1. Social Psychology (Pp 384-397)
6th edition
Elliot Aronson
University of California, Santa Cruz
Timothy D. Wilson
University of Virginia
Robin M. Akert
Wellesley College

2. Social Situations and Aggression
Aggression can also be caused by unpleasant social situations.
Imagine that your friend Sam is driving you to the airport so that you can fly home for the Christmas holidays. Sam has picked you up a bit later than you feel comfortable with; he accuses you of being overly anxious and assures you that he knows the route well and that you will arrive there with plenty of time to spare. Halfway to the airport, you are standing still in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sam assures you that there is plenty of time—but this time he sounds less confident. After a few minutes, your palms are sweating. You open the car door and survey the road ahead: Not a car is moving, as far ahead as you can see. You get back in the car, slam the door, and glare at Sam. He smiles lamely and says, “How was I supposed to know there would be so much traffic?” Should he be prepared to duck?
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3. Social Situations and Aggression
Frustration and Aggression
Frustration-Aggression Theory
The idea that frustration—the perception that you are being prevented from attaining a goal—increases the probability of an aggressive response.
(Dollard, et. al., 1939)
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4. Social Situations and Aggression
Frustration and Aggression
Barker, Dembo, & Lewin (1941):
Children who played with toys immediately played joyfully.
Children frustrated by waiting were extremely destructive: Many smashed the toys, threw them against the wall, stepped on them, and so forth.
(Dollard, et. al., 1939)
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5. Social Situations and Aggression
Frustration and Aggression
Several things can increase frustration and, accordingly, will increase the probability that some form of aggression will occur:
Delay
Goal proximity
Unexpectedness of the frustration
One such factor involves your closeness to the goal or the object of your desire. The closer the goal, the greater the expectation of pleasure that is thwarted; the greater the expectation, the more likely the aggression. This was demonstrated in a field experiment (Harris, 1974).
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6. Social Situations and Aggression
Frustration and Aggression
What circumstances can turn frustration to aggression?
The size and strength of the person responsible for your frustration.
That person’s ability to retaliate.
Proximity of the person.
If the frustration is understandable, legitimate, and unintentional, the tendency to aggress will be reduced.
Frustration does not always produce aggression. Rather, it seems to produce anger or annoyance and a readiness to aggress if other things about the situation are conducive to aggressive behavior (Berkowitz, 1978, 1988, 1989, 1993; Gustafson, 1989).
For example, in one experiment, when a confederate “unwittingly” sabotaged the problem solving of his team mates because his hearing aid stopped working, the resulting frustration did not lead to a measurable degree of aggression (Burnstein & Worchel, 1962).

7. Being Provoked and Reciprocating
Aggression frequently stems from the need to reciprocate after being provoked by aggressive behavior from another person.
But even when provoked, people do not always reciprocate.
When convinced the provocation was unintentional, most of us will not reciprocate.
If there are mitigating circumstances, counter-aggression will not occur.
But to curtail an aggressive response, these mitigating circumstances must be known at the time of the provocation.
(Kremer & Stephens, 1983)
(Johnson & Rule, 1986).
In one study, students were insulted by the experimenters’ assistant. Half of them were first told that the assistant was upset after receiving an unfair low grade on a chemistry exam; the other students received this information only after the insult was delivered. All subjects later had an opportunity to retaliate by choosing the level of unpleasant noise with which to zap the assistant. Those students who knew about the mitigating circumstances before being insulted delivered less intense bursts of noise. Why the difference? At the time of the insult, the informed students simply did not take it personally and therefore had no need to retaliate. This interpretation is bolstered by evidence of their physiological arousal: At the time of the insult, the heartbeat of the insulted students did not increase as rapidly if they knew about the assistant’s unhappy state of mind beforehand.

8. Aggressive Objects as Cues
Aggressive Stimulus
An object that is associated with aggressive responses and whose mere presence can increase the probability of aggression.
Archer and his colleagues (Archer, 1994; Archer & McDaniel, 1995) asked teenagers from the United States and ten other countries to read stories involving conflict among people and to predict the outcome of the conflict. The results? American teenagers were more likely to anticipate a violent conclusion to the conflict than teenagers from other countries. Moreover, the violent conclusions drawn by American teenagers were far more likely to be “lethal, gun-laden and merciless” (Archer, 1994, p. 19). The conclusions are undeniable: Lethal violence, especially involving guns, is simply a major part of American society—and therefore plays a major role in the expectations and fantasies of American youngsters.
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9. Aggressive Objects as Cues
In a classic experiment by Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony Le Page (1967), college students were made angry. Some of them were made angry in a room in which a gun was left lying around (ostensibly from a previous experiment), and others were made angry in a room in which a neutral object (a badminton racket) was substituted for the gun.
Participants were then given the opportunity to administer what they believed were electric shocks to a fellow college student.
Those individuals who had been made angry in the presence of the gun administered more intense electric shocks than those made angry in the presence of the racket.

10. In a classic experiment by Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony Le Page (1967), college students were made angry. Some of them were made angry in a room in which a gun was left lying around (ostensibly from a previous experiment), and others were made angry in a room in which a neutral object (a badminton racket) was substituted for the gun. Participants were then given the opportunity to administer what they believed were electric shocks to a fellow college student. Those individuals who had been made angry in the presence of the gun administered more intense electric shocks than those made angry in the presence of the racket (see Figure 12.2). The basic findings have been replicated a great many times in the United States and Europe (Frodi, 1975; Turner & Leyens, 1992; Turner, Simons, Berkowitz, & Frodi, 1977). These findings are provocative and point to a conclusion opposite to a familiar slogan often used by opponents of gun control that “guns don’t kill; people do.” Guns do kill. As Leonard Berkowitz (1981, p. 12) put it, “An angry person can pull the trigger of his gun if he wants to commit violence; but the trigger can also pull the finger or otherwise elicit aggressive reactions from him, if he is ready to aggress and does not have strong inhibitions against such behavior.

11. Imitation and Aggression
Children frequently learn to solve conflicts aggressively by imitating adults and their peers, especially when they see that the aggression is rewarded.
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12. Imitation and Aggression
The people children imitate the most, of course, are their parents.
And if the parents were abused as children, this can set a chain of abuse in motion.
Indeed, a large percentage of physically abusive parents were themselves abused by their own parents when they were kids.
(Silver, Dublin, & Lourie, 1969; Strauss & Gelles, 1980)
Many experts speculate that when children are physically abused by their parents, they learn that violence is an acceptable way to socialize their own kids. But of course, that is not the only conclusion one might draw from these family data.

13. Imitation and Aggression
Social Learning Theory
The idea that we learn social behavior (e.g., aggression) by observing others and imitating them.
(Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961, 1963)

14. In a classic series of experiments, Albert Bandura and his associates demonstrated the power of social learning.

15. Imitation and Aggression
Bandura’s basic procedure was to have an adult knock around a plastic, air-filled “Bobo” doll (the kind that bounces back after it’s been knocked down).
The kids were then allowed to play with the doll.
In these experiments, the children imitated the aggressive models and treated the doll in an abusive way.
Children in a control condition, who did not see the aggressive adult in action, almost never unleashed any aggression against the hapless doll.
The adult would smack the doll around with the palm of a hand, strike it with a mallet, kick it, and yell aggressive things at it.
Moreover, the children who watched the aggressive adult used identical actions and identical aggressive words as the adult. And many went beyond mere imitation—they also engaged in novel forms of aggressive behavior.

16. Violence in the Media: TV, Movies, and Video Games
If just watching people behave aggressively causes children to mistreat dolls, what does watching violence on television do to them—to all of us? And what about violent video games in which children participate in the destruction of cities and the lopping off of heads and limbs of characters on their computer screens?

17. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
Effects on Children
BY THE TIME THE AVERAGE AMERICAN CHILD FINISHES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, HE OR SHE WOULD HAVE SEEN 8,000 MURDERS AND MORE THAN 100,000 OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE.
58% OF ALL TV PROGRAMS CONTAIN VIOLENCE—AND OF THOSE, 78% CONTAIN NOT A SHRED OF REMORSE, CRITICISM, OR PENALTY FOR THAT VIOLENCE.
OME 40% OF THE VIOLENT INCIDENTS SEEN ON TV DURING A PARTICULAR YEAR WERE INITIATED BY CHARACTERS PORTRAYED AS HEROES OR OTHER ATTRACTIVE ROLE MODELS FOR CHILDREN.
(ERON, 2001)
DOZENS OF STUDIES (E.G., SEPPA, 1997)
(CANTOR ET AL., 2001)
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Effects on Children
The more TV violence individuals watch as children, the more violence they exhibit later as teens and young adults.
Watching a violent film has the effect of increasing the number of aggressive acts committed during a game—primarily by the youngsters who already rated as highly aggressive by their teachers.
Even children who are not inclined toward aggression will become more aggressive if exposed to a steady diet of violent films over a long period.
(Eron, 1982, 1987; Eron, Huesmann, Lefkowitz, & Walder, 1996)
Though not all of the research is consistent, the overwhelming thrust of the experimental evidence demonstrates that watching violence does indeed increase the frequency of aggressive behavior in children (for reviews of the literature, see Cantor et al, 2001; Geen, 1994, 1998; Huesmann & Miller, 1994; Wood, Wong, & Chachere, 1991).
(Leyens, Camino, Parke, & Berkowitz, 1975; Parke, Berkowitz, Leyens, West, & Sebastian, 1977)
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Effects on Children
Priming by TV has a tendency to increase the probability of an aggressive response when children subsequently are frustrated or hurt, exposing children to an endless stream of violence in films and on TV might have a similar tendency to prime an aggressive response.
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20. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
Effects on Children
Playing violent video games seems to have the same kind of impact on children that watching TV violence does.
Violent video game playing positively correlates with aggressive behavior and delinquency in children.
The relationship was found to be stronger for children who had been more prone to violence beforehand.
The relationship is more than correlational. Exposing a random sample of children to a graphically violent video game had a direct and immediate impact on their aggressive thoughts and behavior.
(Anderson & Dill, 2000)
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21. What About Adults?
The amount of time spent watching television during adolescence and early adulthood correlates positively with likelihood of subsequent violent acts against others.
This association was significant regardless of parental education, family income, and neighborhood violence.
Moreover, unlike most laboratory experiments on aggression, which, understandably must use rather pallid measures of aggression (like administering fake electric shocks or loud noises to the victim), this study, because it took place in the real world over a long period of time, allowed for the examination of severe aggressive behavior like assault and armed robbery (Johnson, 2002).

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What About Adults?
Daily homicide rates in the United States have almost always increased during the week following a heavyweight boxing match.
Moreover, the more publicity surrounding the fight, the greater the subsequent increase in homicides.
Phillips (1983, 1986)
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23. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
What About Adults?
Daily homicide rates in the United States have almost always increased during the week following a heavyweight boxing match.
Moreover, the more publicity surrounding the fight, the greater the subsequent increase in homicides.
Still more striking, the race of prizefight losers was related to the race of victims of murders after the fights: After white boxers lost fights, there was a corresponding increase in murders of white men but not of black men.
After black boxers lost fights, there was a corresponding increase in murders of black men but not of white men.
Phillips’s results are far too consistent to be dismissed as a fluke. Moreover, his findings have received strong confirmation from a meta-analysis by showing that across a wide range of ages, there is a reliable relationship between viewing violence on TV and the antisocial behavior of the viewer (Paik & Comstock, 1994). Again, these data should not be construed as indicating that all people or even a sizable percentage of people are motivated to commit violence through watching media violence. But the fact that some people are influenced—and that the results can be tragic—cannot be denied.
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24. The Numbing Effect of TV Violence
Repeated exposure to difficult or unpleasant events tends to have a numbing effect on our sensitivity to those events, as indicated by reductions in:
Emotional response,
Physiological response, and
Perception of brutality.
IN ONE EXPERIMENT, RESEARCHERS MEASURED THE PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSES OF SEVERAL YOUNG MEN WHILE THEY WERE WATCHING A RATHER BRUTAL AND BLOODY BOXING MATCH (CLINE, CROFT, & COURIER, 1973). THOSE WHO WATCHED A LOT OF TV IN THEIR DAILY LIVES SEEMED RELATIVELY INDIFFERENT TO THE MAYHEM IN THE RING—THAT IS, THEY SHOWED LITTLE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF EXCITEMENT, ANXIETY, OR OTHER AROUSAL. THEY WERE UNMOVED BY THE VIOLENCE. BUT THOSE WHO TYPICALLY WATCHED RELATIVELY LITTLE TV SHOWED MAJOR PHYSIOLOGICAL AROUSAL—THE VIOLENCE REALLY AGITATED THEM.

25. How Does Media Violence Affect Our View of the World?
Adolescents and adults who watch more than 4 hours per day are more likely to have an exaggerated view of the degree of violence taking place outside their own home.
Heavy TV viewers have a much greater fear of being personally assaulted.
IF I AM WATCHING ALL THIS MURDER AND MAYHEM ON THE TV SCREEN, WOULDN’T IT BE LOGICAL FOR ME TO CONCLUDE THAT IT SIMPLY ISN’T SAFE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE—ESPECIALLY AFTER DARK? THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT MANY HEAVY TV VIEWERS DO CONCLUDE (GERBNER, GROSS, MORGAN, SIGNORIELLI, & SHANAHAN, 2002).
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26. Why Does Media Violence Affect Viewers’ Aggression?
“If they can do it, so can I.”
“Oh, so that’s how you do it!”
“Those feelings I am having must be real anger rather than simply a stressful day.”
“Ho-hum, another brutal beating; what’s on the other channel?”
“I had better get him before he gets me!”
1. When people see characters on TV behaving violently, it may simply weaken their previously learned inhibitions against violent behavior.
2. When people see characters on TV behaving violently, it might trigger imitation, providing them with ideas as to how they might go about it.
3. Watching violence may put people more in touch with their feelings of anger and make an aggressive response more likely simply through priming, as discussed in Chapter 4. Having recently viewed violence on TV, someone might interpret his or her own feelings of mild irritation as intense anger and then be more likely to lash out.
4. Watching a lot of mayhem seems to reduce both our sense of horror about violence and our sympathy for the victims, making it easier for us to live with violence and perhaps easier for us to act aggressively.
5. If watching a lot of TV makes me think the world is a dangerous place, I might be more apt to be hostile to a stranger who approaches me on the street.

27. Does Violence Sell?
People who saw a nonviolent, non-sexual show were able to recall brands advertised during commercials better than the people who saw a violent show or a sexually explicit show.
This was true both immediately after viewing and twenty-four hours after viewing and was true for both men and women of all ages.
Violence and sex seem to impair viewers’ memory.
Bushman & Bonacci (2002) got people to watch TV shows that were either violent, sexually explicit, or neutral. Each of the shows contained the same nine ads. Immediately after seeing the show, the researchers asked the viewers to recall the brands and to pick them out from photos of supermarket shelves.

28. Violent Pornography and Violence against Women
Scripts
Ways of behaving socially that we learn implicitly from our culture.
Sexual scripts adolescents are exposed to suggest to them the traditional female role is to resist the male’s sexual advances and male’s role is to be persistent.
Although 95% of the males and 97% of the female high schoolers surveyed agreed that a man should stop sexual advances as soon as a woman says no, nearly 1/2 of those same students also believed that when a woman says no, she doesn’t always mean it.
(Check & Malamuth, 1983; White, Donat, & Humphrey, 1995)
(Monson, Langhinrichsen-Rohling, & Binderup, 2002)

29. Violent Pornography and Violence against Women
During the 1990s, this confusion prompted several colleges to suggest that dating couples negotiate an explicit contract about their sexual conduct and limitations at the very beginning of the date.
But social critics lambasted these measures on the grounds that they encouraged fear and paranoia, destroyed the spontaneity of romance, and reduced the excitement of dating to something resembling a field trip to a lawyer’s office. They were eventually dropped.
Given the problems associated with sexual scripts and the emotionally destructive consequences of miscommunication, it is understandable that college administrators would have resorted to these extreme precautions.
Critics (e.g., Roiphe, 1994)
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30. Violent Pornography and Violence against Women
Coincidental with an increase in date rape has been an increase in the availability of magazines, films, and videocassettes depicting vivid, explicit sexual behavior.
Careful scientific research suggests an important distinction between simple pornography and violent pornography.
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31. Violent Pornography and Violence against Women
Exposure to violent pornography promotes greater acceptance of sexual violence toward women and is almost certainly a factor associated with actual aggressive behavior toward women.
After watching violent pornography, men express more negative attitudes toward women and have more aggressive sexual fantasies.
(Dean & Malamuth, 1997; Donnerstein & Linz, 1994; Malamuth, Linz, Heavey, Barnes, & Acker, 1995)
In one experiment (Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981), male subjects were angered by a female accomplice. They were then shown one of three films—an aggressive-erotic one involving rape, a purely erotic one without violence, or a film depicting nonerotic violence against women. After viewing one of these films, the men took part in a supposedly unrelated experiment that involved teaching the female accomplice by means of administering electric shocks to her whenever she gave incorrect answers. They were also allowed to choose whatever level of shock they wished to use. (As with other experiments using this procedure, no shocks were actually received.) Only the men who had earlier seen the violent pornographic film subsequently administered intense shocks to the female accomplice. There is also evidence showing that under these conditions, subjects who view violent pornographic films will administer more intense shocks to a female confederate than to a male confederate (Donnerstein, 1980). This indicates that viewing pornographic violence against women does tend to focus aggressive feelings on women as a target.
In a similar experiment, male college students watched one of two erotic films (Malamuth, 1981). One version showed two mutually consenting adults making love; in the other version, the male raped the woman. After watching the film, the men were asked to engage in sexual fantasy. What would you predict? Men who had watched the rape version of the film created more violent sexual fantasies than those who had watched the mutual-consent version. Further, just as we saw with violence, prolonged exposure to depictions of sexual violence against women makes viewers more accepting of this kind of violence and less sympathetic toward the victim (Linz, Donnerstein, & Penrod, 1984, 1988). Interestingly, this applies to female viewers as well as male viewers.
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32. The End