Outline
     •  What is aggression?
     •  Some Theories of Aggression
         – Biological Perspective
         – Frustration Perspective
         – Learned Social Behavior Perspective
     •  What are some influences on aggression?
         – Aversive Incidents
         – Arousal
         – Media Influence
     •  How can aggresion be reduced?
         – Catharsis
         – Social Learning Approach
         – Culture Change and World Violence                              2
                  What is aggression?
     • Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt 
       someone.
     • Excludes unintentional harm (car accidents), events 
       includes pain as an unavoidable pain (dental 
       treatments) or assisted suicide (euthanasia).
     • Includes kicks, slap, threats, insults, even gossip, 
       destroying property, lying and any other behaviors 
       whose goal is to hurt.
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                   What is aggression?
     • Animals display two types of aggression:
         – Social aggression: displays of rage.
         – Silent aggression: stalking the prey.
     • Human also show two types of aggression:
         – Hostile aggression: springs from anger and aim to 
           injure.
         – Instrumental aggression: an aggressive behavior 
           intended to achieve a goal. Aggression is used as a 
           tool.
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                 What is aggression?
    • Most of the terrorist attacks are instrumental 
       aggression. Terrorists seek personal significance 
       (being a hero or martyr-şehit).
    • Wars are also instrumental aggression.
    • Bullying – adolescents who bully others often seek to 
       demonstrate their dominance.
    • But, murders are hostile aggression. 
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           Some Theories of Aggression
     • Biological Perspective
     • Are humans benign or brute?
        – Rousseau: blames society for social evils.
        – Hobbes: credits society for restraining the brute.
        – Freud: aggressive drive is inborn and inevitable.
     • Instinct Theory and Evolutionary Psychology
        – Aggressive energy is instinctive.
        – It redirects toward others the energy of a primitive 
           death urge (Freud).
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