# 21 - 6. Aggression

# 6. Aggression

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6. Aggression 
There are several types of aggression as outlined below. 
 Hostile aggression: aimed solely at hurting someone. 
 Instrumental aggression: used as a means to an end – may be self-defense or to attain 
something. Instrumental aggression is carried out for the purpose of achieving a particular 
goal e.g. kidnapping for ransom. Hence, it is often planned and not impulsive. Hostile 
(also called angry or affective) aggression is motivated by the need to express negative 
feelings, such as anger. 
 Positive aggression: combating prejudice, self-defense. 
 Pathological aggression: violence for the sake of being violent- may be associated with 
pathological personality. 
 Overt aggression: This is readily observable, either reactive & impulsive or proactive, 
planned aggression. 
 Covert aggression is much more subtle, e.g. telling lies, spreading rumours, excluding a 
child from a group of friends, etc. It is seen more in girls than boys. 
Hydraulic or build up models 
 Psychoanalysis Theory: Human aggression is due the death instinct Thanatos - an 
instinctive biological destructive death related urge that gradually builds up in everyone 
and must at some point be released. 
 Evolutionary Theory: Through the process of natural selection, aggression ensures 
survival of the aggressor’s genes passing from one generation to the other. It helps in the 
fight for the survival of the fittest. 
 Lorenz studied animal aggression and proposed that features such as territorial 
imperative are linked to the survival benefits of aggression. According to him aggression 
is a fixed action pattern elicited by specific sign stimuli. But he found non-human 
aggression to be mostly constructive. Ritualisation refers to a series of stereotyped fight 
scenes, carried out by animals without actual physical harm to both the victor and the 
vanquished. Appeasement rituals or gestures form a part of such ritualisations in which 
certain behaviours (e.g., lying down, dropping and tucking one’s tail) can reduce 
aggression expression. 
 
Non-hydraulic models 
These models refute the notion of ‘building up’ and ‘release’.

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 Genetic theory: It is controversial whether aggression is inherited; it is often the case in 
animal species. But in humans however, people may not necessarily inherit the tendency 
to be aggressive; instead they may inherit certain temperaments, such as impulsiveness, 
that in turn make aggression more likely (Baron and Richardson, 1994). 
 Social learning theory: Bandura’s ‘Bobo Doll’ experiments provide impressive 
demonstrations of the power of observational learning. When children observe an 
aggressive model, they often reproduce many of the model’s acts precisely, especially if 
the model’s aggression was rewarded. Vicarious conditioning refers to a kind of 
observational learning where learning is influenced by seeing or hearing about the 
consequences of others’ behaviour. Observational learning can occur even when there are 
no vicarious effects of reinforcement, but the performance of an aggressive behaviour is 
more likely if vicarious reinforcement was observed instead of just seeing behaviour in 
isolation without knowing its consequences. 
 The frustration-aggression hypothesis was originally proposed by Dollard et al. (1939). It 
holds that frustration always results in aggression and conversely aggression will not 
occur unless a person is frustrated. But this is not true as sometimes frustration produces 
depression or withdrawal instead of aggression. The modified frustration-aggression 
hypothesis considers aggression to be one of the many possible products of frustration. In 
a meta-analysis including 49 studies, Marcus-Newhall et al. (2000) found consistent 
evidence that frustrated individuals show displacement of aggression from the source of 
the frustration onto a less powerful or more accessible target. 
 Berkowitz (1993) later modified Dollard’s proposal. This is called aggressive cue theory or 
weapons effect: Frustration produces not aggression but a readiness to respond 
aggressively; once this readiness exists, cues in the environment (e.g. knives, guns, etc.) 
will often lead a frustrated person to behave aggressively; neither frustration nor cues 
alone can trigger the aggressive behaviour. 
 Generalised arousal theory maintains that arousal (e.g. physiological) from one source 
may energise some other response. This is called transferred excitation (Zillman). 
 Festinger’s deindividuation theory: According to this, people in-group context act 
uncharacteristically more aggressive as a sense of identity and belongingness and 
diffusion of responsibility occurs in groups. Similarly, uniforms can reduce individuality, 
promoting expression of aggression (hence its use in Police and military forces). But 
deindividuation does not always cause aggression. 
Media influences on aggressive behaviour: TV can influence through modelling effects. In a 
natural experiment at St Helena Island when TV was first introduced, some increase in prosocial 
behaviour was recorded, surprisingly. Media influence is mediated via