Theories of Aggression

As aggression is an emotional reaction and it is very hard to measure. The most common
way aggression is measured in lab studies is by asking people to give electric shocks. Other ways
include getting them to punch a doll, to verbally rate how aggressive they felt, or to push a button
to rate their aggression on a scale. However, these are subjective and people have different
perspectives of aggression.
There are many theories as to what causes us to act aggressively:
Frustration-aggression Hypothesis
When we are blocked from achieving our goal, this leads to frustration. Frustration can
then lead to aggression. However, sometimes this frustration can be displaced and lead to
something else, eg depression.
Frustration can be increased when it is unexpected, or when we are nearer to our goal
when it is blocked - you are more likely to get angry at someone for pushing in front of you if
you are second in a queue than if you are 50th in the queue. Frustration is likely to be less keenly
felt when it is understandable, legitimate or unintentional.
Relative Deprivation Theory
When people feel that they deserve more than they have got, this can lead to frustration,
which can then lead to aggression. This does not always happen in the poorest areas, as you
might expect, as it is about what people feel they deserve. It occurs when people compare what
they have to what others around them have. It often occurs when conditions are improving and
expectations are rising but are not met.
Cue-arousal Theory
According to this theory, although frustration leads to anger, it doesn't necessarily lead to
aggression. There needs to be some associated stimulus to spark the aggression. For example, if
you were carrying a pile of heavy books and couldn't get the door open, this would cause you to
feel frustration, but not aggression. However, if someone then laughed at you, this may be the
cue to aggression.
This was shown by an experiment called the Weapons Effect. Participants were given a
task to do and were verbally criticised for their performance of the task, leading to frustration.
They were then given the chance to give electric shocks to the people who had criticised them.
Half of the participants did this while there was a gun present. These people gave significantly
more shocks than the other half, suggesting that the gun acted as a cue to aggression. However,
one criticism of this study is that there may be cultural differences. For example, some people
may have given less shocks as the other person had the gun.

Excitation-transfer Theory
This theory suggests that arousal from one situation can be transferred to another
situation. For example, a number of participants were provoked by verbal abuse. Half then went
and did some exercise and half did nothing. All of the participants then had the chance to give
electric shocks to the people that had abused them. The people that did the exercise gave more
shocks than the others. This showed that the arousal from the exercise was transferred into
aggression.
The Excitation-transfer theory was criticised for assuming that aggressive acts are
committed without thinking, which does not account for acts that are planned in a cold,
calculating way. It was later revised to include cognitive processes. When we attribute the
frustration to a person, we are more likely to feel aggression. When we attribute the frustration to
the situation, we are less likely to feel aggression.
Social Learning Theory
If a child is rewarded for being aggressive that behaviour is positively reinforced and is
more likely to be repeated. For example, a child hits another child and the second child gives up
his toy. The first child has been rewarded for her violent behaviour, so will probably be violent
again in the future.
Similarly, a child may be rewarded for aggressiveness through negative reinforcement.
This means that something bad is avoided. For example, a child prevents another child from
stealing his toy by threatening her and he gets to keep the toy. Again, the aggressive behaviour is
rewarded and the behaviour is likely to be repeated.
When children watch others being rewarded for aggressive behaviour, they are likely to
learn this behaviour through vicarious reinforcement. For example, a psychologist called
Bandura did an experiment with five groups of children. The first group were shown a video
where an adult behaved violently towards a bo-bo doll1 and being rewarded for this behaviour.
The second group were shown a video with an adult being punished for violent behaviour
towards the doll. The third group were shown a cartoon cat behaving violently. The fourth group
were shown a non-violent video and the fifth group were not shown a video at all. All of the
children were then allowed to play in a room full of toys which included bo-bo dolls. Bandura
found that all of the children who saw the violent behaviour on the films acted twice as
aggressively towards the bo-bo dolls than the control groups. However, there was no difference
between these groups.
There are, however, several criticisms of this research. Some people argued that this was
not a good example of aggression as no humans were hurt. Also, the bo-bo dolls are designed to
be punched so they invite aggression. The ecological validity of the experiment was low. This
means it is difficult to generalise the findings to real life as the experiment was done in a lab and
this is not very realistic. Another criticism is that the children that acted aggressively in the
experiment tended to be the ones who were rated as aggressive anyway.

Deindividuation
When people are in a large group or crowd, they tend to lose a sense of their individual
identity and take on the identity of the group. This can make them commit acts of aggression and
violence that they wouldn't normally commit. They do not take responsibility for these acts. A
good example is that of footballhooliganism. There are two factors involved with this:

Public self-awareness - This is an individual's sense that others are aware of them and
that they are identifiable to others.

Private self-awareness - This is the individual's own sense of awareness of himself, his
thoughts, actions, beliefs, etc.

Both of these factors decrease in deindividuation.

An experiment was done to investigate this. A group of female participants were dressed
in dark clothes with hoods. They were never called by name and they were placed in a dim room.
The second group were wearing regular clothes and large name badges. They were in a brightlylit room. When asked to give electric shocks as part of a 'learning experiment', the first group
gave twice as many as the second group.
Other evidence comes from a researcher who looked at several newspaper articles about
mob attacks. He found that the larger the mob, the more violent, savage and prolonged the
attacks were.
Environmental Stressors
Studies have found that many environmental factors increase aggression.
Temperature
When the temperature rises people tend to feel more disposed to aggressive behaviour. A
researcher looked at incidents of violence across the USA and the corresponding weather reports.
He found that when it was moderately hot (84F) there was the most violence, but after weather
higher than this temperature, the violence decreased. This was backed up by a lab study by Baron
and Bell who put participants in rooms of different temperatures then increased the heat in each
of the rooms. The participants were asked to give electric shocks. They found that as the
temperature rose, the participants gave more electric shocks, but that once the temperatures got
to extreme levels, the shocks decreased.
However, another researcher called Anderson looked at cases of violent acts including
rape, murder and assault. He found that there was a steady increase as the temperature rose but
that there was no indication of decline in extreme heat.
One problem with this theory is that it would probably not be true to say that people in
hotter countries are more aggressive.

Crowding
A higher density of people leads to higher levels of aggression. This theory links to
deindividuation (see above). It is also unpleasant when your personal space is invaded. For
example, there is the most aggression along the most heavily-congested roads; there are more
prison riots when the population density in the prison is higher; a study shows there was more
aggression in a day nursery as the nursery got more crowded.
However, this pattern is not found in families, as people expect others to be in close
proximity. This suggests that it is not just a high density, but overcrowding that is the problem.
There are also limitations to this, as some people do not find encroachment of their personal
space to be a problem. Furthermore, there are also cultural differences eg Arabs tend to stand
very close together. Also, if you can confront people about it, aggression can be reduced.
Both crowding and heat lead to physiological arousal which leads to aggression.
However, this may depend on your interpretation of the arousal, for example, crowds can be
uplifting, fun and exciting.
Noise
Noise is any unwanted sound that causes a negative effect. It can cause aggression when
it is too loud or unpredictable. Glass and Singer conducted an experiment where participants
were asked to complete a maths task and were then asked to complete a proof-reading task.
During the maths task, some of participants were subjected to noise, but all of them had quiet
during the proof-reading task. It was found that the people who had the noise in the first task
made more mistakes in the second task. They made the most mistakes when the noise was very
loud, was random (unpredictable) and when they had no control over it.