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?

Capital Punishment and Aggression
1. What are the relationships of sex and economic level to the likelihood that someone will be executed in the US?
2. In what region of the country are people more likely to receive the death penalty?

3. 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. 4. 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? 5. What was Pope John Paul II's position regarding the death penalty?

Social Learning Theory
1. 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.
2. Relate the Bandura, Ross, and Ross study to television violence. 
3. 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.
4. What are five reasons why watching media violence affects viewer's aggression.
5. 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.

An Introduction to Research on Grades
1. What are the three purposes of grades?
2. What are grades supposed to measure? What are five sources of error?
3. Define grade inflation and grade deflation?
4. Describe a study demonstrating grade inflation and grade deflation.
5. List several reasons that the university is a source of error in administering grades.
6. Are grades equally difficult to get at all colleges at Appalachian State? Which college gives the highest grades at Appalachian State?
7. When Duke studied grading practices at Appalachian State what did he find was the relationship between the average SAT scores of students in a particular major and the average grade in courses of that major?
8. Describe the findings of a study in which Beck assessed the relationships of high school grades, SAT scores, GPA at Appalachian, average grade in the class, and grades given in General Psychology.
9. Describe the procedure of the Johnson and Beck study. What was the relationship of SAT scores to test scores in Johnson's class? What was the relationship of strict versus lenient grading practices to test scores? What group of SAT students did lenient grading practices have its most destructive effect on?
10. Give the procedure and results of the Myer study. What were Myer's conclusions? How does this relate to grading practices today?

Learning and Grade Orientations
1. Define learning and grade orientations.
2. Give two examples of questions that a highly grade orientated person would agree with and two examples of questions that a highly learning oriented person would agree with.
3. What is the LOGO II? What is the LOGO F?
4. Can the same student be both highly grade oriented and highly learning oriented?
5. List several characteristics of highly learning oriented students. List several characteristics of highly grade oriented students.
6. Do most students want to be more or less learning oriented? Do most students want to be more or less learning oriented? According to the focus groups that Pollio and Beck conducted, why do students say that they do not achieve their learning and grade orientation ideals?
7. Do most students feel that instructors should put greater or less emphasis on learning orientation? Do they believe that most instructors should increase or decrease the degree that they stress grade orientation?
8. Do Appalachian State instructors feel that most students should be more or less learning oriented? Do they believe that most students should be more or less grade oriented?
9. In class, your instructor told of an Appalachian State professor whose actions in class did not correspond to his learning and grade orientation ideals. Who did he blame?
10. How did Pollio and Beck explain why neither students nor professors approach their learning and grade orientation ideals?
11. Define and give examples of the fundamental attribution error and reactance. Relate these to the Pollio and Beck study.

An Empirical Analysis of Guerillas and Terrorists
1. Define terrorist, guerilla, and state organizations. Make up two of your own examples of states.
2. Now for your Guerilla A, B, Cs. In class we discussed the following guerillas: Marion , Washington , Mosby, Qunantrill, Geronimo, Mao, Tito, Guevera, Fonscea, Ho, Giap, Lawrence, and Subcommandante Marcos. Be able to associate each of the bullets in the “Guerilla and Terrorist” slideshow with an individual or group. For example, you should know that Tito fought the Nazi takeover of Yugoslavia .
3. What event does the term terrorist derive from? When did this event occur?
4. And now for your Terrorist A, B, Cs. In class we discussed the following terrorists and terrorist groups: the Zealots, Brown, the Klu Klux Klan, McVeigh, John Allen Muhammad, Kaczynski, Hamas, Shining Path, and the Red Brigades. Relate the bullets on the “Guerrilla and Terrorist” slide show to each of these individuals and groups.
5. Now we are getting to the most important part, where we illustrate how social psychologists might study guerrilla and terrorist organizations. If we are trying to distinguish successful from unsuccessful guerillas and terrorists we need a criterion by which to evaluate them. According to the presentation made in class, what are the organizational goals of states, guerillas, and terrorists?
6. In order to make our assessment we must impose some categorical system. Describe the four components of our analysis.
7. We must also establish principles or assumptions to guide our analysis. What we the four principles described in class”
8. Before conducting an analysis we must state some hypotheses or propositions to test. That is, we want to determine if these suppositions do actually distinguish successful from unsuccessful guerillas and terrorists. While we did not have time to study guerillas in any detail we did present a number of hypotheses that supposedly determine whether terrorists will or will not be successful. Four hypotheses were presented with respect to terrorism and opponents of the state. What were they?
9. Describe the three hypotheses we examined concerning terrorists and supporters of the state.
10. What were the two hypotheses presented regarding terrorists and communication networks.
11. Describe the three hypotheses about terrorists' response to state resources and infrastructure.
12. Define empirical. While these hypotheses should be tested empirically, you may have opinions regarding which would or would not be supported. Which do you think would and would not be supported?

A Journalist, Social Philosopher and Social Psychologist Examine Genocide
1. According to your instructor, what are three reasons to study the horrible topic?
2. Be able to describe the following genocides: Joshua's destruction of Jericho , the Turkish-Armenian genocide between 1915 and 1923, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, Rwanda , Kosovo, and the Holocaust. You will find the bullets on the slideshow useful.
3. While the Salem Witch Trials were not a genocide much of the same processes responsible for genocide have been said to have led to the witch trials. Please explain.
4. Now we are going to examine how journalists, social philosopher, and a social psychologist study genocide. First the journalists. Who was Edward R. Murrow? Where was Murrow from? Who was William Shirer? How did Shirer explain why so few Germans opposed the operation of the concentration camps? Give some detail to your answer.
5. Who was Adolph Eichmann? List some of his attributes. Who was Hannah Arendt? What hypothesis did Arendt propose after observing the Eichmann trial.
6. List four questions regarding genocide we presented in class.
7. What happened at Mai Lai? In what war did Mai Lai occur? Who is William Calley? List some of his attributes. Who is Hugh Thompson?
8. Give the procedure and results of Milgram's study.
9. List three ethical criticisms of Milgram's work. What were Milgram's responses to these criticisms?
10. What were the results of the “follow-up” study of Milgram's participants?
11. According to your instructor is there sometimes a cost to establishing stringent ethical research standards. What might this cost be which respect to studying obedience to unjust authority.
12. Your instructor proposed that the research suggests that there are two ways to get good men and women to murder their neighbors. What are they?