Social Psychology: Aggression - Coursework Example

Running Head: Social Psychology-Aggression Social Psychology-Aggression [Institute’s Social Psychology-Aggression Introduction According to the last news of Saturday 7th march, 2009, 38 people have died due to rocket missile attacks during the polling in Iraq during the polling. Hundred people lost their lives due to ethnic conflicts in Jos, which is a small rural city of Nigeria. Moreover, more than 550 people lost their lives due to the same reasons in Jos in January. It is very common hear news regarding violence and aggression every day on TV, internet and through other sources. Despite the fact that the above-mentioned couple of reports were some extreme levels of aggression but aggression in all forms, types, levels, ranges, and intensities is common everywhere on this planet. In fact, it is essential part of animal nature and a vital characteristic. Human history is full of aggression related activities and as mentioned above we witness so many of them around us every day, thus, making it important to understand and analyze this human behavior. This paper would try to do the same but with a lens of a social psychologist. Moreover, this paper would also try to attempt to highlight the areas and dimensions, which deserve research, attention, and exploration. Discussion Sigmund Freud was one of the first and one of the greatest psychologists to provide the world with his analysis of aggression. However, even more before Freud many psychologists had put up their views in this regard. For example, Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher and researcher came with an idea that aggression is not internal but is a product of social evils and external pressures. Conversely, experts of early 20th century like Sigmund Freud and Konard Lorenz were of the view that it a part of human nature and very much, intrinsic, internally driven and inborn. In this regard, Freud theories and views very quite interesting. According to Freud, all human behaviors are a product of sexual and instinctive drives. He explained childhood aggression or the Oedipus complex with the same view. He presents the example of a five-year-old boy who is obsessed with her mother and some what develops a sexual desire for her mother. However, he is also well aware of the fact that his biggest competitive rival would be his father. Therefore, he starts to develop a feeling of hatred for his father and wants him to go away. On the other hand, he also loves his father and feels guilty and at fault for hating his father. Moreover, considering the size and authority of his father, he decides to weaken the relationship with his mother and pursue a relationship with his father in order to solve the problem. Freud gives a similar example for explaining the childhood aggression in girls. He believes that young girls also undergo this process of Electra complex (Tremblay, Hartup & Archer, 2005). Freud thinks that almost around the age of five, girls develop a penis envy and during the first stage, tries to develop a relationship with her father thinking that she can get pregnant with her father. However, as in the case of that boy an internal conflict evokes inside the girl, which she resolves by shifting from loving her mother rather than the father. The girl then fears to lose her mother since they share the same genetic structure. The reasons of presenting these two examples in detail here was to emphasis and highlight two important points of Freud’s view of aggression. Firstly, that it is internal, natural, and present as a part of their personality in all humans. Secondly, it is sexually driven. In fact, for Freud, all human behaviors were somewhat sexually driven and so was aggression (Matveychuk, 1983). In addition, Freud also is of the view that when a child reaches to the door of adulthood, all the childhood aggressions get resolved. Freud also states that the death instinct or the death force also remains as a reason for aggression. In other words, aggression can also arouse from an individual’s attempt to prevent self-destruction or to conduct self-defense (Tremblay, Hartup & Archer, 2005). Conversely, Konard Lorenz viewed aggression as instinctual that is universal and unlearned. He actually combined Freud ideas of aggression with Charles Darwin natural selection theory to say that aggressiveness is not always negative and it has been beneficial and productive for many species that have survived through adapting it (Baron & Richardson, 2004). Building on his ideas, the later experts, with a biological studies lens said that aggressiveness is explainable through chemical and genetic influence. “Research also showed that by stimulating certain location in cerebrum one can induce or inhibit aggression” (Baron & Richardson, 2004). Moreover, researches that showed males from all animal species as more aggressive than females also support this idea. Other evidences like differences in some breed of animals being natural passive or more violent, high levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine, noradrenalin and serotonin and hormone testosterone result in more aggressive behaviors and serotonin being as effective treatment for erratic aggression; all these evidences support the biological and instinctive view of aggression (Matveychuk, 1983). However, it is important to note that there are many reasons for not accepting aggression as an instinct, internal matter or a personality characteristic. This is because this idea fails to explain the differences between person-to-person and cultural variations in aggressive behaviors. For example, it is difficult to explain the peacefulness of Iroquois before the invasions of white and their sudden aggressiveness followed by the invasion, if it is a personality characteristic (Crisp & Turner, 2007). Another set of theories, other than the instinct and biological ones, trying to explain aggression are the drive theories. Researchers and experts like John Dollard relate aggressive behaviors with frustration. According to this frustration-aggression hypothesis, aggressive behavior is directly proportional to the frustration caused by interruption, disturbance, hindrance or other factors. These two variables enjoy a cause and effect relationship with frustration being the cause and aggressive behavior as the effect or end result. The evidence for this theory came up from was a research in which experts examined prison populations (Coccaro, 2003). Regardless of age, economic status, gender, intelligence and other factors of the prisoners, the showed high aggressive behavior when felt highly frustrated. However, even advocates of this research accept that other factors also contribute to aggression and in fact, other factors, at times can cause more aggressive behaviors than frustration can (Coccaro, 2003). Very near to this frustration-aggression model is the negative affect theory (Gilbert, Fiske & Lindzey, 1998). Proposed by Leonard Berkowitz, this theory says that negative emotions are feelings are the main cause of aggression. We can think of examples when people prefer to scream, shout, destroy, or disturb things around them in order to get the anger out of them (Baron & Richardson, 2004). Moreover, people at times succeed in returning to their normal and balanced state with these actions (Gilbert, Fiske & Lindzey, 1998). Social learning theory, however, presents the most radical and concrete foundations for studying and understanding aggression. Experts as Albert Bandura claim that aggressive is not an instinct or personality characteristic but individuals learn it through observing the external environment and having direct or indirect experiences (Tremblay, Hartup & Archer, 2005). This theory also includes the operant conditioning theory to explain the maintenance and continuity of aggressive behaviors (Krahe, 2001). If an individual receives a reward for his or aggressive behavior then it is highly likely that he or she would repeat that behavior. These rewards can be intrinsic or extrinsic, tangible or intangible, physical or verbal and active or passive (Russell, 2008). For example, if a child sees someone hitting others and getting his way by doing that, than there is high probability than the child would do the same for achieving the same. Furthermore, the probability of imitation of the behavior increases if the model and the subject’s sex are same. In addition, if the model is some renowned personality and if the subject likes the social status of the model than it furthers increases the probability of imitation. Therefore, this observational learning includes four distinctive steps. The first one when the subject pays attention to the aggressive behavior of the model and all other critical features of the behavior. The second one is when the subject can remember and recall this behavior. Repeating that action under similar circumstances is the third step in this regard. The fourth step occurs positive reinforcement of the behavior occurs and the subject finds himself or herself motivated to carry out the same behavior in the future (Crisp & Turner, 2007). This theory is also helpful in explaining that why and how TV violence influences aggressive behavior amongst the viewers. It is also important to note that despite the fact that all the above mentioned deserve praise and acknowledgement but still there is a lot that we need to find out about aggression. Firstly, it remains the question about the nature of aggression that whether it is universal, internal, genetic, hormonal, external, or learned. More recently, the need to find co-relations of aggression with other elements is important. Aggression and violence by Al-Qaeda and Taliban, regular suicide bombings in countries like Israel, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, call for research to find links of aggression with regional, religious, and other possible factors like nationality, common interest peer pressure and others (Russell, 2008). Additionally, in many Asian and African countries it is common to hear about violence on women from their husbands after using excessive alcohol. In addition, there is need for finding links of aggressive behaviors with drug abuse and alcohol usage. Moreover, researchers also seem to be interested recently in finding about maladaptive aggression. Social psychologists can also expand their view of looking at aggression from economic point of view. For example, aggression is a common behavior in low income and less developed or developing countries due to various economic and financial factors like poverty, income disparity, unemployment, unfair distribution of resources, high cost of living, high inflation and others (Krahe, 2001). The presence of aggression in sports and games also remains as a potential area for conducting research since it a hot topic but not much research has been done on the same. References Baron, R. A., & Richardson, D. R. (2004). Human Aggression. Springer. Coccaro, E. F. (2003). Aggression: psychiatric assessment and treatment. Informa Health Care. Crisp, R. J., & Turner, R. N. (2007). Essential social psychology. SAGE Publications Ltd. Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T., & Lindzey, G. (1998). The handbook of social psychology, Volumes 1-2. Oxford University Press US. Krahe, B. (2001). The social psychology of aggression. Psychology Press. Matveychuk, W. M. (1983). The negotiation of knowledge: an examination of the theories of aggression in social psychology. Amherst. Russell, G. W. (2008). Aggression in the sports world: a social psychological perspective. Oxford University Press US. Tremblay, Richard Ernest., Hartup, Willard W., & Archer, John. (2005). Developmental origins of aggression. Guilford Press. Read More