Psychology Essay on Aggression - 1780 Words

Aggression is a complex phenomenon influenced by genetic and psychosocial factors. The topics of aggression have been argued by many psychologists with different perspectives. Aggression can be described as a verbal or physical attack or even an insult such as threats, or sarcasm. Aggression can be broken down into two types, hostile and instrumental. Hostile aggression develops from feelings of anger hence; the intention is to inflict pain, for instance, someone deliberately hitting another with a baseball bat. While instrumental aggression is an act caused by an accident, therefore the intention was not to cause harm. For instance, kids playing football can accidently inflict pain through tackling, it was not premeditated. The essay†¦show more content†¦This recreated the scene; the children consequently commenced hitting the Bobo doll in an aggressive way as shown in the video Bandura (1973: p.72). The experiment established that 88% of the children had imitated the aggressive behaviour and after 8 months 40% of the same children still had violent behaviour which was modelled from the experiment. (http://www.mhcollegeco/socscienc/comm/bandur-s.mhtml) Here I state hoe the Biological criticised the experiment However, the Biological theorists argued that individual genetic condition and human’s individuality were ignored. For example, a group of people witnessing a fight would have a different response coming from 5%m their autonomic nervous system such as increased blood pressure, heart rate, nausea, and fainting. This they concluded would be the normal symptoms of responses an individual might express in such a situation. Consequently, the symptoms and behaviour are not learned, but partially inherited. They further criticised Behaviourist theory of Classical and Operant conditions which states â€Å"Social reinforcement is conditioned reinforcement based on the relationship of the conditioned stimulus to an unconditioned stimulus. The criticism here is that according to behaviourism, the stimulus should have been someone the children knew not a complete stranger. According to John Dollard (1939) a Behaviourist psychologist theShow MoreRelatedAre Humans Innately Aggressive?1410 Words   |  6 Pagesinnately aggressive or do we learn to be aggressive? Aggression is defined by Anderson Bushman (2002) as ‘any behaviour directed toward another individual that is carried out with the immediate intent to cause harm whereby the perpetrator believes the behaviour will harm the target’ although there is no one explicit definition. 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