Outline And Evaluate Two Or More Social Psychological Explanations Of Aggression
Outline and evaluate one or more social psychological explanations for aggression.
There are many social psychological explanations for aggression that try and explain the cause of aggression. The social learning theory originated from work by Tarde who looked at key characteristics of imitation and the ways in which our social behaviours and responses could be shaped by the actions of others.
Bandura developed this theory and thought it had four basic processes; attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. The central parts of these processes were the presence of a role model from where behaviour can be copied. The child also needs to have self-efficacy which gives them the ability to imitate the behaviour.
Bandura et al (1961) …show more content…
This theory refers to the process of decreased self-assessment and awareness in situations where identification of an individual is difficult or even impossible. Examples include chanting at a football match or trashing a shelter in a park. It is thought that group situations reduce inhibitions and this results in a change of normal behaviour. Le Bon said ‘a collective mind takes over the individual’ and research has been carried out to confirm this.
Zimbardo (1969) carried out the ‘anonymous lab coat’ experiment where he used two groups of female students to shock a learner; one group whilst wearing a lab coat and hood (deindividualised) and the other group wearing their own clothes and a name tag. They found that the participants in the lab coats gave twice the amount of shocks than the other group.
This experiment does support the deindividuation theory but lacks population validity because all of the participants were women. The sample size was also very small and so it is difficult to generalise the results. Also, most research into deindividuation suggests that it is always related to anti-social behaviour but it can be pro-social; behaviour that is supportive of
There are many social psychological explanations for aggression that try and explain the cause of aggression. The social learning theory originated from work by Tarde who looked at key characteristics of imitation and the ways in which our social behaviours and responses could be shaped by the actions of others.
Bandura developed this theory and thought it had four basic processes; attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. The central parts of these processes were the presence of a role model from where behaviour can be copied. The child also needs to have self-efficacy which gives them the ability to imitate the behaviour.
Bandura et al (1961) …show more content…
This theory refers to the process of decreased self-assessment and awareness in situations where identification of an individual is difficult or even impossible. Examples include chanting at a football match or trashing a shelter in a park. It is thought that group situations reduce inhibitions and this results in a change of normal behaviour. Le Bon said ‘a collective mind takes over the individual’ and research has been carried out to confirm this.
Zimbardo (1969) carried out the ‘anonymous lab coat’ experiment where he used two groups of female students to shock a learner; one group whilst wearing a lab coat and hood (deindividualised) and the other group wearing their own clothes and a name tag. They found that the participants in the lab coats gave twice the amount of shocks than the other group.
This experiment does support the deindividuation theory but lacks population validity because all of the participants were women. The sample size was also very small and so it is difficult to generalise the results. Also, most research into deindividuation suggests that it is always related to anti-social behaviour but it can be pro-social; behaviour that is supportive of