their hypothesis as, catharsis.
Catharsis: The reduction of the motive to aggress tt is
said to result from any imagined, observed, or actual act of agg.
Weakness
is tt it asserts tt the inner state of agg drive tt's elicited by frustration
will always lead to agg unless it's inhibited by fear, moral revulsion, or some
other counter-agg motive.
This
drive state therefore has the same functional status as an instinct but is
considered to be a response to situational conditions.
In
1941 Miller (one of the original authors) acknowledged that frustration doesn’t
always produce agg tendencies and beh.
·
Catharsis is
not all that it’s cracked up to be.
-Imagined
agg and/or watching others aggress leads to overall increases in arousal and
agg, not decreases
-While
sometimes agg can lower physiological arousal levels, if this reduction feels
good, this can be reinforcing. Recall that reinforcement means in Y language that an increase in behavior is likely to occur,
not a decrease (punishment)
-Relatively
low levels of agg erode restraints against more violent beh (foot-in-the-door).
4) Bandura’s
Social Learning Theory
In the 60s and 70s
emphasis has been placed more on situational conditions compared to innate and
instincutal causes of agg.
·
Bandura's
Social Learning Theory epitomized the situationist perspective.
·
The major
feature of this theory is tt it describes how novel aggressive behs are learned
thru observation and imitation of agg models and how aggressive behs are
maintained thru soc reinforcement.
EX: Bobo Doll
experiment
·
B/c of
someone's past experience being aggressed against then certain situations will
prime them to more readily mount an agg response or elicit the flight response.
Wch
response will be determined mostly by the person's hx of reward and punishment.
So
if you fought back and got clobbered you might be more likely to turn tail and
run.
But
if you took a toy away from your sibling and got away with it, then you’re more
likely to aggress again to get what you want.
·
Yelling beh is
often imitated after watching others interact that way. If a spouse yells at
their partner and gets the results they wanted then they were reinforced and
using tt agg beh is likely to increase in the future.
·
A ch watches
another child have a tantrum, so he or she uses the temper tantrum technique in
the store and you immediately pay attn to it. Are you reinforcing the agg
response or extinguishing it?
Ignore
it. Beh will probably intensify, but with consistency it will most likely
decline over the long run.
EX: A ch hits another
ch and gets the desired toy, this is reinforcing. When you see this you give
the toy back to the original ch.
Watch out tt you are
not reinforcing the aggressor ch by giving attn. Consider using a time out
where the ch has to be isolated for a short period of time.
[See additional
information]
5) Cognitive-Emotional
Connection
Berkowitz
(1988) says tt emotions
evoke certain related mental states through complex memory networks. (Semantic
networks are one type of associative networks in our mem.)
If you've ever found
yourself thinking abt something and you wonder how did I come to think of that?
Then you work backwards to the original thought. It's amazing how one thought
can lead to another. (Similar concept is
when English teachers use clustering in elem school writing assignments)
He's basically saying
tt everything starts with an affective reaction wch then leads to an immediate
response to a particular aversive situation.
[Affect: is a general term used more or less interchangeably with words like emot, feeling, and mood. This is why it can seem redundant when used in the same sentence as emot. You can think of it as Titchener intended years ago as a label for a dimension of feeling from unpleasantness to pleasantness]
So basically he's saying tt our affect is linked to related thoughts, emotions, and expressive motor patterns (behs).
So tt activating our
affect in turn activates other processes too.
This sets in motion a complex network of emots and thoughts related to either agg or escape (i.e., fight or flight). Berkowitz called this the cognitive-neoassociation analysis.
He says tt any stimulus can elicit agg if it generates sufficient neg affect.
·
The stimuli
he's talking abt that have been studied the most have to do with interpersonal
provocations like:
a) physical
attack
b) intent
to harm (just knowing that someone wants to harm you can lead to an increase in
agg beh)
c) verbal
insult
d) frustration
EX: Retaliation when provoked is especially prevalent in
cultures tt emphasize protecting one’s honor (Nisbett, 1993).
·
A sense of
honor is especially prevalent in the South and Southwest regions of the
·
Argument-provoked
murders are committed by white males in these regions significantly more often
than in other regions.
·
Felony-related
murders (events leading to murder, which are considered more serious such as,
rape, arson, treason) occur in almost equal rates around the
Intrapersonal
provocation: Pain
·
Painful
stimuli can elicit neg affect wch then leads to activating association networks
tt lead to aggressive motor patterns.
EX: A chronically ill person is in pain and then acts crabby to
family by hurting their feelings with insensitive comments. Pain may subdue our
inhibitory responses so things we wouldn't normally say now come out.
EX: Animals who are resting peacefully and then suddenly
shocked will immediately aggress toward others.
·
This may
explain why we don't understand why wild animals struggle with us when we're
trying to help them. Their brain is just wired that way.
·
We don't see
this as much with animals (domesticated) who perceive
humans as their in-grp, their family. So if Sparky is in pain she may not
aggress toward her owner who's trying to help her.
EX: (Berkowitz, Cochran, and Embree (1981) Had subjects place their hand in either freezing
ice water or tepid water and put them in control of
delivering bursts of noise to another person.
·
Which grp gave
more bursts? Freezing water group.
·
Even though tt
other person had nothing to do with making them place their hands in cold
water.
·
The
researchers attributed the participants’ agg motor responses (pushing noise
button) to the neg affect they were feeling.
EX:
Berkowitz and Heimer (1989) told
subjects to hold their hand in either ice water or tepid water while thinking
of either punishment or some less punitive matter.
Results: while thinking abt punishment and suffering from the cold stress led subjects to administer a greater # or aversive noise bursts to another person and their feelings of anger were higher.
Intrapersonal
provocation: Mood
·
The type of
emotional arousal as well as the intensity of physiologicall arousal can
influence agg responses.
EX: Baron & Ball (1974)
found that creating positive emotional reactions in participants can cancel out
negative feelings, which then leads to a reduction in agg beh.
They had a
confederate provoke angry emotions in participants and then they divided the
participants into two groups.
shown funny cartoons shown
neutral pictures
Given an
opportunity to deliver electric shocks to the person who provoked them.
Group 1 delivered
fewer shocks.
· Physical exercise is highly physiologically arousing, but considered to be an emotionally neutral experience.
EX: Dolf Zillman, Katcher, &
Milavsky (1972)
They had a
confederate provoke angry emotions in participants and then they divided the
participants into two groups.
engaged in strenous exercise did
not engage in strenous exercise
Given an opportunity to deliver electric shocks to the person who provoked them.
Group 1 delivered
more shocks.
Explanation: arousal
elicited by exercise was mislabeled as anger at time of retaliation. This phenomena is known as the process of Excitation Transfer:
the arousal created by one stimulus can intensify a person’s emotional response
to another stimulus.
EX: Zillman (1971) arranged for male subjs to be provoked to anger by another person and then showed the subjects 1 of 3 short sequences from commercial movies.
It was already
predetermined tt the order of most physiological arousing (heart rate,
breathing, perspiration) was:
1. erotic
movie—sexual, but nonviolent
2. violent
movie—scene from a prize fight
3. neutral
movie—travel
After watching the
film each person had a chance to retaliate against their previous antagonizer
by "shocking" them.
Wch grp gave the most
shocks? The erotic movie viewers
Explanation: residual
arousal left over from viewing the films was labeled as anger at the time of
retaliation; again this is called excitation transfer.
FYI: Ppl who have mood disorders like depression or bipolar mood disorder have higher rates of agg compared to the rest of the population.
When just looking at
punishing thoughts by themselves the subjects also increased noise bursts.
Berkowitz called this Priming the Associative Network .
Srull and
Wyer (1979) had ppl engage in a
verbal task tt included either hostile words like war, fight, punish,
rape, assault, etc.
and gave their control grp neutral words like desk,
tomato, sea, plastic, wall, etc.
and then rated their hostility and agg tendencies toward a
target person who did nothing to them.
Wch grp was more
hostile and agg? The grp exposed to hostile words.
Wann and
Branscombe (1990) did the same thing,
but used violent sports words like hockey and prizefighting.
Results were the same. Priming ppl's thoughts in an agg direction influenced agg behs and agg emotions.
· Do guns kill ppl or do ppl kill ppl?
Berkowitz & LePage (1967) conducted an experiment in which a confederate
provoked participants and then they divided the participants into two groups.
revolver & rifle present badminton
racquet & shuttlecock
Given an opportunity to deliver electric shocks to the person who provoked them.
Group 1 delivered
more shocks. This is called the weapons effect.
7) Cog and Soc
Interaction in Explaining Agg Beh
To what do ppl
attribute agg beh?
OR
What's involved in the
attributional process of agg beh?
Explaining agg is
based on answers to 3 questions tt a person asks after having been harmed by
someone.
1. What was the act
of harm tt was done AND why?
[INTENT] Was it intentional? or non-intentional?
[MOTIVE] Was the intention
malevolent?
[FORESEEABILITY] If unintentional, could person foresee the
result of the act?
malevolent: wishing evil or
harm to others, having or showing ill will; deliberate mischief
An act of harmdoing
could be separated into 4 categories based on intent, motive, and
foreseeability
INTENTION MOTIVE/FORSEEABILITY EXAMPLE
Intentional Malicious Premeditated murder
Intentional Not Malicious Restraint of mugger,
Physician-assisted
suicide
Unintentional Foreseeable Injury Due to DUI
Unintentional Not Foreseeable Injury Due to unknown
mechanical failure
2. What ought to have
been done under the circumstances?
·
In other
words, what should have happened? What were the alternatives?
3. Does any
discrepancy exist btwn (#1 and # 2) what was done and what ought to have been
done?
·
Is what was
done, what should have been done? OR
·
Is there
disagreement over what was done and what should have done?
We
look to the situation, we look to socio-cultural
norms.
1. Commit harm tt's willfully malevolent A woman beats
her child. Murder, Fraud, Libel, etc.
2. Commit harm tt's not malicious Spanking (aruguable);
dislocating ch's arm while trying to pull away from a fire; kill, injure
an animal tt is attacking a person or your pet.
Doctor
causes pain while trying to save life.
3. Unintentional but foreseeable Robin Anderson bought guns that Klebold &
Harris used to kill 13 ppl at Columbine and injure many others; DUI; not
putting seatbelts on ch
Leaving
child in hot car and ch dies. (Criminally negligent homicide fits well here)
4. Unintentional and
unforeseeable Seatbelt
doesn't work (genuine accidents)
8) Cultural Variables in Agg
Norms and cultural
customs govern the expression of agg. So we need to look at the meaning tt the
person attributes to the originally eliciting event.
Agg values play a sig
role in overall national value sys of the
·
78% of all
respondents agreed with the statement "Some ppl don't understand anything,
but force"
·
70% agreed
with the item "When a boy is growing up it's important for him to have a
few fist fights"
·
65% blv tt
police use no more force than is necessary to carry out their duties
·
56% accepted
the statement tt "Any man who insults a policeman has no complaint if he
gets roughed up in return"
·
62% agreed tt
"In dealing w/ other countries in the world we are frequently justified in
using military force"
These American blfs
explain why agg atts enter into everyday soc interactions.
·
Due to the
culture we live in, We are more likely to interpret
same situations as threatening, goading, challenging, or overpowering compared
to other countries.
·
Therefore
we're more likely to react with duels, struggles for power, or violent escapes.
W/in the
·
Homicide rates
among Caucasians living in rural or small town environments in the southern
part of the country are higher than rates in rural or small town environments
in the north.
·
But large
cities in the north or the south are abt the same.
·
White southern
men are more likely to blv tt agg is justified in defense of human life and
property and to think tt agg in response to an insult is justified and proper.
·
Using force to
punish ch is more widely accepted in the South than the north.
·
White male
homicide rates are higher in rural south where herding and tending animals is
main basis for agriculture compared to regions where farming is most common.
·
Honor codes
and self-esteem are more prevalent in the South
·
Gangs: reflects society's prevailing standards of
agg. Gang viol has been shown to have origins in rapid soc change found in
societies in transition, like inner city neighborhoods.
These
rapid changes produce a breakdown in traditional norms and lead to a loss of communal control
over aggressiveness in small grps.
Then agg becomes part
of the norm wch replaces the old one.
·
Iroquois who
were peaceful and then due to having to compete for same resources became more
aggressive.
·
Settlers from
·
Right now in
S.F. you have
·
Gangs serve as
reinforcers too. They provide a means of instant gratification, a powerful peer
grp, soc status, opportunity to assert self and feel powerful.
·
Gangs
legitimize agg.
·
There's also
shared understanding of agg wch is the basis for gang norms. Then you have grp processes like grp
polarization where the grp becomes more extreme.
Can environmental
conditions lead to agg? Yes
·
noise (Geen
& McCown, 1984)
·
air pollution
(bad odors—Rotton & Frey, 1985 ; cigarette smoke—Zillmann et al., 1981)
·
pop density
(crowding) (Fisher et al. 1984)
·
temperatures
(high temps especially) (Baron, 1977; Baron & Richardson, 1994)
EX: Berkowitz (1983)
found tt ppl exposed to foul odors, irritating cigarette smoke, and disgusting
scenes of diseased body parts show increased aggressive feelings.
·
Baron (1977)
and Baron & Richardson (1994) posited that the
effects of temperature (and other aversive stimuli) can be understood according
to the Negative Affect Escape Model. As the intensity of the aversive stimuli
increases, so will agg and negative affect. But, when
the aversive stimuli gets too extreme, then agg decreases—most likely from
fatigue, death, or other means of escape.
EX:
Baron & Ransberger (1978) looked at the # of riots
tt occurred from 1967-1971 and they found that as the temp got hotter, the # of
riots increased.
EX:
10) Media Influences
·
When tv agg is
said to be real it evokes more agg, compared to fictictious scenes
·
When tv
aggressor is justified it evokes more agg
·
When agg
motive is revenge it evokes more agg compared to other motives
·
Soc comparison
theory explain tt we are more likely to identify w/
the aggressive good guy than aggressive bad guy so we see it as a necessary
right and then a norm.
·
Soc learning
theory: rsrch findings (Eisenberg, 1980) found tt ch who had observed an adult
make approving statements abt agg on tv were more
likely to act aggressively than those ch who saw adults make disapproving
statements. [So it's very important to sit with kids and explain your views!]
·
When a ch sees
another ch imitate tv agg then they are more likely to
agg too. [So monitor your kids friends and sit down together with kid and
friends and talk abt acceptable vs nonacceptable beh]
·
Viewing scenes
where a man is overpowering and a woman is becoming aroused (i.e. Scarlett
O'Hara, romance novels)
-leads to cog distortions, what is
meant by this?
·
Results show
tt after repeated viewing (cumulative effects) of erotic films featuring quick,
uncommitted sex (i.e., Ally McBeal and the carwash, etc.)
-decrease sexual attraction for
current partner
-increases acceptance of affairs
-increases acceptance of blf tt
women should be submissive to men
-influences men to think of women in
primarily sexual terms
·
Viewing films
where mild sexual violence is portrayed leads to increased agreement tt women
welcome sexual assault. That no means yes, tt women want to be dominated
·
Desensitization
and habituation (adaptation to something familiar, so tt both physiological and
psychological responses are reduced.)
·
Long-term
effect of viewing aggressive media content:
-ppl
identify with the characters and begin internalizing characters of fictional tv ppl or cartoons.
-ch
want to be like the good guy and not the bad guy, but the good guy often uses
violence to manipulate the bad guy.
·
Does viewing
pornography increase agg toward women or is tt ppl who are agg drawn to porn? can't determine cause and effect in this situation.
def of porn:
explicit sexual material regardless of moral or aesthetic qualities; can be
violent or nonviolent.
Nonviolent
porn can elicit low levels of arousal in which retaliatory agg is reduced
(person experiences pleasant mood), but if the emotional response is negative,
then porn materials usually increase agg toward a same-sex confederate.
EX: Donnerstein & Hallam (1978) conducted an experiment in which a female or male confederate provoked participants and then they divided the participants into these grps.
female confederate and sexually
explicit film
male confederate and sexually
explicit film
female confederate and NOT
sexually explicit film
male confederate and NOT
sexually explicit film
Given an opportunity to deliver electric shocks to the person who provoked them.
Groups 1 and 2 delivered
more shocks than Groups 3 and 4.
In comparing just
groups 1 and 2, the male participants aggressed more against the female
confederate.
Zillman
& Bryant (1984) Repeated
exposure effects?
College students were
shown either 18 or 36 nonviolent porn film over 6
weeks.
Control group saw
neutral films or no films.
Researchers assessed:
1. physiological
arousal to new porn stimuli
2. aggressiveness
toward a same-sex confederate
3. attitudes
toward sentencing for a rapist and opinion of women’s liberation movement
Findings:
1. habituation
occurred; arousal was a lot less intense
2. experimental
groups were less agg toward a same-sex confed who provoked them than the
control group.
3. experimental
grps recommended a lighter sentence and less support for women’s movement than
the control grp. Results were same for male and female participants.
Male participants
only were surveyed abt their callousness toward women and those who saw more
porn had more neg atts.
Violent porn
intensified the effect; the findings were more robust.
Stat: 1993 36% of
male coll stu reported having viewed materials during the past year tt featured
forced sexual acts against women; 25% said the had
looked at materials depicting rape Demare et al, 1993). Brehm
& Kassin pg 316.
11) DEVELOPMENT/
FAMILY ISSUES
·
Absence of
father in home increases risk factors for ch to behave aggressively
·
Kids who are
rejected by their peers and in other ways socially maladjusted and/or
chronically agg tend to perceive hostile intent where others don’t.
Source: Brehn & Kassin pg 307-308
·
Enlarge opportunities to achieve the goals valued by
society (i.e., soc approval, status, financial success) through nonviolent
means.
·
Reward nonagg beh
·
Provide attractive models of peaceful beh
·
Reduce all forms of agg in society including physical
punishment of ch, capital punishment of criminals, and war
·
Reduce frustration by improving quality of life in
housing, health care, employment, and ch-care
·
Provide fans and air-conditioned shelters when it’s
hot
·
Reduce access to and display of weapons.
·
Apologize when you’ve angered someone, and regard
apologies as a sign of strength—not weakness. Encourage others to do likewise.
·
Stop and think when you feel your temper rising.
Control it instead of letting it control you.
·
Discourage drinking and support efforts to provide tx for etoh and drug abuse.
Additional
suggestions:
·
Enhance your awareness of and competency in
perspective-taking.
Source:
Dr. David Gonzales (1997)
·
2,000,000 women are beaten in their homes each year
·
6 rapes are reported every 6 minutes (or one per
minute)
·
1:3 women will be raped in her lifetime
·
1:8
Source: Brehm and Kassin (1996)
Guns and Violence; pg
303
·
Guns are the second fastest rising cause of death,
exceeded only by AIDS
·
Over 60% of murders are committed with guns
·
More ppl die from gunshots than from traffic
accidents in CA, LA, NV, NY, TX, VA,
·
Nearly half of all Americans have firearms in the
home; those who keep guns are almost 3x more likely to
be killed at home as those who don’t.
·
In a national survey of students in 6th
–12th grades, 59% said they knew where to get a gun if they needed
one, 15% said they’d carried a handgun in the past 30 days, and 11% said they’d
been shot at.
·
The number of gun-related murders committed by
juvenile offenders aged 10-17 has more than doubled since 1976.
Murder; pg 287
·
Although the overall murder rate has declined since
1980, murders committed by individuals aged 14-24 have increased sharply.
·
Murder is the leading cause of death among teenage
and young adult Af-Amer males and females, with particualry high levels among
18-24-year-olds
·
Murder is the 3rd leading cause of death
among ch aged 5-14, exceeded by accidents and cancer
·
More stats on pg 320-321.
Domestic Violence; pg 323
·
leading cause of injury for women aged 14-44
·
1/3 of female homicide vics are murdered by a husband
or boyfriend
·
1991—1,320 women were murdered by a husband or
boyfriend, and 624 men were murdered by a wife or girlfriend.
Child Abuse; pg 324
·
Each yr over 1 million ch are physically abused
·
Each yr over 150,000 ch are sexually abused
·
60% of rape vics are under
18.
·
boys are more likely to be abused than girls
·
mothers are more likely to abuse than fathers
·
In 1994 a report stated that mothers were more likely
to kill their ch, buy in 1995 another report said that fathers and boyfriends
were more likely to kill their ch.
Family; pg 291
·
Daly & Wilson (1988) found that birth parents are
much less likely to abuse or murder their own children compared to stepparents
and their stepchildren.
Media; pg 309
·
Leonard Eron testified before a U.S. Senate
subcommittee tt if a ch watches an avg of 2-4 hours of t.v. per day, by the end
of elem school, tt ch will have seen 8,000 murders and
more than 100,000 other acts of violence.
Source: Taylor, Peplau, Sears (1997)
·
In the
·
Since rape is drastically under-reported, the actual
number of rapes is estimated at 683,000 per year.
·
The
·
Women and the Death Penalty
·
Women account for about 1 in 8 (13%) murder arrests
Women account for only 1 in 52 (1.9%) death sentences imposed at the trial
level
Women account for only 1 in 72 (1.4%) persons presently on death row
Women account for only 5 of the 683 (0.7%) persons actually executed since
Furman (as of 12/31/00).