1-Aggression:

aggression
Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone.

To a social psychologist, aggression is physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm.

This definition excludes unintentional harm,

1. such as auto accidents or
2. sidewalk collisions;
3. it also excludes actions that may involve pain as an
unavoidable side effect of helping someone, such as dental
treatments
4. or—in the extreme—assisted suicide
It includes kicks and slaps, threats and insults,
5. It includes decisions during experiments
about how much to hurt someone, such as how much
electric shock to impose.
6. It also includes destroying property, lying, and other
behavior whose goal is to hurt.

Aggresion can be:

1. Hostile aggression springs from anger; its goal is to injure. impulsive, emotional
outbursts eg murder, fights, arguments
2. Instrumental aggression aims to injure, too—but only as a means to some other
end. Eg war, terrorism, preying etc.
Theories of Aggression

a) Society OR
b) Human Nature
French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), blames society, not human nature, for social evils.
The second idea, associated with the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), credits society for
restraining
the human brute.
Thomas Hard & William Golding.

1. INSTINCT THEORY:

Instinctive behavior An innate, unlearned behavior pattern exhibited by all members of a species.

Freud speculated that human aggression springs from a self-destructive impulse. It redirects toward others
the energy of a primitive death urge (the “death instinct”). Lorenz, an animal behavior expert, saw aggression
as adaptive rather than self-destructive. The two agreed that aggressive energy is instinctive (innate,
unlearned, and universal). If not discharged, it supposedly builds up until it explodes or until an appropriate
stimulus “releases” it,

Instinct theory also fails to account for the variations in aggressiveness from person to person and culture to
culture.

Throughout much of human history, men especially have found aggression adaptive, note evolutionary
psychologists such as John Archer (2006) and Francis McAndrew.
Aggression often occurs when males are competing with other males, or when a man’s social status is
challenged. “Violence committed against the right people at the right time was a ticket to social success,

NEURAL INFLUENCES
Because aggression is a complex behavior, no one spot in the brain controls it. But researchers have found
brain neural systems in both animals and humans that facilitate aggression. When the scientists activate these
brain areas, hostility increases; when they deactivate them, hostility decreases. Docile animals can thus be
provoked into rage, and raging animals into submission

The amygdala is a section of the brain that is responsible for detecting fear and preparing for
emergency events. This lesson discusses the amygdala, its functions, and its role in our
perception of fear and other emotions.

GENETIC INFLUENCES
Heredity influences the neural system’s sensitivity to aggressive cues. It has long been known that animals
can be bred for aggressiveness. Sometimes this is done for practical purposes (the breeding of fighting
cocks). Sometimes breeding is done for research. Finnish psychologist Kirsti Lagerspetz (1979) took normal
albino mice and bred the most aggressive ones together; she did the same with the least aggressive ones.
After repeating the procedure for 26 generations, she had one set of fierce mice and one set of placid mice.

BIOCHEMICAL INFLUENCES
Blood chemistry also influences neural sensitivity to aggressive stimulation.
ALCOHOL Both laboratory experiments and police data indicate that alcohol unleashes aggression when
people are provoked (Bushman, 1993; Taylor & Chermack, 1993; Testa, 2002). Consider the following:

TESTOSTERONE Hormonal influences appear to be much stronger in lower animals than in humans. But
human aggressiveness does correlate with the male sex hormone testosterone. Consider the following:

• Drugs that diminish testosterone levels in violent human males will subdue their aggressive tendencies.

• After men reach age 25, their testosterone levels and rates of violent crime decrease together.

• Testosterone levels tend to be higher among prisoners convicted of planned and unprovoked violent crimes
than of nonviolent crimes (Dabbs, 1992; Dabbs & others, 1995, 1997, 2001).

WHAT ARE SOME INFLUENCES

ON AGGRESSION?
PAIN
Researcher Nathan Azrin (1967) was doing experiments with laboratory rats in a
cage wired to deliver electric shocks to the animals’ feet. Azrin wanted to know if
switching off the shocks would reinforce two rats’ positive interactions with each
other. He planned to turn on the shock and then, when the rats approached each
other, cut off the pain. To his great surprise, the experiment proved impossible. As
soon as the rats felt pain, they attacked each other, before the experimenter could
switch off the shock. The greater the shock (and pain), the more violent the attack.
The same effect occurred across a long list of species, including cats, turtles, and
snakes. The animals were not selective about their targets. They would attack animals
of their own species and those of a different species, or stuffed dolls, or even
tennis balls.
The researchers also varied the source of pain. They found that not only shocks
induced attack; intense heat and “psychological pain”—for example, suddenly not
rewarding hungry pigeons that have been trained to expect a grain reward after
pecking at a disk—brought the same reaction as shocks. This “psychological pain”
is, of course, frustration.
HEAT
People have theorized for centuries about the effect of climate
on human action. Hippocrates (ca. 460–377 b.c. ) compared
the civilized Greece of his day with the savagery
in the region further north (what is now Germany and
Switzerland) and decided that northern Europe’s harsh climate
was to blame. More than a millennium later, the English
attributed their “superior” culture to England’s ideal
climate. French thinkers proclaimed the same for France.
Because climate remains relatively steady while cultural
traits change over time, the climate theory of culture has
limited validity.
ATTACKS
Being attacked or insulted by another is especially conducive to aggression. Several
experiments, including one at Osaka University by Kennichi Ohbuchi and
Toshihiro Kambara (1985), confirm that intentional attacks breed retaliatory attacks

HOW CAN AGGRESSION BE REDUCED?

Catharsis?
“Youngsters should be taught to vent their anger,” surmised advice columnist
Ann Landers (1969). If a person “bottles up his rage, we have to find an outlet. We
have to give him an opportunity of letting off steam,” asserted the once prominent

The concept of catharsis is usually credited to Aristotle. Although Aristotle actually

said nothing about aggression, he did argue that we can purge emotions by
experiencing them and that viewing the classic tragedies therefore enabled a catharsis
(purging) of pity and fear. To have an emotion excited, he believed, is to have
that emotion released (Butcher, 1951). The catharsis hypothesis has been extended
to include the emotional release supposedly obtained not only by observing drama
but also through our recalling and reliving past events, through our expressing
emotions, and through our actions.
Assuming that aggressive action or fantasy drains pent-up aggression, some
therapists and group leaders have encouraged people to ventilate suppressed
aggression by acting it out—by whopping one another with foam bats or beating
a bed with a tennis racket while screaming

A Social Learning Approach

If aggressive behavior is learned, then there is hope for its control. Let us briefly
review factors that influence aggression and speculate how to counteract them.
Aversive experiences such as frustrated expectations and personal attacks predispose
hostile aggression. So it is wise to refrain from planting false, unreachable
expectations in people’s minds. Anticipated rewards and costs influence instrumental
aggression. This suggests that we should reward cooperative, nonaggressive
behavior.
In experiments, children become less aggressive when caregivers ignore their
aggressive behavior and reinforce their nonaggressive behavior (Hamblin & others,
1969). Punishing the aggressor is less consistently effective. Threatened punishment
deters aggression only under ideal conditions: when the punishment is strong,
prompt, and sure; when it is combined with reward for the desired behavior; and
when the recipient is not angry (R. A. Baron, 1977).

Culture Change and World Violence

Nevertheless, cultures can change. “The Vikings slaughtered and plundered,” notes
science writer Natalie Angier. “Their descendants in Sweden haven’t fought a war
in nearly 200 years.” Indeed, as psychologist Steven Pinker (2011) documents, across
centuries, humans have become more civilized and all forms of violence—including
wars, genocide, and murders—have declined. We’ve graduated from plundering
neighboring tribes to economic interdependence, from a world in which Western

Persuasion  The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.
The Central Route
Richard Petty and John Cacioppo (Cass-ee-OH-poh) (1986; Petty & others, 2009) and Alice Eagly and
Shelly Chaiken (1993, 1998) took this one step further. They theorized that persuasion is likely to occur via
one of two routes. When people are motivated and able to think about an issue, they are likely to take the
central route to persuasion —focusing on the arguments. If those arguments are strong and compelling,
persuasion is likely. If the message offers only weak arguments, thoughtful people will notice that the
arguments aren’t very compelling and will counterargue.
The Peripheral Route
But sometimes the strength of the arguments doesn’t matter. Sometimes we’re not motivated or able to think
carefully. If we’re distracted, uninvolved, or just plain busy, we may not take the time to reflect on the
message’s content. Rather than analyzing whether the arguments are compelling, we might follow the
peripheral route to persuasion —focusing on cues that trigger automatic acceptance without much
thinking.

Elements of Persuasion:
Resistance:

a) Avoidance
Avoidance is perhaps the most straightforward means of protecting oneself from the impact of
persuasive messages. Avoidance behavior has primarily been studied in the context of marketing
communications, where researchers have studied the factors that cause individuals to switch channels
b) Contesting

Instead of avoiding the message, individuals may actively contest (a) the content of the message, (b)
the source of the message, or (c) the persuasive strategies used in the message. Below we discuss
these three forms of contestation.

c) Biased Processing Strategies

To resist persuasive messages people can also engage in biased processing such that a message fits
their attitudes and behavior or reduces relevance. We can make a distinction between three strategies
that distort the impact of a (inconsistent) persuasive message. The first two strategies, weighting
attributes (people may engage in biased message processing to resist persuasion such that more weight
is attached to information that is consistent with one’s attitudes and less weight is attached to
inconsistent information)

and reducing impact(This allowed them to minimize the impact of the negative information on their
overall evaluation of the object. Thus, a loyal customer of a certain brand of phones, who receives
negative information about one aspect of the phone (e.g., signal reception) will only adjust their
opinion of this single aspect ) involve the distortion of information that is inconsistent with a particular
attitude or behavior. The final strategy,

 optimism bias, (They might, for example, respond with “While smoking may cause lung cancer, I do
not think this risk is very high for me because it does not run in my family)is related to dismissing the
relevance of a message

d) Empowerment Strategies
Empowerment strategies involve empowering or strengthening the self or one’s existing attitudes to
reduce one’s vulnerability to external influence attempts. When using these strategies, people search
to confirm their confidence in existing beliefs or themselves. Within this category three different
strategies can be distinguished.
 attitude bolstering(Attitude bolstering is a process by which people generate thoughts that are
supportive of their existing attitudes) and 
 social validation( people use responses of their audience as a heuristic cue for the accuracy of their
own ideas).
The third empowerment strategy, self-assertion, aims to increase one’s general self-confidence. This
strategy strengthens self-confidence, and not one particular attitude. People who apply this strategy
remind themselves that nothing can change their attitudes or behavior because they are confident
about them

1. Attitude Inoculation
Could attitude inoculation work outside the laboratory by preparing people to resist unwanted
persuasion?
One research team had high school students “inoculate” seventh-graders against peer pressures to smoke
(McAlister & others, 1980). The seventh-graders were taught to respond to advertisements implying that
liberated women smoke by saying, “She’s not really liberated if she is hooked on tobacco.” They also acted
in role plays in which, after being called “chicken” for not taking a cigarette, they answered with statements
such as “I’d be a real chicken if I smoked just to impress you.”

Love:

Some elements of love are common to all loving relationships: mutual understanding, giving and receiving support, enjoying the
loved one’s company

Passionate Love
Hatfield defines passionate love as "a state of intense longing for union with another." This type of love tends to be more common
at the outset of a relationship. People in this state of love tend to experience very powerful feelings for each other. They need to be
near the other person, may think about the other person constantly, and experience extreme distress when separated.

Passionate love also comes in two different forms. Requited love occurs when the two individuals share mutual attraction and
feelings for one another. Unrequited love, on the other hand, can occur when only one person feels passionate love or if the two are
prevented from being together for some reason. Requited love results in two people forming a relationship and being together,
while unrequited love results in feelings of despair, anxiety, and loneliness.

Some of the key cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of passionate love include:

 Intrusive thoughts about the partner. People often experience almost constant thoughts about the person they are in
love with. Not only are these thoughts persistent, they can also intrude at almost any time during the day or night.
 Idealization of the other person or the relationship. People in passionate love tend to believe that the object of their
affections can do no wrong. They also tend to believe that their relationship is without faults, is destined to be, or is a
"perfect match."
 A strong desire to know and be known. People in passionate love want to know everything about their partner. They
also want their partner to know everything about them.
  Strong emotions about the other person. People in this type of love feel good when things are going well, but may be
devastated when things go awry.
 A need to maintain physical closeness. In addition to being strongly attracted to the other person, people in passionate
love try to maintain close physical proximity.

Compassionate (Companionate) Love

Where passionate love is marked by its intensity, compassionate love is characterized by its level of intimacy. Compassionate love,
also called companionate love, is about intimacy, trust, commitment, and affection. In a long-term relationship, passionate love
typically simmers down to compassionate love within one to two years.

People who are in compassionate love still feel passionate about one another, but the intensity typically feels less overwhelming
and urgent. This type of love involves caring deeply for the other person, truly knowing the other individual, and being committed
to the other person through both good times and bad. Even when disagreements take place, people who share compassionate love
remain in love and dedicated to one another.

Some of the key cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of compassionate (companionate) love include:

 Long-term commitment. Companionate love is marked by a long-lasting and enduring commitment to each other.
 Deep intimacy. People who share compassionate love are able to share every aspect of themselves with each other.
Mutual sharing of feelings and concerns is a hallmark of this form of love.
 Trust. Compassionate love is marked by a deep trust in the other person.

Factors That Influence Passionate and Compassionate Love

So what determines whether people end up in passionate or compassionate love? According to Hatfield, some of the factors
associated with passionate love include:

 Timing: Being "ready" to be in love with another person is essential. If you are at a stage in your life where you are not
sure you want to be in a relationship, you will also be less likely to experience falling in love.
 Early attachment styles: Securely attached individuals tend to form deeper, longer lasting love while those who are
anxiously attached tend to fall in and out of love quickly. Those who are securely attached may still experience passionate
love, but this love is also more likely to eventually grow into companionate/companionate love. Those with insecure
styles are more likely to experience intense passionate love that then fades without growing into something more intimate
and lasting.
 Similarity: Hatfield and Rapson note that we tend to fall passionately in love with people who are relatively good-
looking, personable, affectionate, and similar to ourselves. Compatibility is also an important factor that helps passionate
love grow into compassionate love. While opposites may attract at times, people are typically more likely to stay in love if
they share things in common.