Causes of Aggressive behaviour. The causes of aggressive behavior can be divided into person-centered determinants, which are related to the characteristics of aggressor and situation-centered determinants which are related to the situation and how it ca

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CAUSES OF AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

PERSON-CENTERED & SITUATION-CENTERED DETERMINANTS OF AGGRESSSIVE BEHAVIOR

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CAUSES OF AGGRESSIVE BEHAVİOR

     It is almost impossible to spend a day without witnessing to some instances of aggressive behaviors in our daily life. Most people would agree that aggression is common in contemporary societies. For some, aggression can be experienced directly and intensely. For others, it can be experienced in a less harmful form, such as verbal insult or hostile rejection. Recent researches show an evidence for the surprising frequency of aggression among people. For example, according to Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz (1980; cited in Baron & Richardson, 1994), one of the three couple in The United State encounters the physical violence in their marriage. Moreover, sixty percent of children in United States die because of the parental abuse. As it can be seen from these dramatic statistics, aggression seems to be real and important part of the human life. In order to examine this significant issue, it is necessary to define what the aggression is. However, since it is a broad and comprehensive term, there are some major problems concerning the definition of aggression. Baron and Richardson (1994) maintained that although there has been many controversial views about the definition of aggression, there is one definition which stands out as the one on which many social psychologists seem to accept: “Aggression is any form of behavior directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment (p.7).” After defining the aggression, psychologists put an emphasis on discovering which factors influence the aggressive behavior. They stated that there are two main approaches to the causes of aggressive behavior. All the features of a person that may explain the individual differences in aggression are person-centered factors. On the other hand, situation-centered factors include the all characteristics of the situation. Both person-centered factors and situational factors influence the aggression. Briefly, the causes of aggressive behavior can be divided into person-centered determinants, which are related to the characteristics of aggressor and situation-centered determinants which are related to the situation and how it can provoke the aggressive behavior.

     The first factor related to the individual the influence aggression is gender differences. Majority of people think that men have more tendency to show aggressive behavior and it seems that this view is acceptable to some extent. In everyday life situations, when nothing special is going on, men behave more aggressively than women because men are encouraged by the society from early childhood to be more aggressive than women. Many researches have confirmed this male-female difference in many societies. In a classic experiment on aggression, Eagley and Steffen (1986) demonstrated that men are more likely than women to be physically violent and to show more aggressive attitudes. There may be a hormonal explanation for these gender differences. Several studies suggest that hormones influence human aggression. Men typically have higher level of testosterone than women and recent studies have investigated whether aggression and testosterone levels are related. Scientists who study whether hormones influence later aggressive behaviors have found positive correlation between high testosterone level and aggression. Men with high levels of testosterone are more likely to show aggressive behaviors (Berman, Gladue & Tylor, 1993). Also, there are other studies which have found that both males and females who have higher levels of testosterone are aggressive individuals (Carlson, 2004; Dabbs et al., 1987; cited in Franzoi, 2006). However, the research on gender differences is more complicated than it seems. Although it is true that men are more aggressive than women under some circumstances, the gender difference almost disappears when men and women are provoked. When people are subjected to frustration or insult, women will react as aggressively as men (Betterncourt & Miller, 1996). As it can be seen, this does not mean that aggressiveness is rare among women, but women are less likely to act aggressively circumstances in which they are not provoked than men are.  

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     As well as examining gender differences, social psychologists have tried to find out which types of personality are related to aggression. In recent years many researches showed that people who have type A personality are more likely to engage in aggression. Since type A people are more “ambitious, high achieving, perfectionist”, (Crisp & Turner, 2007), they   compete with others to achieve their goals when compared to others. Thus, it seems that type A people are hostile people and they tend to show more aggression. One study showed type A people have more tendency to commit child abuse ...

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