WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY | EASY ANSWERS - DEFINITIONS, SHORT NOTES, DISTINGUISH BETWEEN

SHORT NOTES

Basic areas of modern psychology:

Biological psychology – studies animal behavior and compares it with human behavior. Psychologists in this field study the ways in which the nervous system and other organs provide the basic for behavior.

Sensation and perception – This specially is concerned with how the sense organ operates. Operation of sense organs is sensation and interpretation of sensory organs is called perception.

Learning and memory – The ways in which we learn and remember new information, new skills, new habits, and new ways of relating to other people are studied in this specialty.

Cognition – Psychologists in this are concerned with intelligent action e.g., thinking, planning, decision making.

Development Psychology – This field of psychology is concerned with changes that take place in people during their life span. It is also the changes occurring from time of conception to death.

Motivation and emotion – Psychologist study the needs and states that activate and guide behavior such as hunger, thirst, sex, the need for achievement, the nature of the feelings and mood that color experience.

Personality – focuses on the more or less consistent ways of behaving that characterize our personality.

Social psychology – It studies the influence of other people on our behavior, the behavior of people in groups, intimate relationships and attitudes towards others.

Sociocultural psychology – In this area psychologists focus on the ethnic and cultural factors, gender identity, sexual orientation.

 

Applied areas of modern Psychology:

(Personal problem / correct abnormal behavior)

Clinical Psychology – Clinical psychologists try to understand and treat personal problems and correct abnormal behavior in a clinical set up.

Counseling psychology – Specialists in this field help people with their personal / school problems and with their career choices.

Industrial – Organizational Psychology – This field focuses on ways to train and motivate workers on ways to promote job satisfaction and good relationships among workers.

Educational and School Psychology – Educational psychology is concerned with the ways children learn in the classroom and the construction of the psychological and educational concepts. School psychology consults with teachers and about children who are experiencing learning behavior problems and they test children to see whether they could benefit from the special education programs.

Health psychology – specialists in this field focus on the ways of coping up with stress and trying to bring out the effect of stress. They seek to prevent health problems such as heart diseases by teaching people to relax, exercise and control their diets.

 

Ethic of research with animal subjects:

There are a number of reasons why psychologists study animal behavior.

Some studies conducted on animals would not be possible on humans.

Experiments conducted on animals can eb better controlled than experiments done on humans.

A great deal of information ca be learnt by comparing the behavior of animals of different species:

a.    Health: All animal subjects must be cared for in a manner that ensures good health.

b.    Necessity: Studies of animals are considered to be ethical only when they are necessary to significantly advance the understanding of human behavior and mental process.

c.    Humane treatment: Every effort must be made to minimize the discomfort of the animal subject. Necessary surgery must be performed under anesthesia and the animal’s death must be as painless as possible. Studies that inflict pain or stress are considered essential to worthwhile scientific aims.

Although we must be very careful not to assume automatically what is learnt about animal behavior will apply to human behavior, much useful research has been learned from animal research.

The use of animals in research has received a great deal of public attention in recent years due to the activities of animal rights groups.

 

Ethics of Research on Human Participants

Psychology depends heavily on research conducted with human participants for its database. More complete discussion of these issues can be found in the American Psychological Association (A.P.A.) Ethical Principles in the Conduct of Research with human participants.

Freedom from pressure – It is not ethical to pressurize an individual into participating in an experiment. Students in college courses for e.g., cannot be required to participate, they must be given an alternative way to meet any course requirements.

Inform Consent – The experimenter must give potential participants a full description of the experiment in a language they can understand before they are asked to participate. Its not ethical to allow individual to participate in an experiment without knowing what they are getting into. Once the experiment has begun, it must be made clear to the participants that they are fully free to change their minds and withdraw from the experiment without penalty, embarrassment and so on.

Limited deception – Sometimes it is necessary to conduct experiments without the participants knowing the true purpose of the study.

Adequate debriefing – Research participants have a right to know the results of the study. Current practice dictates that all persons are provided with a summary of the study in a language they understand. If the results are not immediately available, they have a right to receive it when it is available.

Confidentiality - Researchers have an obligation to keep everything that they learn about the research participants absolutely confidential. In addition, data must be stored without names attached in most cases to protect future abuses of the information.

 

Contemporary perspectives in psychology

Biological perspective – Relation between our biological systems and behavior. Cajal identified neurons (brain cells) understand the role played by our brain in emotion, motivation, reasoning, etc., role of heredity, role of drugs on the brain chemicals.

Socio-cultural perspective – Here, psychologists emphasize that cultural, ethnic identity and gender are the three key factors that should be taken into consideration in order to understand a person.

Definition of culture – The patterns of behavior beliefs and values that are shared by a group of people.

Definition of ethnic group – A group of persons who are descendants from a common group of ancestors.

Definition of ethnic identity – Each person’s sense of belonging to a particular ethnic group and sharing that groups belief, attitudes, skill, music, ceremonies, etc.

Definition of gender identity – One’s views of oneself as male or female.

Two aspects of this prospective are important namely:

It promotes cultural relativity (promotes thinking of different cultures in relative terms rather than judgmental terms). It says that cultures are simply different rather than being inferior or superior.

It reminds us that not all members of a given culture, ethnic group or gender are alike, there are more differences within the same group than between different cultures.

 

DISTINGUISH BETWEEN

Ethnic group and ethnic identity

Ethnic group – A group of persons who are descendants from a common group of ancestors.

People belonging to a particular ethnic group share the group’s belief, attitudes, skill, music, ceremonies, etc. They also share similar racial characteristics by knowing the person’s race, we will be able to know his ethic group. E.g., when a person is born and brought up in India but later decides to migrate to Australia, he then adopts the culture, values, behaviorism of the Australians. Therefore, India becomes his ethnic group.

Ethnic identity – Each person’s sense of belonging to a particular ethnic group and sharing that groups belief, attitudes, skill, music, ceremonies, etc.

e.g., When an individual has a particular ethic group but adopts that of another that becomes his ethnic identity. When the individual migrates to Australia, Australia becomes his ethnic identity. It can be changed simply by adopting the values, rituals, norms, etc. of another ethnic group.

 

Basic and applied area of modern psychology

Basic area of modern psychology – Those who work in basic areas conduct research on psychological processes such as emotion, thinking, learning, prejudice, etc. by using scientific methods.

e.g., Bio-psychological studies animal behavior and compares it with human behavior

e.g., Sensation and perception studying of the sense organs and their interpretations.

e.g., Social psychology studies the influence of society on behavior.

e. g., learning and memory – The ways in which we learn and remember new information, new skills, new habits and new ways of relating to other people are studied in this specialty.

Applied area of modern psychology – Those who work in applied areas (use knowledge from the basic areas to solve and prevent significant human problems such as marital difficulties, emotional instability, job dissatisfaction, etc.)

e.g., Clinical psychology diagnoses and treats psychological disorders.

e.g., Counseling psychology helps people with personal, school or career problems.

e.g., Industrial – organizational psychology studies problems of workers.

e.g., Educational and school psychology is concerned with school or college syllabus. School psychology helps to identify the problem children.

e.g., health psychology studies the effect of stress and trying to prevent health problems by certain techniques.

 

 

DEFINITIONS

Clinical Psychology – Clinical psychologists try to understand and treat personal problems and correct abnormal behavior.

Counseling psychology – Specialists in this field help people with personal or school problems and career choices.

Industrial and organizational Psychology – This field focus on ways to match employees to jobs, to train and motivate workers and to promote job satisfaction and good relationships among workers.

Educational and school psychology – Educational psychology is concerned with ways children learn in the classroom and with the construction of psychological and educational tests. School psychologists consult with teachers about children who are experiencing learning or behavior problems and they test children to see whether they benefit from special educational programs.

Health psychology – Specialists in this field focus on the ways in which pressures, conflicts, hardships and other factors may contribute to poor health. They seek to prevent health problems such as heart diseases by teaching people to relax, exercise and control their diet and to stop high-risk behaviors such as smoking.

Psychology – Today psychology is defined as the science of behaviors and mental processes.

A science: Control and Observation

Behavior: Persons overt actions that others can directly observe.

Mental processes: (Covert) Private thoughts, emotions, feelings, thinking, reasoning, etc.

 

Goals of psychology –

Describe – the information gathered through scientific research helps us to describe psychological phenomena accurately and completely.

Predict – able to predict future behavior.

Explanation – We understand behavior and mental processes when we can explain them. Explanations are theories and not facts.

Influence – Psychologists hope to influence behavior in beneficial ways i.e., therapy

Ethnic identity – Each person’s sense of belonging to a particular ethnic group and sharing that groups belief, attitudes, skill, music, ceremonies, etc. is called ethnic identity.

Ethnic group – A group of persons who are descendants from a common group of ancestors. People belonging to a particular ethnic group share the group’s beliefs attitudes, skill, music ceremonies etc., and racial characteristics.

Gender identity – Gender identity refers to one’s view of oneself as male or female. As boys and girls interact with their parents, siblings, teachers, and friends they learn what it means to be male or female in their society. For e.g., males traditionally have been taught to be strong and assertive whereas females have been taught to eb mature and gentle.

 

SCIENTIFIC METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY | WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY

Discuss the various scientific methods in Psychology

Ans: Psychologists use scientific methods to describe, predict, understand and influence behavior. All scientists must believe that their subject matter is orderly lawful before they begin their research. Three general types of scientific methods used by psychologists – Descriptive method, Co-relational Method and Formal Experiments.

Descriptive method:

Survey method – It is a research method that makes use of interviews and questionnaire.

Advantages – A great deal of information is obtained in a relatively short period of time. they are widely used today because of its interest in consumer opinions

Disadvantages – time consuming. Inaccurate information due to several reasons: cannot understand the questions, faking to portray a good image, subjects are not motivated enough to give the test.

Naturalistic Observations – This is a research method based on watching and recording behavior as it occurs in natural or real-life settings. E.g., Scientists studying the behavior of apes, friendship patterns of young children, etc.

Disadvantages – It merely observes, records and describes behavior. One has to wait for the behavior to occur. Effect of observer bias.

Clinical Method – observes behavior in the clinical set up while receiving treatments from a psychologist for their psychological problems.

Co-relational method:

It studies the relationship between two variables. A variable is anything that can change and can be measured.

Relationship is of four types: positive, negative, perfect positive or negative and zero. The strength of the relationship is expressed by a number known as co-efficient of co-relation, which extends from (-1.00 to +1.00)

e.g., Studying the relationship between I.Q. and sales effectiveness (I.Q. as measured by test and sales effectiveness as measured by number of toothbrushes sold) to enable to employ salespersons who are intelligent.

e.g., Studying the relationship between behavior problems and unpopularity.

When interpreting the relationship, it is important to know that co-relation between two variables does not necessarily imply causation.

e.g., Both behavior problems and unpopularity may be the caused by another factor namely punitive or abusive parents.

Formal experiments:

An experiment is a research method that allows the researcher to manipulate the Independent Variable (I.V.) to study the effect on the dependent variable (D.V.).

The heart of an experiment is the comparison of quantitative measures of behavior under different conditions.

Definition of Independent Variable – The variable whose quantitative value can be independently controlled by the experimenter.

Definition of Dependent Variable – The variable whose quantitative value depends upon the effect of the independent variable.

Definition of the Experimental Group – The group in an experiment that receives some value of the independent variable.

Definition of the Controlled Group – The group in an experiment that receives none of the independent variable and is used for comparisons with the experimental group.

e.g., Examining whether too high levels of noise have negative effect on behavior (amount of noise – Independent variable, tendency to help – Dependent variable)

e.g., To examine why some people become depressed during winter than other seasons (Independent variable – amount of light, dependent variable – improvement in mood).

A carefully conducted experiment allows a researcher to draw conclusions about the cause-and-effect relationship more confidently.

Advantages – It is possible to test hypothesis about casual relationships. It is capable of replication.

Disadvantages – All experiments have some degree of artificiality therefore findings cannot be generalized. Experimenters can make mistakes sometimes. Since they are complicated, it is not possible to study all casual relationship about behavior in a laboratory set up, therefore this method should be supplemented by other research methods.

 

VIEW POINTS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND THEIR ORIGIN | WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY

Discuss the various viewpoints in psychology and their origin.

Ans:

Structuralist and the Nature of Conscious Experience

a.    Wundt and Titchner studied the elements of consciousness by using a method of looking inward at one’s own experience. This method is called Introspection. They try to isolate the basic elements of the mind because Wundt and Titchner were interested in the basic elements of conscious experience and how these elements are organized. Their viewpoints ware known as structuralism. E.g., the apple in the person’s mouth.

b.    Henry Alston is known for his studies of the sensation of heat and cold. Alston discovered that we feel cold when one kind of nerve ending in the skin is stimulated, but we feel intense heat when both the cold and warm receptors in the skin are stimulated at the same time.

c.    Max Wertheimer and Gestalt Psychologists felt that human consciousness could not be broken down into elements as structuralists do as they believe that the whole is different from the sum of its part e.g., (A = 11, B = 13, C = 12)

Gestalt psychologists also used the phi-phenomenon. It is the perception of the apparent movement between two stationary stimuli. When two lights are presented in rapid sequence, the viewers see one light moving from one position to another and not as two stationary lights.

 

Functions of the conscious mind

a.    William James and the Functionalists – William James felt that thinking, feeling, learning, remembering, and other processes of human consciousness exists only because they help us to survive as a species. Because we can think, we are better able to find food or avoid danger all which helps us to survive. They emphasize on the function of consciousness; the school of thought came to be known as functionalism. According to them, studying the elements of the mind does not tell us how it functions or how it helps us to adopt to the demands of life therefore the function of the mind and not its elements re the subject matter of study.

b.    Studies of Memory – Herman Ebbinghaus – He memorized lists of information and measured the memory for them after different intervals of time. He invented an entirely new set of meaningless items for his experiments called nonsense syllables. They consisted of combination of constants C-V-C e.g., KEB, MUZ, LAT. He did this to be sure that the material he studied was not affected by the previous experience with it. He sat listening to a metronome that clicked every few seconds and learnt a list of nonsense syllables. He later tested his ability to recall and found that forgetting is very rapid at first but proceeds slowly then after.

Mary Calkins also studied memory but presented her objects with a sense of numbers, each paired with a different color. Later she would show the subjects only the color to see how many numbers they could recall. This method was called the Paired Association Method.

c.    Intelligence – Alfred Binet developed a way to measure intelligence, by experimenting a large number of test items. Binet and his colleagues were able to find a set of test questions that could be answered by most children of a given age, but not by those who were younger or who had lower intelligence.

 

Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory

a.    Ivan Pavlov – Russian psychologists in the 1890s noticed that after several feedings, the dog in his experiment started salivating when he heard the sound of the bell indicating that food was being brought to him, rather than when the food was being presented. Pavlov recognized that the dog had learnt to associate the sound with the food itself. Thus, he identified a simple form of learning called Classical Conditioning. Later other psychologists such as skinner also studied over behavior, which came to be called as ‘Operant Conditioning’. It refers to learning by consequences of our act.

b.    Watson ad Margaret Washburn – Watson agreed with Pavlov that most human behavior was learned through Classical Conditioning, but he did not believe in the study of mental process and felt that psychology should study only overt behavior.

Margaret Washburn was the first woman to attain a PhD in Psychology.

c.    Contemporary Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory – According to this theory the most important aspects of our behavior are learnt from other persons of the society (family, friends, culture, etc.)

 

Nature of Unconscious Mind

a.    Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis – He believed that most psychological problems were due to unconscious motives and conflict, which surround these behaviors. Very often we are not aware that these exists, most of these conflicts refer to aggressive and sexual drives.

b.    Humanistic psychology and the Unconscious mind – Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers believed that human beings determine their own fetus through the conscious decision they make. The most important aspect of people is the self-concept. As a result we became anxious later this school of thought came to be known as Humanistic Psychology.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION - UNDERSTANDING OTHERS

Give a detailed account of nonverbal communication as a process to understand others.

Social perception is the process through which we seek to know and understand other persons. We attempt to understand others by two basic processes:

Nonverbal communication – which is used to understand current mods and feelings of others.

Attribution – which is used to understand more lasting causes of human behavior.

 

Nonverbal communication – Communication between individual that does not involve the content of spoken language but relies instead on an unspoken language of social expression, eye contact and body language. The basic channels of nonverbal communication are facial expressions, eye contact, body movement, touch, etc.

Facial expressions – There are six different basic emotions that can be clearly represented on the human face – Happiness, surprise, anger, sadness, disgust and fear. It is interesting to note that emotions occur in many combinations like joy mingled with sorrow.

Link between emotions and expression – Cacioppo 1988 undertook the following research study in the field of facial expressions to check whether there is any link between emotions and expressions.

Aim of the research – To study the link between facial expression and underlying emotions and to know whether facial expressions really reflect underlying emotions.

Research method / design –

Step 1 – Subjects were asked to move various facial muscles and make or construct certain facial configuration.

Step 2 – While subjects were producing facial configuration, their physiological reaction were being recorded (heart rate, pulse rate, level of perspiration).

Step 3 – Subjects were also supposed to report whether they underwent any emotional changes while making various configurations.

Result – Results of the research indicate that different facial movements are accompanied by changes in physiological activities. The facial expression of fear is accompanied by high heart rate, increased pulse rate and supported by increase in perspiration. Researchers found out that the more closely the facial movement resembles expression associated with specific emotion, the greater tendency for participants to report experiencing that emotion. Their finding suggests that a substantial link exist between facial expression and underlying emotions.

Universality of facial expression – Ekman 1989 reported that people of one culture can easily recognize expression of members from other cultures. To gather evidence the researchers traveled to isolated areas of New Guinea and asked persons living there to imagine various emotion – evoking events e.g., friend visits, dead animal, - then the participants in the research were asked to show by their facial expression how they would feel in each case. These expressions were very similar to ones that would be shown by us. Therefore, this research established the fact that there is universality of facial expression. Many cross-cultural studies point out that between each culture there is slight variations regarding how various emotions should be expressed, these are known as Display Rules.

Rosenberg and Ekman conducted a detailed research to check the universality of facial expression. The research is as follows:

Aim of study – To check whether participants from different cultures show accuracy in identifying and underlying emotions.

Research design –

Step 1 – Participants view photographs of strangers from different cultures showing various facial expressions.

Step 2 – Participants were asked to identify the facial expression and underlying emotion by using anyone of the following technique:

a.    Seven alternative condition (subjects were required to explain underlying emotions by the emotional labels given to them of happiness, sadness, disgust, etc.)

b.    Seven stories condition (subjects were provided with seven different stories with different emotional content, explain each facial expression with help of story provided).

c.    Free choice condition (Subjects can use their own description to explain the expression of strangers in the photograph).

Results – The results of the research indicate that regardless of the specific technique used, facial expression were readily recognized as reflecting certain specific emotions. Therefore, irrespective of the cultural differences’ subjects were able to judge the emotions depicted very accurately.

 

Eye contact – We often learn much about others feelings from their eyes. Eye contact is classified as – stare, gazing.

A stare is a form of eye contact in which one person continues to gaze steadily at another regardless of what the recipient does. It is often interpreted as a sign of anger or hostility – like cold stare. We interpret a single level of gazing form others as a sign of friendliness. In contrast, if others avoid eye contact with us we may conclude that they are unfriendly.

 

Body language – gestures, posture and movement

Body language are cues provided by the position, posture and movement of others body or body parts. It also reveals others emotional states, tehri current moods and intentions.

A research by Aronoff signifies the role of body movement in dance drama.

Aim – To check whether different body movements are depicted by different characters in dance dramas.

Research design –

Step 1 – they first identified two groups of characters in classical ballet – those who played a dangerous and threatening role and those who played warm sympathetic roles.

Step 2 – They examined examples of dancing by their character in actual ballets to see if they adopted different kinds of postures.

Results –

The dangerous and threatening characters showed more diagonal and angular postures.

The warm, sympathetic characters showed more rounded postures.

Further evidence for the conclusion that body posture and movement can be an important source of information about others is provided by a research by Lynard Mynier (1993).

Aim – To check whether body movement of body language is an important source of information about others’ emotions and traits.

Research design – Researchers identified certain restaurants and manipulated the situation to suit the research study.

The customers (subjects) were exposed to two different conditions: S1 exposed to profession and unfriendly waitress. S2 exposed to friendly and warm waitress.

S1 was exposed to waitress who stood and took orders without forming any eye contact with S1 group. However waitress in S2 sat beside the customers to take orders. They also formed a great amount of eye contact with their customers – sitting is regarded as a positive gesture because it initiates close proximity and also increased eye contact is taken as a gesture of friendliness. Reaction of the subjects were assessed by the amount of tip they gave to the waitress.

Results – Results of the research indicated that S1 group of subjects which were exposed to unfriendly behavior reciprocated in the same manner by giving very low tips. On the other hand, S2 group of subjects who were exposed to warm and friendly waitress reciprocated in the same manner by giving hefty tips to waitress.

To conclude therefore we can say that body language gives us substantial information about others emotions and whatever emotion is shown to the target person it is also reciprocated in the same manner.

 

Touch – Physical contact between two individuals – it is the most intimate form of Nonverbal communication.

To interpret touch we have to focus our attention on:

Source of touch i.e., who does the touching (a friend, stranger, persons of ones own sex or the other).

Length and nature of touch i.e., brief or prolonged, gentle or rough.

The context in which the touch occurs i.e., business, or social setting, doctor’s office.

Depending on such factors touch can suggest affection, sexual interest, dominance, caring or even aggression.

Researchers Cruso and Wetzel have given evidence that when touching is considered acceptable, positive reaction often results.

Aim – To check whether positive touching behavior is reciprocated positively.

Research design –

Step 1 – the researchers arranged for waitress working in two different restaurants to interact with customers in one of the three different ways when giving them their charge.

No-contact condition – refrained from touching the customer in any manner.

Brief contact condition – touched them briefly on hand (about 0.5 sec).

Prolonged contact condition – touched them for somewhat longer period (1.0 to 1.5 sec)

Groups          condition                   result

S1                  no contact                low tip

S2                  brief contact             moderate tip

S3                  prolong contact        highest tip   

Behavior was recorded on the amount of tips given.

Results –

Customers who were exposed to the waitress who had no contact with them gave the lowest tip.

Customers who were exposed to the waitress who had brief contact with them gave them moderate tip.

Customers who were exposed to the waitress who had prolonged contact with them gave them the highest tip.

 

Gender differences in touch – Does one gender initiate more touching behavior than the other? Research findings indicate that the answer depends on age. Among grownup couples, males are more likely to touch females than vice versa. As age increases, this difference shrinks among the older couples i.e., 40 and above the opposite is true i.e., females engage in touching. This is so because of one possibility that among younger couples’ relationships are yet not well established and society gives sanction to males to indulge in such behavior. However, as age progresses, women’s touching behavior is taken more as a caring gesture.

 

Individual differences in emotional expressiveness

The extent to which persons who outward expressions of the inner feelings is called emotional expressiveness. Friedman administered a test of emotional expressiveness to several college students. They answered questions on their personal life. In additional research the investigators related scores on the test of emotional expressiveness to success in several occupations. They found that among physicians those scoring high on expressiveness were more popular with their patients than coming low on this dimension.

Detection of deception

This relates to techniques used to find out if the other person is lying.

Micro expression – One nonverbal contact that is very helpful to detect if the other person is lying is micro expression. They are brief and incomplete facial expressions that occur on individuals faces very quickly after exposure to a specific stimulus and before other expressions are used to conceal them. They last for only two tenths of a second.

Inter channel discrepancy – A second nonverbal contact is inter channel discrepancies. There are different channels of nonverbal communication i.e., facial expression, eye contact, body movement. It is impossible for individuals to control all of these channels at once. A person may be able to control his facial expression and eye contact but may not be able to control his body movement. This could be possible with any of the three.

Nonverbal aspects of speech – A third nonverbal contact involves nonverbal aspects of people’s speech i.e., para language when people lie their pitch of voices often rise and they tend to speak more slowly and with less fluency. They engage in more sentence repairing behavior i.e., they start a sentence, then interrupt it and then start again.

Aspect of eye contact – The fourth technique of deception is frequently revealed by various aspects of eye contact. Persons who are lying often blink more frequently and show pupils that are more decollated. They may also show unusually low level of eye contact or an unusually high one.

Facial expression – The fifth technique is that people who are lying sometimes show exaggerated facial expression e.g., they may smile more than usual or may show greater sorrow.

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF AGGRESSION

 What are the various social factors that lead to aggression?

Write an explanatory note on social causes or determinants of aggression.

Aggression is defined as a behavior with a goal to harm other living beings.

Social determinants of aggression are all those social conditions that are conditions of external environments which either lead to or increase the intensity of aggression.

The following are the various social causes that lead to aggression:

Frustration: It is experienced when we encounter a hurdle / obstacle in the attainment of our goal. It is usually defined as the way we feel when something or someone prevents us from getting what we want or expect ot get in some situation. In 1939, Dolland coined a hypothesis to study the impact of frustration on aggression known as the Frustration-Aggression-Hypothesis. This hypothesis assumes the following: frustration always leads to some form of aggression and aggression always stems for frustration.

In other words, the theory held that frustrated persons always engage in some type of aggression and that all acts of aggression, in turn, results from frustration. Later research proved that these statements are bit too extreme as frustration can lead to despair on depressions. It is also felt that not all aggression results from frustration. People aggress for many different reasons and in response to many different factors or boxers hit their opponents because they wish to win valued prizes and not because of frustration.

Frustration sometimes produces aggression because of a basic relationship between negative affect and aggression behavior. Frustration leads to negative affect and negative affect in turn leads to aggression. (Frustration can be classified into unexpected, illegitimate and expected, legitimate – the impact of negative affect on aggression can be observed). Unexpected and illegitimate frustration generates greater amount of negative affect than frustration that is expected or received as legitimate that is greater negative affect, therefore greater amount of aggression.

 

Direct provocation: Provocation is defined as actions by others that tend to trigger aggression in the recipient often because they are perceived as stemming form malicious intent that is aggression leads to aggression.

Harris (1993) conducted a research:

Aim – To find what actions of others are most provoking and do gender differences exist in response to provocation.

Research design – Research isolated certain behaviors to be included in the study. The factors / behaviors studied are as follows:1. physical aggression, 2. verbal aggression, 3. insensitivity, 4. arrogance, 5. dishonesty and 6. inefficiency.

Male and female subjects were asked to report which of the above factors they find extremely provoking or in other words which behavior makes them very angry and also state which are least annoying.

Results – It was observed that males and females both found the first two factors as highly provoking. However, gender differences were observed regarding factors three and four.

Observation revealed that females showed greater amount of anger regarding these factors (three and four) whereas males hardly found these factors provoking. As regards, factors such as five and six, they showed agreement between genders (that is same trends were observed) both males and females saw these factors as least provoking.

 

Exposure to violent media – This may indeed be one factor contributing to the high and rising levels of violence. Three different types of research to find out whether viewing aggression and violent films can lead to an increase in such behavior. Research conducted were:

Short term laboratory experiment: This research usually makes use of the experimental method where exposure to violent media is for a short time and then impact on aggression is assessed.

Aim – To find out whether short term exposure to violent media leads to aggression.

Research – Subject divided into two groups S1 exposed to violent media and S2 exposed to neutral media.

Children were exposed to movies where aggressive adults were shows stamping and beating a BOBO doll.

After this, the children were put in the same situation with many toys in a room including the BOBO doll.

Results – It was observed that the children internalize the same violent behavior (stamping and beating) of the adults, hence they responded by an increase in aggression.

The control group which was not exposed to violent media were neutral and did not show aggression.

 

Static observation: (Millen 1994) It makes use of correlational techniques. Two factors were checked that is the current amount of exposer to violent movies (approximately) and level of current aggression in a child (as rated by peers / teachers or checked by a questionnaire).

Results – It was observed that those who were exposed to greater amount of media violence showed higher amount of aggression. Hence research proved that positive co-relation exists between exposure to violent media and level of aggression. Thus, the exposure to violent media, higher the aggression.

 

Longitudinal studies: The same subjects are studied over a long period of time. Eron (1984-86) conduced a research with subjects at different age intervals – 8 years, 18 years and 30 years.

Contacted subjects first at 8 years – assessed – exposure to violence and level of aggression.

He found that all those children who among the group had level of exposure to violent media showed high level of aggression while the children who had low violent media exposure showed lower aggression.

Same subjects were contacted after a gap of ten years when they were 18 years. Assessed again for exposure to violent media and level of aggression.

Concluded that those who had greater exposure to violence as children also showed higher aggressive tendencies and teenagers.

Finally the same group was followed up at the age of 30 years. It was observed that the amount of aggression viewed by the subjects as children was associated with their current level of aggression.

The significance of the research lies in the fact that it informs us that exposure to violent media can have long lasting effects.

 

Heightened arousal: Impact of physiological arousal on aggression can be explained by the example below:

Suppose a man ‘X’ wants to fetch his friend from the airport. On the way he has an accident – this increases his heart rate and other body functions also changes. Therefore, the body is in a state of heightened arousal. Eh reaches the airport where there is a queue, and an old man delays him.  Hence, he yells at the old man. Here he is showing his aggression but the cause is not the mildly frustrating current situation, but the heightened arousal created in the first situation (accident) that he got transferred into the next situation. Thus, aggression occurs as a result of that.

Under some conditions in heightened arousal – whatever its original source – can enhance aggression in response to frustration or provocation.

 

Excitation transfer theory (Zillmann 1983, 1988): This theory suggests that arousal produced in one ‘situation’ tends to dissipate slowly over time. as a result some portion of such arousal may persist as a person moves from one situation to another. It is therefore this arousal (created in situation 1) that leads to aggressive behavior in situation 2.

Complex interplay between emotions and cognition. Our thoughts can lead us to appraise various emotions – provoking events e.g., if persons are worried in advance that someone with whom they will soon interact is very upset, they experience less anger in response to rudeness by this individual.

Even our level of arousal influences our thoughts about others behavior. Therefore, if we consider (the behavior of the old man) mildly frustrating situation, we may not be aggressive. Levels of arousal also influence our tendencies to aggress to others and this is known as cognitive deficit i.e., reduced ability to formulate rational means of action or reduced ability to evaluate the possible outcome of various behaviors.

e.g., A man dashes a girl – the girl sees the man hurrying to work and he said sorry – thus she passes it off and says okay! – Therefore, her thought process was different i.e., positive about the stimuli.

 

Sexual arousal: It appears that relatively mild levels of sexual arousal can reduce overt aggression relationship.

2 component model by Zilmann (1983)

Research conducted by Zilmann (1983)

Aim – To see the impact of sexual arousal on the level of aggression.

Subjects were annoyed by a stranger (who was a female and subjects were males).

S1 were exposed to a film (with sexual content) which was mildly sexual arousing.

S2 were exposed to a film with neutral content.

Both S1 and S2 were given an opportunity to retaliate against the stranger.

Results: It was found that in S1 who experienced mild sexual arousal. There was low level of aggression in comparison to S2.

Zillmann (1984) who conducted a research that highlights the relationship between sexual arousal and aggression as Curvilinear in nature. Research reports that mild sexual arousal reduces aggression to a level below that shown in the absence of such arousal.

This has been proved by research conducted by Zillmann. He further highlights the facts that if arousal continues to increase above mild level the impact of aggression changes. That is heightened (increase) sexual arousal leads to high level of aggression.

All this happens as mild erotic materials generate weak levels of arousal but high levels of positive effects. Thus, in other words – mild sexual arousal puts us in a good mood and therefore reduces overt aggression. However, strong levels of arousal generate high negative effect (mood). Therefore, negative mood leads to tendency towards aggression.

 

Sexual jealousy (Kalma): It is a perception of a threat to a romantic relationship by a rival for one’s partner.

Does sexual jealousy lead to aggression?

Gender differences in sexual jealousy:

Aim – To find out differential aggressive behavior shown by males and females in response to sexual jealousy.

Research – College students were asked to indicate how they would react if they learn that their current lover was having an affair with another person.

Subjects were asked as to which type of behavior they show out fo the following

Verbal aggression

Physical aggression

Crying

Getting drunk

Results – Kalma et al (1993) found that large differences between males and females

Behavior                    females               males

Verbal Aggression       96%                  65%

Physical aggression     94%                  67%

Crying                         100%               59%

Getting drunk             74%                  89%

 

These results show that females are more likely than males to show that first three types of behavior in response to sexual jealousy.

 

Exposure to violent pornography: Social psychologist has adopted several different research methods to study this topic. One of these involves the use of short-term lab experiments. This was adopted in a research by Zilmann (1984)

Aim – To study impact of violent pornography on the level of aggression.

Research: S1 were exposed to violent pornography

S2 were exposed to pornography that involves sexual behavior

S3 neutral film

Results: These highlighted that the level of aggression was greatest in S! lowest in S2 and mild in S3. Also it was found that violent pornography led to callous attitude towards sexual violence as it has desensitizing effect in which viewers react less negatively to the violence in these films as they match more and more of them i.e., they get used to them. Mild pornography leads to mild sexual arousal and therefore reduces aggression.

AGGRESSION | THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Give a detailed account of various theoretical perspectives on aggression.

Aggression can be defined as behavior directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment.

Origin of Aggression: In order to explain how aggression originated various theoretical perspectives have attempted to explain how it formed.

Instinct theory: It is the view suggesting that aggression stems from innate tendencies and that it is universal among members of a given species.

The oldest explanation for human aggression suggests that human beings are somehow ‘programed’ for violence by basic nature. This belief is known as ‘instinct theory’ of aggression. Thus, people aggress because it is a part of their human nature. Sigmund Freud was a great support of this theory. According to him, this instinct is initially aimed at self-destruction but soon it gets re-directed outward towards others. Freud believed that hostile impulses generated by Thanatos (death instinct) increases over time and if they are not realized periodically, they reach high levels, which may result in dangerous acts of violence.

A related view was presented by Konrad Lorenz who suggested that aggression springs mainly from an inherited fighting instinct that human beings share with many other species.

This fighting instinct developed as it yielded important benefits essential for survival. Lorenz contended that fighting is often closely related to mating. It helps to ensure that only the strongest and most vigorous individual pass their genes on to the next generation.

However, most social psychologist do not accept the instinct theory of aggression for two reasons:

Criticism to the instinct theory suggests that if aggression is innate (as proposed by instinct theorist) then the level of aggression should eb the same in all the societies since this is not the case, definitely aggression is influenced by certain social and cultural factors.

The other criticism to instinct theory is that the instinct theorist asserts that since aggression is a common behavior, it most likely stems from innate tendences. This kind of circular reasoning used by the instinct theorists is not accepted by others.

 

Drive Theory: states that humans are driven to aggression by external stimuli. Berkowitz and others believe that aggressive behavior mainly stems form an externally elicited ‘drive’ to harm or injure others. This approach is known as ‘drive’ theory of aggression.

According to Drive Theorists, various external conditions like frustration, any  interference with goal directive behavior – arouse a strong motive to harm others. This aggressive drive, in turn, leads to overt acts of aggression.

The most famous aspect of drive theory is known as ‘frustration aggression hypothesis’. According to this view, frustration leads to the arousal of a drive whose primary goal is that of harming some persons or objects. This drive in turn leads to a tax against various targets especially the source of frustration.

Because drive theorists suggest that external conditions are more crucial in the occurrence of aggression, they are more optimistic about the possibilities of preventing such behavior.

 

Social Learning Theory: The social learning view, as presented by Bandura, is a general framework which suggests that aggression is learned. This approach argues that human beings are not born with aggressive responses, rather they acquire these responses in the same way as they acquire other complex forms of behavior either through direct experience or by observing the behavior of others.

Thus, depending on their past experience, people in different cultures learn to attack others in contrasting ways.

Aggression can be learnt in two ways:

Direct experience: For e.g., a small child performs a negative behavior, parent responds through aggression (slap). Hence the child learns a lesson through direct experience that if someone shows that specific negative behavior the proper response is aggression (slapping).

Observation of others: For e.g., Child 1 has a brother/sister (that is child 2). Child 2 shows a negative behavior by being stubborn. Parent responds by showing aggression (slap). Hence child 1 learns through observation that when his sibling misbehaves the appropriate behavior shown is aggression. A child would internalize aggression shown be the parents because they are significant to them.

Social learning is also enhanced by rewards attached to a desired behavior. If aggressive behavior of a child is rewarded by his parents that are either by reward of praise, the child will view aggression as a desired behavior and therefore is more likely to repeat it.

 

Cognitive Theories: It highlights that aggression stems from a complex interplay between various cognitive factors like scripts, appraisals and effective status.

Scripts: involve mental frameworks relating to specific situations – scripts indicate what is expected to happen in a give situation. Scripts are cognitive programs for the events that are supposed to happen in a given setting. Scripts help in assessing whether the behavior (aggression) is appropriate in a setting or not.

For e.g., if a person roams one with a cart in the supermarket, one would react with surprise / pain or one could retaliate. All this depends upon whether one considers aggressive behavior appropriate in this situation (supermarket).

Appraisals: is one’s understanding of others behavior. It is the evaluation of the behavior of others who have provoked the target person. For e.g., A dashes against B, whether B aggresses will be dependent on how B interprets A’s behavior – i.e., if B thinks that A’s behavior was intentional, then B is likely to retaliate, but if B thinks that A’s behavior was accidental then B is less likely to aggress.

Affective Status: Very often aggression is known to be affected by current moods the target person is undergoing. Researchers suggest that when we are undergoing a negative affect, we will very often retaliate with aggression. On the other hand, if we are in a positive mood we are more likely to show low aggression.

 

Biological theory: There is of late an increasing recognition by social psychologists of the importance of biological factors in may forms of social behavior. Growing evidence points to the conclusion that biological factors do predisposed some individuals towards aggression. Certain reserachers relate the level of aggression as being caused due to certain physiological bodily factors. In order to prove this a research was conducted by Marazzitti et al (1993) 

Aim – The aim is to find out whether levels of serotonin in humans are related to aggression.

Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter in the nervous system which helps us to have a higher control over one’s aggressive impulses. If the level is high, control is high and vice versa.

Research was conducted on three groups of subjects:

S1 – children who had attempted suicide

S2 – institutionalized children due to aggression

S3 – healthy volunteers

Results – The researcher conducted a careful analysis of the blood chemistry of these groups.

Observations revealed that S1 and S2 possessed lower levels of serotonin and therefore they had demonstrated aggressive behavior in the past (either suicide or crime).

However, S3 which possessed high levels of serotonin, had greater control over their impulses and therefore less aggression had been shown by them previously, as they were normal, healthy individuals with non-aggressive past.

The relation between biological factors and aggression was also demonstrated by another research conducted by Van Goozen (1994) on female transsexuals (females who changed sex).

Aim – To find out whether sex hormones testosterone is related to aggression.

Research method – The female transsexuals had to fill a questionnaire to assess their level of anger proneness and level of overt aggression (physical or verbal).

As part of their medical treatment these individuals received regular large doses of the male sex hormones (testosterone) either by injection or orally.

The subject filled the questionnaires on two occasions – before administration of hormone and after three months of administration.

Results: It was observed that before the administration of testosterone when subject testosterone levels were low, their level of overt aggression and anger proneness was low.

After administration of the hormone when subjects testosterone levels were high there was a tremendous increase in anger proneness. However there was only a slight change in level of overt aggression.