'Describe and evaluate research into the effects of two or more environmental stressors on aggressive behaviour.'

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'Describe and evaluate research into the effects of two or more environmental stressors on aggressive behaviour.'

Research into aggression and the environment have centred on three main areas of the environment. These areas are noise, Temperature and Crowding.  I shall be discussing these three areas and reviewing their validity.

        

        The first area is crowding. Crowding states that aggressive behaviour occurs when a person becomes part of a collective group of people and therefore loses there inhibitions, effectively becoming deindividuated and this then may lead to aggressive behaviour taking place. Deindividuation can occur when a person is part of a crowd or when the person's identity is disguised. There are studies to support this theory that aggressive behaviour may be caused by crowds / crowding. One study is by Cox et al. (1984) who researched prison conditions and found a correlation between density and violence. When density was reduced by 30%, there was a 60% decrease in violence in the prison. Also, when density was increased by 20%, a 36% increase in violence / assaults followed. In other research he also found that  there was more rioting and violent crimes committed in high density prisons as opposed to low density prisons.

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        However, this study is low in ecological validity as it was researched in prison surroundings and therefore we cannot generalise to a wider community. This study shows a link between aggression and crowding but does not show whether deindividuation has occurred.

        Cox's study is supported by Stokols (1976) who identified three conceptual perspectives that may explain why crowding might lead to increased aggression. These three concepts are stimulus overload, behavioural constraints and the ecological model.

        When is a crowd, a person's sensor will be working more than normal with increased people to look at, increased noise etc... and this may ...

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