ocial

sychology

Aggression

Two Ways to Study Aggression

Sigmund Freud	The Stickleback

Of Freud and Sticklebacks
 1. In class we described a number of "Maddening Facts About Aggression."  Which three facts do you find most maddening?
 2. Describe and give examples of three ways to evaluate a social issue.  Give Baron's definition of aggression.
 3. Provide an overview of Freud's analysis of aggression.  What event led Freud to change his account of aggression?  Did Freud emphasize the learned or innate aspects of aggression? Did Freud feel that learning influenced aggression?  What is catharsis?  Give the procedure and results of an investigation which can be interpreted as a demonstration of catharsis.
 4. How would Freud suggest that societies might keep aggression from having a detrimental impact?  Why should you never hug a polar bear in rutting season?
 5. What is ethology and what type of questions do ethologists study?  Describe how the stickleback fish maintains its territory.
 6.  Why do fools fall in Love?
 7. Who was Konrad Lorenz?  What is imprinting?
 8. Do ethologists emphasize the innate or learned determinants of aggression?  Do ethologists believe that learning influences aggression?  Soldiers involved in "hand to hand" combat are more likely to experience emotional distress on return to civilian life than are soldiers who drop bombs on the enemy from airplanes.  How would an ethologist explain this?  What are the functions of aggression in nonhuman animals?  What are aggression inhibiting signals?  What is the relationship between aggression inhibiting signals and the ability to kill?  According to Lorenz, why does aggression pose a particular problem for humans that it does not pose for other animals?

Overview of the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis and Social Learning Theory
 9. Describe the frustration-aggression hypothesis?  Who developed this view? Give the procedure and results of the Harris "butting in line" study and relate these findings to the frustration-aggression hypothesis.  Describe Berkowitz's revision of the frustration-aggression hypothesis.  What is the "weapons effect?"  Describe Leyens and Parke study and relate the findings to the weapons effect.
10. Who is Albert Bandura?  Does social learning theory emphasize the innate or learned determinants of aggression?  Does social learning theory contend that innate factors influence aggression?  According to social learning theory, what are two ways that persons learn to be aggressive?  In answering this question, describe the "hockey player" study and the research on bullies.  Give the procedure and results of the Bandura, Ross, and Ross study.  Why is this study important?  In class we discussed a number of instigators of aggression.  Please fully describe the following:
a. observing others behave aggressively, including the roles of societal inhibitions and the procedure   and results of the Bandura and Walters study.
b. aversive treatments and a description of Geen's study.
c. roles like that of soldier and policeman.
d. becoming a part of a group.
e. disillusional control.  Describe three ways to maintain aggression once it has been instigated.

Imitating Aggression: Television Violence and Product Tampering
11. Relate the Bandura, Ross, and Ross study to television violence.  If it were 1963, how would you argue that these findings do not relate to violence on television?  Give the procedure and results of Liebert and Baron's "Untouchables" study.  Describe the Leyens et al. investigation of the effects of a steady diet of aggressive movies.  Is violence on TV solely responsible for the high level of aggression in American society?
12. What would Freud contend would be the effects of watching a violent TV program on subsequent aggression?  "This is what I really like," she said, wacking him with a large frozen mackeral.  "Why do I keep going out on these blind dates?" thought Brad.
 

13. Distinguish between direct and indirect imitation of aggression.  Describe the "Warlock" incident.  Was this direct or indirect imitation of aggression? 14.  What is the V-chip? What are some of the problems with  trying to implement the wide scale use of the V-chip? What do you think are some advantages for children in using the V-chip? 15. Describe the Tylenol product tampering incident.  As far as we know, did this type of crime exist prior to 1982? How would social learning theory explain the effects of media on product tampering?

Guns, Drugs and Aggression

16. In addition to facilitating aggression, guns are external cues associated with aggression.  That is, if guns are cues, just the sight or thought of a gun could augment aggression.  Relate the notion that guns are aggressive cues to the weapons effect, describing the results of the Doob and Gross "stalled truck" study.  Also, if guns are aggressive cues their removal should attenuate aggression.  What happened when Jamaicans banned guns in their country?  What does the acronym APA stand for?  Summarize the APA's resolution regarding handguns.  Throughout history drugs have been associated with aggression.  Describe the results of the research by Taylor and his associates on the relationship of THC and alcohol to aggression. Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child ? 17. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" summarizes how many parents feel about child raising.  Social psychologists have long studied the relationship of child rearing practices to aggression.
Describe the results of the Family Research Project.  What is the major finding of studies that examined the correlation of the use of physical punishment in the home and aggression in adults?  How does pain affect aggression?  Describe the Berkowitz and Frodi study.  According to Baron, what are the four conditions necessary before punishment will suppress aggression?  Are these conditions easy to achieve?		The Temperance Maiden

Erotic Stimuli and Aggression
18. Many Americans would like to censor erotic stimuli in our society.  Describe the results of the Baron and Bell, Baron, and White studies and relate them to this issue.  What was the basic finding of Donnerstein's work on the effects of violent erotic stimuli?  How are the effects of erotic stimuli on aggression similar to the effects of humor on aggression?  He knew he could never compete with that rich guy.  He had so little to give her.  He hesitated, afraid that she would laugh at his paltry offering.  Afraid, he held the small object before her watery blue eyes.  He said;  "Wanta Vienna sausage?"  How could he, with all his insecurities, know that she had lived her whole life waiting for a moment like this?

Capital Punishment and Aggression
 

19. Why is Furman v. Georgia an important legal decision?  What is the ignorance hypothesis?  How did Stuart and Vidmar test the ignorance hypothesis?  Is there evidence that capital punishment is a deterrent to crime?  What is an archival study?  Give in great detail the results of Phillips archival study of the effects of capital punishment. 20. Do most Americans favor the death penalty?  Is the death penalty used in most European countries?  What is the relationship of race to the death penalty?

Other Factors Influencing Aggression
22. Indicate how the following factors influence aggression and know the procedure and results of the investigations associated with these issues.
a. Types of frustrators, Buss
b. Timing of frustration, Zillman et al. study
c. Intentions and frustrations, Burstein and Worchel
d. Humor
e. Noise, Donnerstein and Wilson
f. Temperature, Baron and Ransbberger and Palamarek and Rule