Violence
- Evaluate sociocultural explanations of the origins of violence.
Introduction:
Aggression is sometimes defined as any sequence of behavior in which the goal is to dominate or harm another individual.
Violence is understood as an aggressive act in which the actor or prosecutor abuses individuals directly or indirectly.
In some environments, such as schools, violent behavior is a low-rate base behavior- that is it is relevantly rare. This means that it is difficult to observe and easy to miss.
The biological level of analysis:
Aggression is sometimes defined as any sequence of behavior in which the goal is to dominate or harm another individual.
Violence is understood as an aggressive act in which the actor or prosecutor abuses individuals directly or indirectly.
In some environments, such as schools, violent behavior is a low-rate base behavior- that is it is relevantly rare. This means that it is difficult to observe and easy to miss.
The biological level of analysis:
- Most violence is committed to obtain females from breeding or to protect offspring.
- The most important hormone in this respect is testosterone, the male hormone which is implicated in both sexual arousal and aggression.
- It has been found that the level of aggression correlates positively with amount of testosterone in the blood.
- Bernhardt (1997) found a positive correlation between high testosterone levels and antisocial behavior in males of low socio-economic status.
- According to Mazur and Booth (1998) who observed that in athletes testosterone rises before competitive matches.
- Archer (1994) claims that it is difficult in humans to distinguish cause and effect in the dynamic process of behavior and testosterone level.
- Sapolsky (1998) argues that testosterone has a permissive effect- that is the mere presence of the hormone is enough to allow for aggressive behavior.
- The level of testosterone alone is not responsible for the level of aggressive behavior, there must be other factors involved.
- Serotonin also plays a big role in aggressive behavior. People who have low level of Serotonin are highly irritable and aggressive, so there is a negative correlation between serotonin levels and aggression.
- Serotonin can be affected by extreme environments- for example, childhood physical abuse results in fewer serotonin receptor sites, and thus less serotonin actively in the brain.
- There is also evidence that frontal-lobe abnormalities may play part in an aggressive behavior.
- Grafman et al. (1996) examined the relationship between frontal lobe lesions and the presence of aggressive and violent behavior.
- They studied veterans who suffered penetrating head injuries during their service in the war. The results indicated that patients with frontal lobe lesions consistently demonstrated violence scale scores significantly higher than the controls.
- Raine et at. (1997) performed a PET study on a sample of murderers who had leaded “not guilty by reason of insanity”. The researchers predicted no abnormality in other areas of the brain. Generally, the murderers showed increased right-hemisphere activity.
Why do relationships end?
- Social exchange theory- (Kelly and Thibaut 1959) argues that relationships are maintained through a cost-benefit analysis. In other words, the costs of relationship must not outweigh the benefits.
- The American psychologist Elaine Walster argues that social exchange theory is too simplistic an explanation, and that there is no reliable way of determining costs and benefits.
- She argues instead that equity theory, or the perception of equality, is what determines whether a relationship will be maintained.
- In a study of 2,000 couples, Hatfield (1979) found that those who felt deprived or under benefited had extramarital sex sooner after marriage and with more partners than those who felt wither fairly treated or over-benefited.
- Resbult et al. (1991) have shown that one’s patterns of accommodation which is the processing of responding to a partner’s negative behavior, are integral to the maintenance of relationships.
- Constrictive accommodations include discussing problems openly and honestly, waiting for the situation to improve naturally and forgiving each other.
- Destructive accommodations include silent treatment, recounting lists of past failures, and physical avoidance.
- Murray and Holms (1997) found that those with positive illusions about their partner reported less conflict and fewer destructive patterns of conflict resolution.
- Discuss the relative effectiveness of two strategies for reducing violence.
Reducing violence and bullying
- When Jamaica implemented strict gun-control and censored gun scenes from television, robbery and shooting rates dropped dramatically (Diner and Crandell 1979)
- One of the strategies for reducing bullying is the use of counseling in schools to teach all students appropriate anger management, as well as helping them to develop empathy.
- Dodge (1981) found that children who have problems processing social cues tend to display bias in their reactions to ambiguous harmful actions.
- Fesbach and Fesbach (1982) trained junior school children to imagine how they would feel in other children’s circumstances, to recognize the feelings of others, and to try to share their emotions.
- Compared with children in control groups, the children who engaged in this empathy training were much less aggressive in everyday playground activities.
- Schneider (1991) suggests that social-skills training can be effective in reducing the likelihood of a person being either the source or the target of aggressive behavior.
- Elliot Aronson (1979) has shown that the use of the “jigsaw classroom”-also known as cooperative learning lowers the rate of bullying in schools and increases positive interaction between our-groups during play or free periods.
- Limber (1992) however, argues that jigsaw classrooms and peer mediation may be appropriate in resolving conflict between students with equal power, but bullying is a form of victimization.
- Vreeman (2006) found that bullying can be curbed, but that many common methods of dealing with the problem, such as classroom discussions, role-playing of detention are ineffective. Whole school interventions, involving teachers, administrators, and social workers committed to culture change, are the most effective.
- Olweus (1972) developed a whole-school programme for schools in Norway. In this programme teachers are trained to recognize and deal with bullying. Cooperative learning is used; head teachers ensure that lunchrooms and playgrounds are adequately supervised and counselors conduct intensive therapy with bullies and their parents.
- Discuss the effects of short-term and long-term exposure to violence.
Effects of violence (bullying) on the individual
The effect of bullying on its victims is complex. Because the mental health and academic abilities of victimized students are rarely measured before bullying begins, it is difficult to determine the actual extent of harm caused by bullying. Most of the data gathered are through self-report, where the roles of cause and effects are attributed by the victim, but with no control for other variables.
Delville observed the effects of bullying on the health and brain development of adolescent hamsters. In his experiment, male pubescent hamsters were placed for an hour a day, for two weeks, into an adult hamster’s cage. The older hamsters responded with hostility to the adolescent males, biting and chasing them. A control group of adolescent hamsters were simply placed in an empty, unfamiliar cage for one hour a day. Both environments elicited stress reactions in the young hamsters, but the long-term effects of the different kinds of stress were surprisingly dissimilar.
During the first day of the experiment, cortisol, a stress hormone secreted by the adrenal glands in hamsters and humans, was found to be high in both groups of adolescents. But the cortisol levels remained elevated only for the chased and threatened hamsters. They didn’t get adapted to being bullied.
This hormone causes brain damage and affects memory. This was supported by the research done by Carney and Hazler on humans. Their findings demonstrated the limitations of the animal research. Bullying does appear to cause a spike in cortisol levels, but it appears that humans who experience long-term bullying have a cortisol deficiency – called hypocortisol.
Victims of bullying will often engage in downward comparison in order to understand and cope with their victimization. Downward comparison refers to comparing oneself to those who are worse off. They often imagine “it-could-have-been-worse” situations and that helps them to focus on positive aspects.
Victims of bullying often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
People who are bullied are more likely to be antisocial and aggressive, however Snyder found that antisocial behavior made girls into a target for bullying in both the short and long term.
The effect of bullying on its victims is complex. Because the mental health and academic abilities of victimized students are rarely measured before bullying begins, it is difficult to determine the actual extent of harm caused by bullying. Most of the data gathered are through self-report, where the roles of cause and effects are attributed by the victim, but with no control for other variables.
Delville observed the effects of bullying on the health and brain development of adolescent hamsters. In his experiment, male pubescent hamsters were placed for an hour a day, for two weeks, into an adult hamster’s cage. The older hamsters responded with hostility to the adolescent males, biting and chasing them. A control group of adolescent hamsters were simply placed in an empty, unfamiliar cage for one hour a day. Both environments elicited stress reactions in the young hamsters, but the long-term effects of the different kinds of stress were surprisingly dissimilar.
During the first day of the experiment, cortisol, a stress hormone secreted by the adrenal glands in hamsters and humans, was found to be high in both groups of adolescents. But the cortisol levels remained elevated only for the chased and threatened hamsters. They didn’t get adapted to being bullied.
This hormone causes brain damage and affects memory. This was supported by the research done by Carney and Hazler on humans. Their findings demonstrated the limitations of the animal research. Bullying does appear to cause a spike in cortisol levels, but it appears that humans who experience long-term bullying have a cortisol deficiency – called hypocortisol.
Victims of bullying will often engage in downward comparison in order to understand and cope with their victimization. Downward comparison refers to comparing oneself to those who are worse off. They often imagine “it-could-have-been-worse” situations and that helps them to focus on positive aspects.
Victims of bullying often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
People who are bullied are more likely to be antisocial and aggressive, however Snyder found that antisocial behavior made girls into a target for bullying in both the short and long term.