Psychology 320 - Social Psychology - Aggression & Prosocial Behavior

Outline the five steps in Latané and Darley's model of emergency helping.

1. Notice that something is happening. 2. Interpret the meaning of the event. 3. Take responsibility for providing help 4. Know how to help 5. Provide help

Prosocial Behavior

Any action that is beneficial to others; sometimes occurs at great personal cost.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

A form of altruism based on feelings for others. If you feel empathy towards another person you will help them, regardless of what you can gain from it. Relieving their suffering becomes the most important thing. When you do not feel empathy, the social exchange theory takes control.

Aggressive Behavior

A type of behavior where people attempt to stand up for themselves or exert power over others in ways that are hostile and violate the rights of others.

Patriarchal Terrorism

Abuse that is almost entirely male and that is oriented to controlling the partner through fear and intimidation.

Explain Step 3 of Latané and Darley's model of emergency helping.

After the bystander understands the emergency state of the situation, he or she must decide whether or not to take personal responsibility and to intervene. However, interpreting an event as an emergency may still yet not be enough for a bystander to intervene; a number of factors could hinder actions to help. Identified as the bystander effect, individuals are less likely to help in an emergency situation when there are others present due to two possible explanations: pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility. Pluralistic ignorance states that people often look to others to determine what to do without realizing that others are looking to them for the same purpose. Therefore, when people do not act in an emergency setting others might interpret this as a non-emergency situation and follow suit—in the end, no one helps the individual because they look to one another in determining what action to take. The bystander effect seems to also be influenced by the notion of the diffusion of responsibility. The concept dictates that the more bystanders are present, the less responsibility each bystander feels and the less likely it is that any one of them will help. Researchers often use reference the bystander effect as a partial explanation for the lack of action taken by witnesses to Kitty Genovese's murder. Witnesses clearly noticed the event and understood it to be an emergency; however, each believed that someone else would help her.

Internal Influences of Aggression

Age, Gender (Men do use physical aggression, they are more likely than women to cause serious injuries and even death to their partners - Women are much more likely than males to engage in relational aggression, defined as intentionally harming another person's social relationships, feelings of acceptance, or inclusion within a group), Personality Traits Related to Aggression, and Hostile Cognitive Biases.

Explain how arousal and excitation transfer influence aggression.

Arousal produced by one stimulus can "spill over" and strengthen a person's emotional response to a different one.

Explain Step 1 of Latané and Darley's model of emergency helping.

Before a bystander can do anything, he must first notice that something is wrong. Some types of events will be more noticeable than others. For example, observing an individual fall down a flight of stairs in comparison with seeing that individual sitting on the ground rubbing his ankle, has remarkably different effects on a bystander. A bystander is more likely to provide help to the individual in the former scenario rather than the latter because of the vividness of the event. Furthermore, the context may have a profound effect on the clarity of the situation. People are generally less helpful in urban environments—presumably the result of stimulus overload, which forces individuals to notice only important events among the hundreds of stimuli that could attract their attention in an urban environment. Moreover, the mood of the helper may play a role in noticing the event; people in good moods are often more attentive to their environments and more sensitive to other people's needs.

Social psychologists most commonly define aggression as

Behavior intended to harm another person - physical, verbal, or relational - hostile or instrumental - direct or indirect.

Verbal Aggression

Can be characterized as an act in which others use the volume of their voice to express anger or cause harm to another person. It can also refer to the content of one's speech intending to cause harm through insults, lies, or reputation assassination.

Physical Aggression

Can be easily understood as physical assaults with or without weapons. This may also include sexual assault which might not involve a violent altercation but never less is a physically aggressive act.

Direct Aggression

Causing physical harm - hitting and punching.

Violent Behavior

Defined as the use of physical force or violence to inflict harm to others, to endanger the health or safety of another person.

Antisocial Behavior

Disruptive acts characterized by covert and overt hostility and intentional aggression toward others.

Explain Step 5 of Latané and Darley's model of emergency helping.

Finally, a bystander decides to help. As previously mentioned, bystanders can act quickly and effectively if they have had prior training in the particular medical situation. Bystanders who decide to help can also attract other bystanders to the situation by focusing responsibility on one individual. For example, the helper may call on an individual nearby to perform a specific task such as calling for an ambulance.

External Influences of Aggression

Frustration and Other Unpleasant Events, Weapons, Violent Media, and Alcohol.

Relational Aggression

Harming others through purposeful manipulation and damage of their peer relationships.

Negative State Relief Model

Helping another reduces one's own negative emotions.

Explain how forgiveness relates to empathy.

It is likely that an ability to understand others, to relate to others, and to treat others as one would like to be treated would enable a person to forgive others. The empathetic person tends to focus on others' experiences in a fairly objective or unselfish manner rather than focusing on one's own experiences in a selfish manner. Emotional empathy is positively associated with forgiveness.

Explain how and why negative affect influences aggression.

Noxious stimuli (noise, heat) cause a negative emotional response that may increase aggression. Negative affect often leads to negative evaluations.

Diffusion of Responsibility

Personal sense of responsibility decreases when there are others present.

Factors That May Influence Frustration

Previous reinforcement for aggressive behavior, and observing an aggressive role model can all contribute to aggression. Being blocked from achieving a goal. Media portrayals of violence provide social scripts that children learn to follow. Viewing sexual violence contributes to greater aggression toward women. Playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Explain the Influences of Prosocial Choices.

Situational Factors: Are they similar to us? How attractive are they? Who we think is to blame (is the victim to blame), once someone starts helping, others will too. Emotional factors: If you're feeling more positive, you're more willing to help. If you're really happy however, you won't even know that someone needs help. If you feel bad, you're less likely to help (unless you think it'll make you feel better).

Factors that influence Prosocial Behavior

Situational factors, Emotional factors, Personality, Morality and motivation.

Explain how the social norms, evolutionary, social exchange, and social learning perspectives account for prosocial behavior.

Social behavior with the principles of natural selection - genes. - Kin selection - Group selection - Norm reciprocity/reciprocal altruism Criticism: Very limiting of the human experience. Evidence: People more likely to save relatives. "We act in ways to maximize our benefits and minimize our costs." Basically, helping is based on self-interest However, it does not assume this is genetic. Instead it is a social strategy. Helping can be rewarded in many ways 1. People think you are great (praise). 2. Feel better about yourself.

Explain Step 4 of Latané and Darley's model of emergency helping.

Sometimes personal responsibility alone is not enough for an individual to take action; if a bystander has difficulty in determining the appropriate kind of help to give, he or she will be less likely to intervene. Those who may have had training in certain emergency situations may be better able to decide what kind of help to give. The lack of confidence in how to help may cause an individual to either not help or to aid indirectly by calling the police or contacting someone who will know how to give help.

Social Learning Theory

The idea that people learn by watching what others do and that human thought processes are central to understanding personality.

Instrumental Aggression

The intentional use of harmful behavior so that one can achieve some other goal.

Catharsis

The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. A reduction of the motive to aggress that is said to result from any imagined, observed, or actual act of aggression.

Moral Integrity

The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness. It is generally a personal choice to uphold oneself to consistently moral and ethical standards. Moral integrity is regarded by many people as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions.

Hostile Aggression

The sole goal of causing injury or death to the victim.

Indirect Aggression

The use of non-physical acts of meanness, cruelty or offense. This includes more calculated acts, such as gossiping, emotional manipulating or social ostracizing.

Psychological perspectives on the nature-nurture debate regarding aggression

"The tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man. It constitutes the powerful obstacle to culture." - Sigmund Freud The evolutionary perspective ▪ lethal abuse by step- vs genetic parents ▪ males exhibit more violence ▪ adaptive for gaining resources, defense ▪ reproductive opportunities ▪ Cultural theorists argue that socialization can account for differences. Biological factors may predispose particular individuals to behave aggressively. Twin studies. Influences of hormones and neurotransmitters. Aggression may result from interactions between biological and situational factors. ▪ Both are important ▪ Aggression may result from interactions between biological and situational factors "It is scientifically incorrect [to say that] war or any other violent behavior is genetically programmed into our human nature [or that] war is caused by 'instinct' or any single motivation."

Kitty Genovese's Murder

- A girl who got stabbed and had people watch it happen but they did nothing about it. Major Issue - Will people act if they see something wrong happening? Will they do better in groups or alone? - Two weeks after printing a short article on the attack, The New York Times published a longer report that conveyed a scene of indifference from neighbors who failed to come to Genovese's aid, claiming 37 or 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack and did not call the police. The incident prompted inquiries into what became known as the bystander effect or "Genovese syndrome. - Some researchers have questioned this version of events, offering alternative explanations as to why neighbors failed to intervene, and suggesting that the actual number of witnesses was far fewer than reported.

Discuss punishment, distraction, biological approaches, communication, and modeling as potential avenues for reducing aggression.

1. Reducing Aggression in Children a) Reinforcement/Punishment -reduce perceived rewards for aggression -most effective punishments are moderate and swift. b) Modeling of Non-Aggressive Behavior c) Attribution Retraining -tend to link negative behavior towards them to intention. 2. Reducing Aggression in Adults a) Reinforcement/Punishment -deterring violent crime: threats of harsh punishment. -problems with legal system: "hot" aggression is often unplanned; delayed punishments. b) Arousing Empathy Can Reduce Tendency To Aggress and Derogate Victims.

Explain how a "culture of honor" relates to aggression, and apply these concepts to generate predictions regarding behavior.

A culture that is defined by its members' strong concern about their own and others' reputations. A culture that is defined by its members' strong concerns about their own others' reputations, leading to sensitivity to slights and insults and a willingness to use violence to avenge any perceived wrong or insult, in the South of America. These concerns give rise to firm rules of politeness and other means by which people recognize the honor of others, thus lending stability to social relations and reducing the risk of violence. The downside of the concern with honor is that it makes people particularly sensitive to slights and insults and makes them feel obligated to respond with violence to protect or reestablish their honor. Southerners are more likely to respond with aggression than Northerners when their honor is slighted but honor-related homicides were far more common in the South and Southwest than in the North.

Bystander Effect

A social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. The greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely anyone is to help.

Frustration-Aggression Theory

A source of prejudice; result of the frustrations experienced by the prejudiced group; people who exploited and oppressed often cannot vent their anger against an identifiable or proper target so they displace their hostility onto persons lower on the social scale than themselves

Discuss the relationship between alcohol and aggression include potential mechanisms through which alcohol influences aggression.

Alcohol reduces a person's self-control and facilitates impulsive and aggressive behavior. Disrupts executive cognitive functions. - serves as a dis-inhibitor - has a myopic effect on attention - decreases self-awareness - expectations Factors that normally increase aggression have stronger effects on intoxicated people.

Situational Couple Violence

Also called common couple violence, is not connected to general control behavior, but arises in a single argument where one or both partners physically lash out at the other.

Egoism and Altruism

Altruism - The belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. The desire to help someone else even if it hurts you or does not affect you, or benefit you. - Self sacrifice. - Comte—selflessness. - Contrast to egoism. Egoism - Thesis that we are always deep down motivated by what we perceive to be in our own self-interest. People Treat self-interest as the foundation of morality. - The position that people should be concerned only with their own personal good-that is, only with the balance of good over bad in the consequences for them personally.

Apathy Interpretation

An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical and/or physical life and the world. The apathetic may lack a sense of purpose or meaning in their life. An apathetic person may also exhibit insensibility or sluggishness.

Identify some ways that aggression is operationalized in research studies.

Frustration can be operationally defined in terms of responses to the question: How frustrated are you at this moment? The response options can be (a) not at all, (b) slightly, (c) moderately, and (d) very. The researcher could then classify people as frustrated if they answered "moderately" or "very" on the scale. Aggression could be operationalized as the number of times a student physically hits another person with intention to harm. Thus, having operationally defined the theoretical concepts, the relation between frustration and aggression can be investigated.

Empathetic Joy Hypothesis

Helping another gives a feeling of accomplishment; the helper must know that he/she is being appreciated.

Identify Hostile Cognitive Biases.

Hostile Attribution Bias - Tendency to perceive ambiguous actions by others as aggressive. (Ex. Thinking someone bumped into you on purpose.) Hostile Perception Bias - General tendency to see other people as hostile. Hostile Expectation Bias - tendency to assume people will react to conflicts with aggression.

Explain Step 2 of Latané and Darley's model of emergency helping.

The second step in the model involves determining whether or not the perceived event is an emergency. There are certain characteristics that indicate a need for intervention. For example, screaming is a clear sign that there is an emergency and that someone is in need of outside help. However, if an individual desires help, but suffers in silence, people often do not help because they fail to perceive the situation as an emergency.

Define the weapons effect, and explain how the cognitive neoassociation model accounts for this effect.

The tendency that the likelihood of aggression will increase by the mere presence of weapons. People who saw guns in the room that they were in delivered higher shocks that those who saw badmintons. Although they didn't use the weapons, the mere presence of them seemed to make participants more aggressive. This became to be known as the weapons effect. A more Complete Cognitive Model of Aggression: Whether events, like attack and frustration, lead to anger depends on: 1. Attributions (Controllable v. Uncontrollable) Hostile Attribution Bias: some people are more likely to make hostile attributions for someone else's behavior. 2. Non-specific arousal e.g., Noise, Bad odors, Cigarette smoke, Crowding, Pain, Heat, Losing, Threatened self-esteem 3. Personality variables: E.g., Hostile attribution bias

Summarize research findings regarding the relationships between aggression and various forms of media violence including television, video games, and pornography. Explain the mechanisms by which violent media can influence aggression, and discuss how these mechanisms may differ across children and adults.

Why might violent television increase aggression? 1. Correlation and longitudinal research: Show strong, consistent correlation between viewing violence and aggression. 2. Experiments: Given provocation, those who are randomly assigned to watch violence behave more aggressively. An updated meta-analysis reveals that exposure to violent video games is significantly linked to increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, and cardiovascular arousal, and to decreases in helping behavior. Experimental studies reveal this linkage to be causal. Correlation studies reveal a linkage to serious, real-world types of aggression. Nonviolent pornography leads to: More negative attitudes about women - for both male and female raters. -Habituation: Adaptation to something familiar so that both physiological and psychological responses are reduced -Violent sexual material seems "to increase punitive behavior toward women"