by Paul Seager
a Brazil
b USA
c Malaysia
d Italy
10 Which of the following is not true with regards to individual differences in helping behaviour?
a Machiavellianism has been linked with helping behaviour
b Men help more often than women
c A good mood promotes more helping behaviour
d They are all true
e None of them are true
9
Aggression
According to a report in the Times newspaper in 2005, an off-duty policeman was queuing for tickets outside a cinema when he spotted a brawl involving about forty teenage girls. Being a dutiful individual, he attempted to break up the fight but, instead of resolving the situation, he ended up being set upon first by one girl who punched him in the face and then by some of the others. Many passers-by watched what was happening but none went to his aid. This incident draws a nice link between the previous, and the current, chapter. Why did no one go to the aid of the policeman (hopefully you now have some ideas about how to explain this), and why did the girl(s) attack him in the first place?
This chapter attempts to supply a definition which encapsulates all of the various forms of aggression, and outlines the difficulties of actually measuring aggression. It looks at the two major theoretical positions – biological (nature) and social (nurture) – which attempt to explain aggression, before moving on to look at how individual differences and situational variables might account for aggressive behaviour.
Defining and measuring aggression
It is difficult to arrive at a comprehensive definition of aggression in all its various forms. For example, it would need to include verbal and physical behaviour, direct action leading to aggression and a failure to act which results in aggression, direct and indirect aggression, overt and covert aggression, aggression that is unprovoked and that which is retaliative, physical aggression and psychological aggression, and so on and so forth. On top of that, there are also cross-cultural issues to consider, such that what might be seen as acceptable behaviour in one culture may be seen as taboo in another: for example, a faction of Australian aborigines see violence as ordinary and necessary, but Western cultures would view it as anti-social and probably illegal (see Spotlight below).
Spotlight: Defining aggression
An early attempt to define aggression comes from Baron (1977) who states that it is ‘any form of behaviour directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment’.
A good definition should probably incorporate intent, the expectancy that an action will cause harm, that avoidance of aggression from the victim’s point of view is preferable, and that any such behaviour is a violation of social norms.
It is generally accepted that there are two type of aggression:
1 Hostile aggression: In this form, aggression is usually provoked by pain or upset, and is very emotional. Often it is performed as an end in itself. It might be illustrated by a boyfriend who punches his girlfriend after she yells at him.
2 Instrumental aggression: This type of aggression is usually more calculated and has a specific aim. For example, the actions of an assassin, a boxing match or perhaps an act of terrorism.
Key idea: Hostile aggression
Behaviour with the intention of inflicting pain or harm to another, usually involving emotion.
Key idea: Instrumental aggression
Aggressive behaviour with some aim other than inflicting pain, usually as a means to an end.
On top of the difficulty of defining aggression comes the problem of measuring it objectively. Early studies used simple verbal measures. After enduring some form of provocation, participants were asked to rate another person on various characteristics, with the assumption being that negative ratings would be presumed to show aggressive behaviour (as a result of the provocation). This type of measure comes with at least two problems: there is a lack of consequences attached to the aggressive behaviour (very rarely the case in the real world); and there is the problem of social desirability, in that participants may not reveal the full extent of their feelings, or they will perhaps tailor their responses to those that they believe the experimenter is looking for.
An alternative technique was pioneered by Buss (1961) when he created the aggression machine. Essentially an electric shock generator (which of course delivered no such thing due to ethical reasons – though just having participants believe that they were delivering electric shocks to another person raises ethical questions), the machine was used to gauge the number, duration and intensity of shocks that one person would deliver to a target who had provoked them in some way.
Other experimental methods for measuring aggression include:
• The teacher-learner paradigm: used by Milgram in his obedience studies(see Chapter 6), whereby the learner is given some form of aversive stimuli (electric shocks in the early days, but replaced by loud noises and other less controversial methods in more recent studies) by the teacher (the real participant) when they fail at a task. The level of aversive stimuli administered is taken as a measure of aggression;
• Essay evaluation: participants are asked to write an essay and told that it will be evaluated by another participant (a confederate) who will judge it by the number of electric shocks (later replaced by other measures such as level of negative verbal feedback) they administer to the real participant. Later, the participant gets to do the same to the confederate, and aggression is measured by the number of shocks (or verbal feedback) delivered.
• Competitive reaction time: participants are informed that they are taking part in a competitive reaction time task against an opponent. Whoever wins each trial gets to set the level of aversive stimuli delivered to their opponent (typically an electric shock, but later substituted with a loud noise, or the simple deduction of points from the opponent’s total which will decrease the level of reward they are able to claim). The real participant always wins the first trial, and a measure is taken of their ‘unprovoked’ level of aggression. Their responses after their opponent has delivered shocks to them are then taken as a measure of their aggression;
• The hot sauce paradigm: avoids using electric shocks and instead measures the amount of hot spicy sauce that a participant puts on the food of a confederate who has provoked them, and who they know dislikes this type of sauce. The quantity of sauce administered is taken as a measure of the participant’s aggression. Other studies have given the participant a choice of sauces which differ in their levels of hotness, in order to measure both the quantity and quality of aggressiveness after a participant plays a violent or non-violent video game. This method is perhaps more ethically acceptable than the others mentioned previously.
Whilst these methods may indeed measure aggression, there are other explanations: the participant may genuinely want to help the learner and thus their responses are actually prosocial and not aggressive; they may simply be complying with the cover story of the experiment; or the shock responses may be measuring some form of power or competitiveness.
There are also methodological limitations to these studies: for example, they are measuring aggressiveness where there is no fear of retaliation from the recipient of the aggression (perhaps not realistic in everyday life). Similarly, some methodologies force the participant into an aggressive response, when they might not want to deliver one, or would prefer to use a non-aggressive response. It has also been questioned as to whether these artificial situations generate responses that equate to aggression found in the real-world (external validity).
An alternative, non-experimental, method for measuring aggression is to use observational techniques, whereby aggressive behaviour is observed in naturalistic settings, either as it unfolds in real time (naturalistic observation) or in a more systematic, but unobtrusive way (field experiments). Naturalistic observation could involve observing aggressive incidents at a football match or in
a school playground; these observations in turn could lead to ideas to be tested in a more formal setting. Field experiments devise some kind of intervention in a real-world setting and then measure resulting aggression: for example, Baron (1976) investigated aggressive behaviour at a traffic light by manipulating the amount of time a confederate took to drive off after the traffic light turned green and measuring the number of times that other drivers honked their hooters (taken as aggressive behaviour). Whilst these types of studies are more likely to be free of social desirability responses, and thus more of an indication of aggression in a naturalistic environment, they suffer from a lack of control whereby other extraneous variables might intervene to compromise the aims of the studies (for example, the individual dispositions of the car drivers in Baron’s study, an issue that would normally be controlled for by the random allocation of participants to conditions in experimental studies, but which is simply not possible in field studies).
Having looked at some of the issues to be resolved when studying aggression systematically, it is now possible to look at two general approaches – biological explanations (nature) vs. learning explanations (nurture) – which have attempted to account for why people behave aggressively.
Biological explanations for aggression
This approach takes the form of ‘instinct theories’ of aggression which explain why humans have an innate need to aggress. According to Freud, aggression is inevitable, and his early psychodynamic theory suggested that it was a reaction to frustration experienced in pursuit of pleasure and the satisfaction of the libido. He later modified his idea to allege that, alongside the desire for self-preservation, referred to as Eros (the life instinct), there was a second instinct more focused on destruction, referred to as Thanatos (the death instinct). He claimed that this destructive aggressive energy needed to be continually turned away from the individual towards the outside, in order to prevent self-destruction: aggressive behaviour thus serves as an outlet when Eros and Thanatos are in conflict. This is sometimes referred to as a hydraulic model – aggression is a way of dissipating the build-up of pressure. From Freud’s model we get the idea of catharsis, whereby hostility and aggression are diffused in a non-destructive way.
Key idea: Eros and Thanatos
According to psychodynamic theory, to protect Eros (the life instinct) within an individual, the destructive energies of Thanatos (the death instinct) must be continually deflected away, and this manifests outwardly as aggression.
Another biological theory of aggression, similar to Freud’s theory in as much that it is a hydraulic model, comes from Lorenz, who believed that aggression has a species serving function. Lorenz claimed that aggression is an innate behavioural disposition which derives from the idea of natural selection, and increases the species’ chance of survival. The potential for conflict leads to geographical dispersion which has the effect of ensuring that members of the same species have sufficient resources to survive and flourish. Applying an animal model to humans, he claimed that hierarchies developed and fights between rivals ensured selection of the strongest and healthiest to lead. Ultimately, aggression builds up and needs to be released in a socially acceptable way (hence it is referred to as a hydraulic model). In animals this is done through threat displays and the ritualization of aggression; very rarely do fights lead to permanent injury or death due to their use of appeasement gestures. It is questionable whether this model can really be applied to humans, who have developed weapons that can kill from a distance.
These two models, whilst having an intuitive feel to them, do face some difficulties when it comes to being accepted by the scientific community. For example, Freud’s theory is basically untestable – how does one measure Eros and Thanatos? Lorenz’s theory, based on the animal model, and the false assumption that animals don’t kill one another, is seen as oversimplifying the complexity of human behaviour. Both theories would suggest that if aggression was instinctual or biologically determined, then all societies should be equally aggressive, and this seems not to be the case.
Social learning explanations for aggression
A more accepted view of aggression is that it is a learned behaviour. As with prosocial behaviour, two of the main ways in which aggression is learned is through imitation and reinforcement. The former suggests that if children (and adults) see a ‘model’ (e.g. a parent or a respected other) behaving in a certain way then the behaviour, in this case aggression, is most likely to be replicated. For example, children seeing their footballing heroes engaging in fist fights on the football pitch are more likely to repeat the behaviour the next time the opportunity arises when they play football.
Reinforcement suggests that behaviours which are rewarded are repeated and those which are not rewarded will not be repeated. For example, a child (or adult) who acts aggressively to get something they desire, and who gets to keep it with no adverse effects, is more likely to repeat the behaviour; those who are punished for their actions (e.g. sent off on the football pitch) are less likely to repeat the behaviour in the future. One of the key studies to support these concepts comes from Bandura and his Bobo doll studies (see Case study below).
Case study: Bandura and the Bobo doll
Albert Bandura carried out a number of studies using a large inflatable (Bobo) doll to show that aggression is learned through imitation and reinforcement. In one study, four five-year-old children were taken into a room that contained a number of toys which included the Bobo doll. In the non-aggressive condition, they saw an adult playing with the toys but ignore the Bobo doll; in the aggressive condition, they saw the adult perform physical (sitting on it and punching it) and verbal (the adult said things like ‘Pow’) aggression against the doll. The children were then taken to another room where they experienced mild frustration (they weren’t able to play with the toys in the room). Finally they were taken to another room where there were more toys and a scaled-down version of the doll. Observations were made of the children and it was found that those who observed the aggressive adult were more aggressive (they imitated specific aggressive acts that they had seen) towards the doll than those who had observed the passive adult and, overall, boys were more aggressive than girls. This showed the role of imitation as a cause of aggression.
Another variation of the study showed that when children were shown a film of the adult model being either rewarded, reprimanded, or neither, for kicking and punching the Bobo doll, children in all three groups were again more likely to be aggressive (compared to a control group); but those who saw the adult model being rewarded for their aggressive behaviour were even more likely to be aggressive towards the doll. This showed the role of reinforcement as a cause of aggression.
A final variation of the study had children in one of four conditions: the children went into a room directly to play with the doll (control condition); the children viewed a video of an adult model kicking and punching the Bobo doll (video condition); the children viewed this behaviour directly (live condition); or the children saw the adult model dressed in a cat costume and the room in which they abused the Bobo doll was made-up to look like a cartoon (cartoon condition). It was found that children performed the most aggressive acts when they viewed the model’s aggressive behaviour live, and the least aggressive acts in the control condition; the video condition was second in terms of aggressive acts and the cartoon condition third. This tends to suggest that TV violence (and cartoons) doesn’t affect a child’s aggressive behaviour nearly as much as perhaps was thought – certainly compared to seeing it firsthand.
Of course, just because an individual sees an act doesn’t mean that they will always repeat it; it is likely that learning also takes place as to when imitation is appropriate. Critics of Bandura’s research have argued that the behaviour seen in his studies is not actually aggression because it is not carried out against another person. They also argue that just because the children imitated the aggressive behaviour in the lab doesn’t mean that they would
imitate the behaviour in the real world.
Another social theory that attempts to explain aggressive acts is the frustration-aggression hypothesis put forward by Dollard at al. (1939). This is built on the premise that we feel frustration when we are blocked from achieving a goal. The strength of our frustration is determined by a number of factors such as how many times we are blocked, whether the blocking is total or partial, and how strong our desire is to achieve the goal in the first place. The frustration-aggression hypothesis in its simple form has two basic premises:
1 Frustration always leads to some type of aggression.
2 Aggression always comes from some form of frustration.
A basic experiment to demonstrate this would be to prevent (or not) an adult or a child from getting something they desired, and then measuring their aggression. Those who were frustrated show more aggression than those who were not.
Key idea: Frustration-aggression hypothesis
The idea that all frustration leads to aggression and all aggression is caused by some form of frustration.
Some other variables that have been shown to exacerbate the frustration-aggression phenomenon include:
• when the interruption of a goal is unexpected;
• when the interruption of a goal is seen as illegitimate;
• when the goal is closer to being achieved.
However, many critics have claimed that the frustration-aggression explanation is far too simplistic. For example, there are other responses to frustration, such as crying, apathy, or running away (personally I tend to eat chocolate if I’m frustrated!); aggression isn’t always a consequence of frustration. Additionally, if aggression does result from frustration, it is not always straightforward to predict the target of the aggression. For example, if you’ve had a bad day at the office you are more likely to go home and (metaphorically) kick the cat than you are to kick your boss (although you may be sorely tempted!).