Outline and evaluate two psychological theories of aggression
Outline and evaluate two Social Psychological theories of aggression. Throughout this essay, I will be discussing aggression. Firstly, what is aggression? Aggression has been defined as "any form of behaviour directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment." (Baron & Richardson, 1993). This basically means to deliberately hurt others, whether physically or emotionally. Various types of aggression have been identified. These are, Person-orientated aggression, which is when the main goal is to harm another person and Instrumental aggression, which is when aggression is used in order to achieve a desired goal e.g. punching someone so you can grab their mobile phone etc. An important factor to remember when studying aggression is the INTENT behind the action. This is vital as it is the intent that determines if the action is aggressive. There are various explanations for the cause of aggression, the main ones being The Social Learning Theory, The Excitation-Transfer Theory and The Deindividuation Theory. Throughout this essay, I will be outlining and evaluating The Social Learning Theory (SLT) and The Deindividuation Theory. The SLT was developed from behaviourism and it focuses on the concept that behaviour is learned through modelling or imitation. David Statt, (2003) describes The Social Learning Theory
Outline and evaluate two social psychological explanations for aggression
Outline and evaluate two social psychological explanations for aggression While there are many different approaches in psychology, perhaps the most believable, and ultimately provable approaches to aggression come from the social psychological approach: social learning theory and deindividuation. While the two theories differ in their context, they both assert that the explanations of behaviour, in this case aggression, originate from the situational context emphasising little importance on other factors such as biology, evolution or cognitive processes. The social learning theory (SLT) approach to aggression largely originates from the somewhat infamous work of Bandura. While SLT comes under the large umbrella term of behaviourism, it goes far beyond the simple stimulus response model, explaining in depth more complex and perhaps realistic explanations for behaviour. Aggression is learned either indirectly: through observational learning and only replicated if vicarious reinforcement occurs, or directly. This is where aggressive behaviour is directly reinforced. While both are a form of operant conditioning, the direct approach parallels the ideas much closer. Bandura outlined the following four steps in the modelling process of SLT: Attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. Attention is increased if the model is more prestigious, attractive or similar. This causes
Law of Contract Example considering invitation to treat, offer and acceptance, intoxication of alcohol and revocation of an online purchase.
Transfer-Encoding: chunked BS2153 Law of Contract Assessment Component 1 Student Matriculation No.: 1508147 Course/Year of Study: Law and Management Stage 2 Word count*: 1698 The issues that are to be analysed within this problem are, invitation to treat, offer and acceptance, intoxication of alcohol and revocation. An offer is a proposal from one party with the intention to be legally bound in such definite terms that, if it is accepted, a legally binding contract will be formed. An offer is the key ingredient to any analysis of contract formation. Without an offer, there will never be a contract. There are often many different communications at the negotiation stage between the parties. The courts are asked to look at these objectively to find the point in time when an offer has been made to somebody. However, there are many communications that do not reach the stage of that offer. To constitute an offer we require the subject matter, the price and who the parties are, just to name a few. However, there are many things that are being said that do not quite reach that standard and which the law labels an invitation to treat. The purpose of an invitation to treat is to invite others to make an offer which can then be accepted by the person who made the invitation.[1] As a general rule, an advertisement is only an invitation to treat even if it calls itself an
The Relationship between Appearance and Fear of Animals.
Deena Maher The Relationship between Appearance and Fear of Animals Introduction Prolonged and excessive fears are classified as phobias, which are a type of Anxiety disorder according to the DSM-IV. When the phobia takes over the persons ability to live a 'normal' life it is classed as a mental disorder, (psychopathology is the study of mental disorders). There are three types of phobias; specific phobias, social phobias and agoraphobia. Specific phobias are fears relating to something specific such as fear of animals, the most common including snakes, spiders, rodents and heights. The five types of specific phobias include; animal type, situational type (eg: planes, lifts), natural environment (eg: heights, storms, water), blood injection - injury type and 'other'. There are a variety of different explanations and theories of phobic anxiety disorders. These include genetic explanations, neurological explanations and the behavioral theory. The genetic explanation basically studies whether or not phobias are hereditary via family history studies (relying on interviews), adoption studies and the most common - twin studies that examine the role of concordance of a disorder. Neurological explanations of phobias are based on the function of the automatic nervous system where people who develop phobias have a high level of physiological arousal making them sensitive to their
Discuss one Biological and one Psychological Explanation of Aggression
Discuss one biological and one psychological explanation of aggression (25 marks) Some biological psychologists point to the role of neural and hormonal mechanisms in aggression. Hormones have already been implicated in a number of other psychological disorders, e.g., depression and eating disorders. Studies have found a strong, positive correlation between levels of testosterone and aggression. This applies to both men (Olweus et al 1988) and women (Ehlers et al, 1980). Clare (2000) noted that girls with the condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia - which is implicated in high levels of aggression - engaged in more 'rough and tumble play'. Testosterone appears to be most influential at two stages of life - a few days after birth i.e. 'the critical time period' when sensitisation of neural circuits happens and in adulthood when testosterone modulates neurotransmitter pathways. Hormones are definitely at least linked to behaviour - although a problem exists in trying to establish cause and effect, which will be discussed later. Much human and non-human research points to a link between the two. For example, when levels of testosterone peak at the time of puberty in young human males, aggression also peaks. Many non-human animal studies support the idea that aggression is somehow caused or linked with testosterone. One such method of testing this is to castrate various
Describe three clinical characteristics of any one anxiety disorder and evaluate two theories for its origin.
Psychopathology - Phobias Describe three clinical characteristics of any one anxiety disorder and evaluate two theories for its origin A phobia is probably one of the most common anxiety disorders. A phobia is described as an irrational and persistent that is associated with the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation. In addition, avoidance as seen in agoraphobia is an important component of the definition of a phobia. There are three types of phobias, these are specific or simple phobias such as a fear of flying or the dentist, social phobia described as a fear of being humiliated in public, examples of a social phobia include, eating in public or using public toilets. The last type of phobia is agoraphobia, which is described as an intense fear of open or public places, and is often linked with panic attacks. For example, a person may have a fear of leaving their home in case a panic attack occurs while no one is present to help them. Therefore, as a result the person may rarely or in extreme cases never leave their house. Approximately 4 to 7 per cent of the general population is said to develop a specific phobia, such as arachnophobia, whilst only 1 to 2 per cent are said to suffer from a social phobia, such as talking to a large audience, and approximately 2 to 3 per cent suffer from agoraphobia. A phobia is diagnosed if a person has a
How effective is the social learning theory in explaining aggressive behaviour?
How effective is the social learning theory in explaining aggressive behaviour? The social learning theory (SLT) is the basic assumption that people learn, not through direct reinforcement but through the observation of models. The SLT is appliable to all behaviour, including aggressive behaviour, which can be defined as any action or series of actions in which the direct purpose is to cause injury or damage. The SLT is quite effective in explaining aggressive tendencies, e.g. why some people are more aggressive than others and why children raised in violent homes are more prone to aggressiveness, but it does not explain why there seem to be a gender difference concerning aggressive behaviour. Most of the research on the social learning theory in the context of aggressive or violent behaviour was done by Albert Bandura et al, (1963). He performed one laboratory test where children we grouped in 3 different groups, and the children in the first group observed aggressive acts performed by a model on a large inflatable toy, the second a model acting in a non-aggressive manner and the last group served as a control group. After observing the model, the children were led to a playroom where they were observed through a one-way mirror. The children who had watched the aggressive model frequently imitated the same acts of aggression, compared to the other groups who showed none of
'There is no justification for the doctrine of piercing the veil, which undermines the fundamental principles of company and creates unnecessary uncertainty' Discuss.
'There is no justification for the doctrine of piercing the veil, which undermines the fundamental principles of company and creates unnecessary uncertainty.' Discuss One of the fundamental principles of a company is the notion that a company is recognised as a separate from its members. This doctrine as first established in Salomon v Salomon1 states "Once the company is legally incorporated it must be treated like any other independent person with its rights and liabilities appropriate to itself2" The notion separate legal personality of a company is often expressed as the veil of incorporation and it is on this principle that it is the company itself rather than its members or directors which are liable on its contracts and its debts. However, in some circumstances the court has been asked to disregard the veil of incorporation, effectively 'piercing' it to reveal the reality of who owns and controls the company. In this, there is an inherent problem with the doctrine in that it appears to undermine one of the fundamental principles of company law, the doctrine of limited liability and has been said to create unnecessary uncertainty in Company Law cases. One initial debate which arises concerns the issue of when it is deemed acceptable for the corporate veil to be lifted. Sir Andrew Morritt V-C endorses one such argument in Trustor AB v Smallbone3 who concluded that
Compare and Contrast the Psychoanalytic and Biogenic Perspectives of Psychopathy, with Respect to Phobia etiology and Treatment Psychopathy.
D.Hook 17/02/2K Compare and Contrast the Psychoanalytic and Biogenic Perspectives of Psychopathy, with Respect to Phobia etiology and Treatment Psychopathy, or abnormal psychology is the term used for the study of 'illnesses related to the mind', and so includes the etiology and treatment of schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorders and phobias etc. In general it can be seen to encompass any mentally or behaviourally disordered state in which proper psychological functioning is disordered or interfered with1. It is not a simple, clear cut science by any means, as it is still in very experimental stages, with much of that which it encompasses still lying outside proper human understanding. The result of this is that within the field of psychopathy many different perspectives exist, with each approaching the various disorders from very different angles and proposing different etiology and treatment. The perspectives include humanistic (or learning model), behavioural, biogenic and psychoanalytic2, each based around the perspectives they relate to in other areas of psychology. To get the best understanding of psychopathy in such a small review as this, it is best to look at the two most disparate fields; biogenics and psychoanalysis. The biogenic model of psychopathy is
Classical and Operant Conditioning
Describe and Evaluate One Therapy Based on Classical Conditioning and One Therapy Based on Operant Conditioning. Behavioural therapies emerged in the 1950s. The main assumption of the behavioural view is that abnormal behaviour is acquired in the same way as normal behaviour, through the principles of Classical and Operant Conditioning. Behavioural therapy is usually targets at specific, well-delineated anxiety disorders such as phobias and compulsions. One therapy that is used through Classical Conditioning is Systematic Desensitisation. Classical Conditioning is learning that occurs through association. Systematic Desensitisation is used for people with phobias as it de-conditions phobias using relaxation and gradual contact. Individuals might learn that their feared stimulus was not so fearful after all if they could only re-experience the feared stimulus - but the anxiety it creates blocks such recovery. This is overcome by introducing the feared stimulus gradually. In this type of behavioural therapy, based on the principle of counter-conditioning, a fearful person imagines a series of progressively more fearsome situations while he or she is deeply relaxed. The responses of relaxation and fear are incompatible, and the fear is eventually dispelled. The use of Systematic Desensitisation was first developed by Wolpe in the 1950s. Systematic Desensitisation enables
