Introduction
Aggression has been humankind’s steady companion throughout history—in life, literature, and art. Many hypotheses have been suggested by psychologists and other scientists concerning the nature of aggression; some have suggested that it is learned behavior, others that it is an innate, genetically inherited drive. The fields of ethology and sociology have mustered evidence to support the evolutionary (genetic) basis of aggression. Theories based on these viewpoints hold that at some point in humankind’s past, aggressiveness was an adaptive trait—that is, aggression helped ensure the survival of the individual who possessed that quality, thereby enabling the aggressive trait to be passed on to future generations. Social psychologists, on the other hand, have studied the effects of modeling aggressive behavior. When children, for example, have been exposed to aggressive behavior modeled (acted out or demonstrated in some way) by others, they have shown an increase in aggressive behavior. In other words, the children observe and learn the behavior. Albert Bandura’s social learning theory describes this concept of aggression.
The frustration-aggression hypothesis, as described by John Dollard, holds that both violence and aggression are the result of being frustrated in an attempt to reach a goal. When basic needs have been thwarted, aggression appears. As Leonard Berkowitz states in Roots of Aggression (1969), “If a person is aggressive, he has been frustrated. If a person is frustrated, he has become aggressive.” Negative environmental factors are also believed by many to have a major impact on aggression. Studies have found links, for example, between the number of violent crimes and air temperature. Overcrowding and economic hard times are also associated with higher crime rates. These studies tend to support negative affect theory, which holds that exposure to stimuli that create discomfort leads to aggression.
The amount of hope a person holds for the possibility of reducing or controlling aggression depends, to some extent, on the theory of aggression that the individual believes to be most accurate. If aggressive behavior is an integral part of the genetic makeup of the human species, the outlook is not nearly as promising as it is if aggression is primarily a behavior learned from others and reinforced by certain rewards. In the former case, aggressive actions can perhaps be controlled by societal strictures, but the aggressive instinct will always remain within. In the latter case, decreasing the modeling of aggression or increasing the modeling of and rewards for nonaggressive behavior could conceivably produce effective results. Different studies have produced different results concerning the effectiveness of various attempts to reduce aggressive behavior.
Another complication in understanding and controlling aggression is that different people will react very differently when in similar circumstances. When frustrated, some people will react aggressively, while others will become withdrawn and depressed. Depression itself can lead to aggression, however, and this type of delayed aggression can produce seemingly unpredictable acts of violence. Psychologists simply do not have all the answers to why some people react aggressively and others do not when faced with identical predicaments.
Treatment Techniques
Psychologists Matthew McKay, Martha Davis, and Patrick Fanning adapted Donald Meichenbaum’s concept of stress inoculation training to produce one technique that allows aggressive people to control their own aggressive behavior. McKay and his colleagues present simple, concise, step-by-step directions to deal with aggression. Because aggression is often fueled by emotional distress, they offer a technique of “covert assertion” through the development of two separate skills: thought interruption and thought substitution. When becoming angry or frustrated, the potential aggressor thinks of the word “stop” or some other interrupting device. The void suddenly created is then filled with a reserve of previously prepared positive, nonaggressive thoughts. This technique can be mastered, these psychologist maintain, if it is practiced conscientiously throughout the day for three days to a week.
The creation of an aggression stimulants structure gives those who are compelled to be negatively aggressive the opportunity to take a personal inventory of who (or what) the targets of their aggression are, what the feelings associated with those people are, and what would occur if a plan of “attack” against them were to be put into action. This type of analysis lends itself well to self-accountability; it allows people to “own” the problem and to believe that it can be controlled if they choose to control it. It also allows, through its identification of specific targets and imaging of the act of aggression, a global perspective on what can otherwise seem a very fragmented problem.
Aggression in the work environment can be damaging and disruptive both for individuals and for organizations. In a 1987 article in the Journal of Occupational Psychology, Philip L. Storms and Paul E. Spector claim that high frustration levels of organizational employees were positively related to interpersonal aggression, sabotage, and withdrawal. Suggestions for dealing with aggression in the workplace have included such strategies as training courses and the use of humor to defuse tensions. Diane Lamplugh notes that aggression in this arena can range from whispered innuendo to harassment to violence. She maintains that a training course that focuses on tension control, relaxation techniques, customer-relations orientation, assertiveness practice, aggression-centered discussions, and self-defense training can be helpful. She also states that support from management in identifying problem areas and formulating guidelines for staff support is crucial. William A. Kahn promotes humor as a means for organizational members to make statements about themselves, their groups, or their organization. Humor, he notes, is a nonthreatening vehicle that allows people to say things that might otherwise insult or offend coworkers, thereby making them defensive and threatening working relationships.
Written or unwritten laws, rules, and codes of conduct are established in an attempt to curb unacceptably aggressive behavior. A company may terminate an employee who does not adhere to certain standards of behavior; athletes are benched for aggression or violence. Society as a whole formulates laws to control its members’ aggressive behavior. When individuals act in ways that are damagingly aggressive to other people or to the property of others, law-enforcement agencies step in to safeguard the population. Perpetrators are fined or sentenced to prison terms.
Studies disagree as to the most effective means of rehabilitating offenders, but many studies do suggest that rehabilitation is possible. One avenue that is frequently explored is the use of various techniques founded in behaviorism. In Psychological Approaches to Crime and Its Correction (1984), edited by Irving Jacks and Steven G. Cox, Stanley V. Kruschwitz investigates the effectiveness of using a voluntary token reinforcement procedure to change the behavior of inmates who are difficult to manage. In the same volume, Albert F. Scheckenbach makes an argument for behavior modification as it relates to adult offenders. Modeling positive behaviors and holding group discussions have been found at least somewhat effective in rehabilitating juvenile delinquents, as has the development of behavioral contracts. John Lochman and his colleagues, using what they called an anger coping mechanism, explored cognitive behavioral techniques for reducing aggression in eleven-year-old boys. The boys treated with this procedure showed vast improvements—a reduction of disruptive classroom behavior and an increase in perceived social competence. Such techniques, used with young people, might reduce their high-risk status for later difficulties.
Theoretical Explanations
Acts of aggression have been central in human history, myth, literature, and even religion. In the biblical account, for example, humankind has barely come into existence when Cain kills his brother Abel. Almost as old are questions concerning the causes of aggression and the debate over how to control it.
Sigmund Freud
saw aggression as the result of struggles within the psyche of the individual. He believed that the tension produced in the struggle between the life instinct and the death instinct creates outward aggression. Alfred Adler
another psychodynamic theorist, stated that aggression represents the most general human striving and is a necessity of life; its underlying principle is self-assertion. Humanistic theorist Rollo May
notes that attention to aggression has nearly universally focused on its negative aspects. In Power and Innocence (1972), May writes that “we have been terrified of aggression, and we assume— delusion though it is—that we can better control it if we center all our attention on its destructive aspects as though that’s all there is.”
It was first the behaviorist school, then the proponents of social learning theory
(such as Albert Bandura), who explored ways to reduce and control aggression. The frustration-aggression hypothesis, for example, was developed in the 1930s. Behaviorists tended to approach aggressive behavior in terms of stimuli, responses, and reinforcement. In a general sense, any approaches that seek to punish unacceptably aggressive behavior or to reward positive behavior are related to the behavioral view. Bandura and other social learning theorists found that in some situations, children would respond to viewing aggressive acts by performing aggressive acts themselves. The implications of this have been widely argued and debated; one aspect concerns the effects of viewing violence in the media
. Viewing violence on television and in films has been linked to increased aggressive behavior in some studies, although because of the nature of the types of studies most often performed, it can be difficult to draw incontestable cause-and-effect relationships.
Controlling Aggression
The debate over whether aggression is learned, innate, or both (and, if both, over the relative importance of the two aspects) is not likely to end soon. Debates over how to control aggression will also continue. As in many areas of psychology, bridging the gap between the theoretical and the practical is difficult.
Researchers in the behavioral and social learning schools have developed numerous methods of controlling aggression. Interventions to control aggression can be made at the individual and group levels. Individuals can learn to control their aggression through relaxation training, self-control training, communication skills training, contingency management, and psychotherapy. These techniques vary in the extent that they involve and rely on others. Relaxation training involves breathing techniques or meditation. Self-control training involves rational restructuring, cognitive self-instruction, and stress inoculation. It basically teaches people to make verbal statements to themselves reminding them to think first and respond in a less aggressive manner. It has been proven to work. Communication skills training focuses on methods of negotiation and conflict resolution. Contingency management involves the use of rewards for desired behavior and nonphysical punishment for undesired behaviors. Psychotherapy tries to find the root of the person’s problem with aggression.
Group interventions, done in small groups, involve skill training as well as values, character, and moral education. Skills training educates people on how to use procedures such as modeling, behavioral rehearsal, and feedback on performance to manage their aggression. It has been shown to be effective. The other interventions typically take place in a school setting. All three seek to teach prosocial behavior to children and differ in the extent to which they teach students or let them discover on their own. Moral education teaches morality, and character education uses a series of lessons to foster prosocial character traits. Values clarification involves students in activities that help them identify and choose values.
In addition to these behavioral methods of controlling aggression, there are control methods based on biological or societal causes of aggression. These methods examine biological factors such as serotonin, hormones, and genetics and can involve pharmaceuticals as well as behavior therapy. Studies have found correlations, for example, between aggressiveness and high levels of norepinephrine and low levels of serotonin, two important neurotransmitters, although the significance of such chemical findings remains to be ascertained. The biological approach to fighting aggression involves the fields of neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, neuroendocrinology, genetics, and psychopathology. Another approach looks for an underlying mental condition such as a personality disorder. If the aggression is a symptom of such a disorder, then control of it becomes a matter of treating the mental condition. If the aggression occurs in a particular environment—bullying in a school, aggression or domestic violence in a family, fights in bars, or even war in the political arena—the efforts to control aggression take on a much wider approach, looking at societal and economic factors as well.
Bibliography
Berkowitz, Leonard, ed. Roots of Aggression. New York: Atherton, 1969. Print.
Cavell, Timothy A., and Kenya T. Malcolm, eds. Anger, Aggression, and Interventions for Interpersonal Violence. Mahwah: Erlbaum, 2007. Print.
Forgas, Joseph P., Arie W. Kruglanski, and Kipling D. Williams, eds. The Psychology of Social Conflict and Aggression. New York: Psychology, 2011. Print.
Hewstone, Miles, Wolfgang Stroebe, and Klaus Jonas. An Introduction to Social Psychology. 5th ed. Chichester: Wiley, 2012. Print.
Hudley, Cynthia. You Did That on Purpose: Understanding and Changing Children’s Aggression. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. Print.
Krahé, Barbara. The Social Psychology of Aggression. 2nd ed. New York: Psychology, 2013. Print.
Martinez, Manuela, ed. Prevention and Control of Aggression and the Impact on Its Victims. New York: Kluwer Academic, 2001. Print.
May, Rollo. Power and Innocence. New York: Norton, 1998. Print.
Nelson, Randy J. Biology of Aggression. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.
Simmons, Rachel. Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. San Diego: Harcourt, 2002. Print.
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