Anti-social Behaviour Coursework

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 ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND AGGRESSION.

  • Antisocial acts are those that show a lack of feeling and concern for the welfare of others (Baron and Richardson1994)
  • Aggressive behaviour is viewed as the most disturbing form of antisocial behaviour.
  • Aggressive behaviour can subdivided –
  • Antisocial aggression – All behaviour that is intended to inflict physical or mental harm on an individual who does not want to be so treated – (Penrod 1983)
  • Pro-social aggression – Police action
  • Sanctioned aggression – Self defence
  • Aggression can be overt behaviours or covert feelings that are not always acted upon.
  • Societies need people not to behave in an antisocial way – therefore laws, sanctions, police, and rewards.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF AGGRESSION – SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY – BERKOWITZ (1989) and BANDURA (1965)

Most behaviour (including aggressive behaviour) is learned. It is claimed that aggressive behaviour is learned either through direct experience or by observing others.

Learning by direct experience – If a child pushes another child and as a result gets something they want, the action is reinforced and is more likely to occur in similar situations in the future. (Skinner – Operant reinforcement)

Learning by vicarious experience – observational learning occurs when a child sees a role model behaving in a particular way and reproduces that behaviour.

Social Learning theorists emphasise that for behaviour to be imitated, it must be seen as rewarding in some way.

The likelihood of a person behaving aggressively in a particular situation is determined by:

  • Their previous experience of aggressive behaviour both their own and that of others
  • The degree to which their aggressive behaviour was successful in the past
  • The current likelihood of their aggressive behaviour being rewarded or punished
  • Other cognitive, social and environmental factors operating at the same time e.g. very noisy situations may increase hostile behaviour and fear of retaliation may decrease it

THE BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT – BANDURA et al (1963)

Aim: To discover whether children learn aggression

Procedure: Bandura et al divided 66 nursery group children into three groups. All three groups watched a film where an adult model kicked and punched a Bobo (blow-up) doll.

  • In condition one the adult was rewarded by a second adult.
  • In condition two the adult was told off by another adult.
  • In condition three the adult was neither rewarded nor punished (control).

The children were then allowed to play in the room with the Bobo doll while experimenters watched through a two- way mirror.

Results: 

  • Children in condition one behaved most aggressively
  • Those in condition two behaved least aggressively.
  • However an important distinction must be made between learning and performance. –
  • All the children learnt how to behave aggressively but those in condition two did not perform as many aggressive acts until later when they were offered rewards to do so, they then quickly showed that they had learned (acquired) as many aggressive techniques as the children in condition one.

Conclusion: 

Aggressive behaviour can be learned.

Social learning model of aggression (P257)

EVALUATION OF RESEARCH: 

  • Bandura exaggerated the extent to which children imitate the behaviour of models.
  • Children are likely to imitate aggressive behaviour towards a doll
  • But less likely to imitate aggressive behaviour towards another child.
  • Bandura continually failed to distinguish between real aggression and play fighting and it is likely that much of the aggressive behaviour observed by Bandura was only play fighting.- Durkin (1995)
  • The Bobo doll is of interest to young children because it has a weighted base and so bounces back up when it is knocked down. Its novelty value is important. Its fun!
  • Cumberbatch (1990) reported that children who were unfamiliar with the doll were five times more likely to initiate aggressive behaviour against it than children who had played with it before.
  • There is the problem of demand characteristics. The participants guessed what they were supposed to do
  • Durkin (1995) “Where else in life does a 5 year old find a powerful adult actually showing you how to knock hell out of a dummy and then giving you the opportunity to try it out yourself?”
  • The Bobo doll experiment provided cues which invited the participants to behave in certain predictable ways.

EVALUATION OF SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY:

  • This approach is important. Much aggressive behaviour is learned. It has been found that children who watch violent programmes on television are more likely to behave in an aggressive way.
  • Social Learning Theory can account for cultural and individual variation; it can also explain why we behave aggressively in some situations and not others.
  • For example, a child might find it a useful strategy to shout at a friend in the playground, but the same behaviour in class would be sharply discouraged. The child learns when aggression is appropriate and when it is not. This is called context – dependent learning.
  • Despite all this there are reasons for arguing that Bandura’s approach is limited in scope.
  • Aggressive behaviour does not depend only on observational learning. The cross cultural evidence demonstrates that aspects of aggression are innate and twin studies have provided important evidence of genetic factors, (The closer the genetic relationship the higher the correlation of aggressive behaviour) although it is possible that twins reared together have learned aggression in their homes.

How might children be exposed to aggressive models?

  • Television – See media influences
  • Strength of influence determined by,
  • How real is the story?
  • Do the viewers identify with the aggressor – Heroes are more powerful than villains.
  • Aggression identified with revenge is more powerful than other types of aggression.
  • Justified aggression is more powerful than unjustified aggression.
  • Unsuccessful aggression, aggressor punished tends to inhibit aggression.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF AGGRESSION – DE-INDIVIDUATION

  • DEINDIVIDUATION: Hogg and Vaughan (1998) define it as: ‘a process whereby people lose their sense of socialised identity and engage in unsocialised, often anti social behaviours.’
  • One explanation offered for unruly mob behaviour is that the loss of identity that occurs when you are part of a crowd means that individuals feel less constrained by norms of social behaviour, and more able to behave in an anti-social way. Also less chance of getting caught and having to take responsibility.

Evidence

Mann 1981 reported the baiting crowd

  • 10 out of 21 incidents of suicides where the watching crowd baited the potential suicide to jump.
  • These incidents occurred when a large crowd were some distance from the jumper and it was at night – all features that produce a state of de-individuation.

Milgram – participants gave higher levels of shock when they could not see their victim.

Zimbardo’s (1973) prison study

  • The guards were de-individualised because they wore uniforms and were given reflective sunglasses. They behaved aggressively
  • However, the prisoners also wore uniforms. They were further de-individualised by wearing stockings over their heads and being referred to by a number rather than a name.
  • The prisoners didn’t behave aggressively but they did conform to the role of being a prisoner. This suggests that de-individuation results in high levels of conformity rather than aggression per se, as the prison guards were also conforming to a role.

De-individuation of the victim – The baiting crowd may have behaved differently if the identity of the jumper was clear. We dehumanise potential victims of state violence by terminology that we use, Theatre of war, victims are referred to as targets, Collateral damage, ethnic cleansing. (Video Hutus and Tutsi’s)

Evaluation

The major difficulty with using de-individualisation as an explanation for aggression is the fact that it did not always lead to aggression.

  • There are circumstances where de-individualisation may even lead to higher levels of pro-social behaviour.
  • Wearing a nurse’s uniform leads to a loss of identity and adopting the norms for that uniform. Whereas wearing the uniform of a soldier might lead one to adopt more aggressive behaviours. De-individuation can increase conformity to certain social norms.

In some crowd situations, de-individuation actually leads to decreased conformity, (Unlike the Zimbardo study) - it could be argued that individuals are conforming to the norm of the crowd - unruly behaviour that manifests its self in different ways. In other crowd situations, such as a rock concert, the norm would be different and so would the behaviour of the crowd. Deindividuation means one tends to relinquish personal control.

Can de-individuation be used to explain the apparent aggressive, violent and selfish behaviour of a crowd?

  • A study of football hooliganism by Marsh et al (1978) found that what might appear to be a de-individuated undisciplined mob on match days can actually consist of several different groups, each with their status.
  • By serving an apprenticeship of ritualised aggression over a period of time, young supporters can be ‘promoted’ into a higher group and can thus continue a ‘career’ of football violence.
  • Marsh discovered that in most cases this behaviour is highly ritualised, rather than physically violent e.g. it is common after a football math to chase rival supporters who are threatened with shouts of what aggressive actions will take place when they are caught, but on most occasions the aggression remains verbal.
  • It is therefore clear that within this crowd there are clear individual roles and norms rather than a ‘sub human response’

THE EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS ON AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR A number of environmental factors have been identified as triggers for aggression.

Temperature 

  • Baron and Bell (1976) studied the effects of heat on aggression by seeing how willing participants were to give electric shocks to another person.
  • Temperatures within the range 92-95 degrees F generally increased the level of aggression.
  • However, extreme heat led to a reduced level of aggression towards another person who had provided a negative evaluation of the participant. In those conditions, the participants were very stressed. If they had given shocks to the other person, they would have had to deal with that person’s angry reactions and they felt unable to deal with the added stress.
  • Naturalistic study – Baron and Ransberger (1978) showed that incidences of violence could be related to high air temperatures. They used collected data on incidents of group violence in the US as well as the corresponding weather reports. They found that when the temperature was moderately hot, around 84 degrees, violence was highest, when temperatures got hotter, aggression declined.
  • This confirms the finding that temperature can act as a stressor leading to the response of aggression.
  • However, other evidence does not support the notion that aggressive behaviour declines when the heat becomes extreme.
  • Anderson (1989) considered the effects of temperature on various forms of aggressive behaviour, such as assault, rape and murder. There was a steady increase in all of these aggressive acts as the temperature rose, with no indication of any reduction in extreme heat.
  • Field research indicates higher murder rates in southern Italy and USA than in the north of those countries. Moghaddam argues that these regions differ in much more than temperature, other factors may be responsible for the high murder rates.
  • Studies have claimed to find a link between hot summer months and increases in violent crime. People are out more in the summer – extra contact may be responsible. American homicide rates peak in late summer and Christmas both times when there is increased social contact. We also through heating, live in fairly constant temperatures.

NOISE:

  • Glass et al (1969) arranged for 60 undergraduates to complete a number of cognitive tasks e.g. word searches,
  • 4 conditions: loud or soft noise played at random (unpredictable) or fixed (predictable) intervals. There was also a no noise condition.
  • During the task physiological arousal was measured using the galvanic skin response (GSR, a measure of autonomic arousal or stress). After the task participants were asked to complete four puzzles. Two of them were insoluble. Frustration was measured in terms of the length of time that participants persisted in these tasks.
  • Participants did adapt to the noise. In the predictable noise condition, participants made fewer errors, had lower GSR and had higher task persistence than those in the random noise condition. Those in the no noise condition made even fewer errors.
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  • This suggests that random noise has the greatest effect but even predictable noise creates some stress. Glass et al suggested that this is because we can ‘tune out’ constant stimuli while still attending at a pre-conscious level, but unpredictable stimuli require more continued attention, and this reduces our ability to cope with stress. Therefore noise, in itself, is a stressor. And such stressors may lead to aggression as described the frustration-aggression hypothesis.
  • Experiments suggest that under circumstances where noise may increase arousal, aggression is increased. When noise does not increase arousal, or when the individual is not predisposed to ...

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