WEEK 5: Social Psychology

AGRESSION AND ANTISOCIAL

BEHAVIOUR

Facilitator: Cyndirela Chadambuka

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 Learning objectives

• Define the different types of aggression

• Debate the role of nature versus nurture in
human aggression, and analyse the
effects of culture on aggressive impulses
• Identify the inner causes of aggression
• Describe the interpersonal causes of
aggression

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 Learning objectives (cont’d.)

• Compare the external causes of

aggression to the internal and
interpersonal causes
• Discuss the role of culture and self-views
in producing violence and aggression
• Identify other, nonaggressive forms of
antisocial behaviour

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 Introduction

• The Rwandan genocide: illustrates important

points about aggression and violence
– Mass media can promote aggression
– Frustrated people can violently lash out at the
source
– Aggressors often dehumanize their victims
– Violent actions can have unintended
consequences
– Forgiveness is possible, even for the most
extreme actions

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 Introduction (cont’d.)

• Early psychological theories (e.g. Freud’s

theory)
– Depicted aggression as the outburst of
powerful inner forces
• More recent theories
– Consider aggression as a kind of strategic
behaviour used to influence others, get what
one wants, and defend certain ideas seen as
under attack

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Defining aggression and antisocial behaviour

• Aggression: any behaviour intended to harm

another person who is motivated to avoid the
harm
• Three distinct features in this definition are
-It is not an emotion like anger
-it is not a thought like mentally rehearsing a
murder
-It is a behavior
• Aggression is intentional and deliberate (not
accidental
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Defining aggression and antisocial behaviour
(cont’d)
• Displaced- substitute aggression target used (e.g.
your father shouts at you and you don’t retaliate.
You go outside and kick your cat instead.
• Aggression can be expressed directly or indirectly
• Direct- the victim is physically present (e.g.
punching your friend in the face)
• Indirect- the victim is absent (e.g. burning your
friend’s car while he is away
• Reactive- impulsive angry behaviour motivated by a
desire to harm someone

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Defining aggression and antisocial behaviour
(cont.)
• Proactive (instrumental)- premeditated calculated
behaviour motivated by something besides harming
someone (e.g., restoring justice, obtaining money,
etc.).
• Bullying- persistent aggression by perpetrator
against a victim for the purpose of establishing
power over the victims
• Cyberbullying- use of the internet bully others (e.g.
on Twitter, Facebook)
• Antisocial behaviour: behaviour that damages
interpersonal relationships or is culturally undesirable

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Is the world more or less violent now than in
the past?
• The world is less violent now than in the
past
– Death rates per battle were much higher in
the past
• One main goal of culture is to reduce
aggression
– Negotiation, property rights, money, courts of
law, compromise, religious, and moral rules

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 Levels of violence in the 20th century

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 Is aggression innate or learned?
• Instinct theories
• An instinct is an inborn tendency to seek a
particular goal e.g. food.
– Darwin: aggressive behaviour are evolutionary
adaptation used for survival
– Freud: human motivational forces are based on
instinct
• Eros: constructive, life giving instinct. Freud
proposed the drive for sensory and sexual
gratification as the primary human instinct
• Thanatos: destructive, death instinct
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 Is aggression innate or learned? (cont’d.)

• Learning theories: people learn

aggressive behaviours through direct
experience and observation
– Modelling: observing and copying or imitating
the behaviour of others
– Bandura Bobo doll study: children who
watched the aggressive model had the
highest levels of aggression

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 The Bobo doll study

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 Is aggression innate or learned? (cont’d.)

• Nature and nurture

– Both learning and instinct are relevant to
aggression
– Aggression is found all over the world; some
patterns are universal
– Humans don’t have to learn to behave
aggressively; it seems to come naturally
– People learn how to control aggressive
impulses

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 Inner causes of aggression
• What are some causes of increased aggression?
– Frustration: blockage of or interference with a personal
goal
• Frustration-aggression hypothesis: ‘occurrence of
aggressive behaviour always presupposes the
existence of frustration’, and ‘existence of frustration
always leads to some form of aggression’
• A later formulation of this statement suggested that
this statement was not correct and should be that one
of the things that frustration could lead to was
aggression
• Aggression can exist without frustration and frustration
without aggression.
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 Inner causes of aggression (cont’d)

• Being in a bad mood:

• Negative emotions can increase aggression
• Angry people vent to improve their mood
• Being in a bad mood is neither a sufficient nor
necessary condition for aggression

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 Exercise and physical aggression

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 Inner causes of aggression (cont’d.)

• Hostile cognitive biases

– Hostile attribution bias:
attribute ambiguous actions by others as being
aggressive (e.g. if you colleague bumps into you and
assume that he did it intentionally to provoke you
– Hostile perception bias:
perceive social interactions as being aggressive
(whether people are attacking each other
– Hostile expectation bias:
assume people will react to potential conflicts with
aggression
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 Inner causes of aggression (cont’d.)

• Aggressive people have inner biases that

make them:
– Expect others to react aggressively
– View ambiguous acts as aggressive
– Assume others act purposefully when they
hurt or offend them

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 Inner causes of aggression (cont’d.)

• Age and aggression

– Young children are the most aggressive
human beings on earth
– 25% of interactions among toddlers involve
some kind of physical aggression
– Human children naturally rely on physical
aggression to resolve their disputes
– Most people become less aggressive over
time

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 Inner causes of aggression (cont’d.)

• Gender differences in aggression and

violence
– Men and women deal with stress differently
• Fight or flight syndrome: response to stress
involving aggressing against others or running
away. Study conducted showed that when male
rats are under stress they either fight or run away
• Tend and befriend syndrome: response to stress
that involves nurturing others and making friends.
In contrast, female rates respond to stress by
nurturing and making friends

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 Interpersonal causes of aggression
• Selfishness and influence
• Aggression is a form of social influence
• Human are more likely to use aggression when they
want a reward and when aggression is likely to bring
success.
– Means for people to get what they want
• Domestic violence: hurting those we love
– Physically harmful actions that occur within the home or
family, between people who have a close relationship
with each other
– South African women experience very high levels of
domestic violence
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 External causes of aggression

• Weapons effect: increased aggression as

a result of the mere presence of a weapon
– Weapons can also increase hostile biases
• Mass media: media exposure can
increase aggressive behaviour
– Violent media and media containing sex (e.g.,
rape depictions)

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 The media and aggression

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 External causes of aggression (cont’d.)

• Unpleasant environments
– Hot temperatures and unpleasant
environmental events increase aggression
– Crowding (unpleasant feeling that there are
many people in a given areas) is a strong
predictor of aggression
• Chemicals influences
– Hormones (e.g., testosterone) and
neurotransmitters (e.g., serotonin)
– Alcohol and other drugs of abuse
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 Food for thought

• Is there a link between diet and violence?

– Nutrition is linked to aggression and violence
• Junk food can increase violence, Vitamin
supplements can reduce antisocial
behavior
• Much more research is needed, but at
present the link between diet and violence
appears to be real and significant.

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 Self and culture

• Norms and values

– Some cultures or subcultures place positive
value on fighting and aggression
• Respect a man who fights well
• Culture condone losing control and engaging in
violence but they don’t positively encourage it e.g.
a man catches the wife cheating and beats her
• Self-control
– Criminals show low self-control
– Violence starts when self-control stops
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 Self and culture (cont’d.)

• Wounded pride
• Aggressive individuals do not have low self-esteem
but high self-esteem. When someone questions
this esteem that is when aggression may occur.
Eg. Adolf Hitler
• Narcissistic people are likely to aggress when they
receive a blow to their ego.
– Violent individuals typically have the trait of
narcissism

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 Self and culture (cont’d.)

• Culture of honour
• Society that places high value on individual respect,
strength, and virtue, and accepts and justifies violent
action in response to threats to one’s honor
• honour killing supposedly restores the family’s
honour from the disgrace caused by a woman
refusing to accept an arranged marriage, seeking a
divorce, having sex before marriage, or committing
adultery.
• Humiliation seems to be the cause of violence in
cultures of honour.
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 Other antisocial behaviour

• Lying: not telling the truth

– Most people lie at least once per day
– Lying takes more cognitive resources than
telling the truth
– Detecting liars: Secret Service, textual analysis,
and polygraphs
• Cheating: violating rules that enable
society to function
– Goes against one’s social conscience
– Plagiarism
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 Trade-offs

• Creativity and cheating

– Cheating involves breaking rules
– Creativity often involves violating rules
• Cheating makes people feel that rules do
not matter; this can boost creative ability
– Cheating causes creativity
– Creativity leads to cheating

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 Other antisocial behaviour (cont’d.)

• Stealing
– Employees steal from employers
– Customers shoplift
– Identity theft is the illegal use of another
person’s personal information to gain
– Stealing is more likely in the presence of others
who steal.
– Deindividuation is the sense of anonymity and
loss of individuality, as in a large group, making
people especially likely to engage in antisocial
behaviours such as theft.
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 Other antisocial behaviour (cont’d.)

• Littering
– We can reduce litter by changing norms,
the social standards that prescribe what
people ought to do.
– Injunctive norms are norms that specify
what most others approve or disapprove of
and can reduce litter.
– Descriptive norms are norms that specify
what most people do; they are not helpful in
reducing littering.

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 Summary

• Humans engage in antisocial behaviours,

including aggression
– Aggression has many causes and influences
– Human cultures mostly attempt to restrain
violence and aggression
• Antisocial behaviours, including
aggression, are often a result of several
personal and environmental factors

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