1. Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Companies
Social Psychology
David Myers
10e
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Companies

2. Chapter Ten
Aggression: Hurting Others

3. What Is Aggression? Aggression Hostile Aggression
Physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm
Hostile Aggression
Driven by anger and performed as an end in itself
Instrumental Aggression
Aggression that is a means to some other end

4. What Are Some Theories of Aggression?
Aggression as a Biological Phenomenon
Instinct theory and evolutionary psychology
Innate, unlearned behavior pattern exhibited by all members of a species
Neural influences
Abnormal brains can contribute to abnormally aggressive behavior

5. What Are Some Theories of Aggression?
Aggression as a Biological Phenomenon
Biochemical influences
Alcohol
Testosterone
Low serotonin
Biology and behavior interact

6. What Are Some Theories of Aggression?
Aggression as a Response to Frustration
Frustration
Blocking of goal-directed behavior
Frustration-aggression theory
Theory that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress
Displacement

7. What Are Some Theories of Aggression?
Frustration-Aggression Theory Revised
Original theory overstated the frustration-aggression connection
Frustration produces anger, an emotional readiness to aggress
Theory is designed to explain hostile aggression, not instrumental aggression

8. What Are Some Theories of Aggression?
Aggression as a Response to Frustration
Relative deprivation
Perception that one is less well off than others with whom one compares oneself
Explains why happiness tends to be lower and crime rates higher in communities and nations with large income inequality

9. What Are Some Theories of Aggression?
Aggression as Learned Social Behavior
Rewards of aggression
Through experience and by observing others, we learn that aggression often pays

10. What Are Some Theories of Aggression?
Observational Learning
Social learning theory
We learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished
Family
Culture

11. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Aversive Incidents
Physical pain
Psychological pain
Heat
Attacks
Includes insults

12. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Arousal
A given state of bodily arousal feeds one emotion or another, depending on how the person interprets and labels the arousal

13. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Aggression Cues
Violence is more likely when aggressive cues release pent-up anger
Figure 10.5

14. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influence: Pornography and Sexual Violence
Distorted Perceptions of Sexual Reality
Studies confirm that exposure to pornography increases acceptance of the rape myth

15. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influence: Pornography and Sexual Violence
Distorted Perceptions of Sexual Reality
Aggression against women
Studies suggest that the sales of sexually explicit magazines are correlated to the rate of reported rapes

16. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influence: Pornography and Sexual Violence
Distorted Perceptions of Sexual Reality
Experimental studies
Repeated exposure to erotic films featuring quick, uncommitted sex also tends to
Decrease attraction for one’s partner
Increase acceptance of extramarital sex and of women’s sexual submission to men
Increase men’s perceiving women in sexual terms

17. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influence: Pornography and Sexual Violence
Distorted Perceptions of Sexual Reality
Medial awareness education
Media awareness training as an alternative to censorship

18. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influences: Television
Television’s Effects on Behavior
Correlating TV viewing and behavior
Frequent result of correlating children’s TV viewing with aggressiveness is the more violent the content the more aggressive the child
Extends to indirect aggression

19. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influences: Television
Television’s Effects on Behavior
TV viewing experiments
Ross Parke (1977) and Jacques Leyens (1975)
Showed institutionalized American and Belgian delinquent boys a series of either aggressive or nonaggressive commercial films
Finding: Exposure to more violence led to an increase in viewer aggression

20. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influences: Television
Television’s Effects on Behavior
Why does TV viewing affect behavior?
The arousal that it produces
Viewing violence disinhibits
Media portrayals evoke imitation

21. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influences: Television
Television’s Effects on Thinking
Desensitization
Social scripts
Culturally provided mental instructions for how to act in various situations
Altered perceptions
Media portrayals shape perceptions of reality
Cognitive priming
Media portrayals prime thinking

22. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influences: Video Games
The Games Kids Play
Games are becoming more violent and sometimes include
Carjacking
Shooting
Sex
Murder
Games that are rated “M” for mature are often marketed to those younger

23. Violent Video Game Influences on Aggressive Tendencies
Figure 10.10

24. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Media Influences: Video Games
Effects of the Games Kids Play
Increases arousal
Increases aggressive thinking
Increases aggressive feelings
Increases aggressive behaviors
Decreases prosocial behaviors

25. What Are Some Influences on Aggression?
Group Influences
Can amplify aggressive reactions partly by diffusing responsibility
Increases with distance and number
Social contagion

26. How Can Aggression Be Reduced?
Catharsis?
Contrary to the catharsis hypothesis, expressing aggression by catharsis tends to breed further aggression, not reduce it

27. How Can Aggression Be Reduced?
A Social Learning Approach
Controlling aggression by counteracting the factors that provoke it
Reducing aversive stimulation
Rewarding nonaggression
Modeling nonaggression
Eliciting reactions incompatible with aggression