6th edition

Social Psychology
Elliot Aronson
University of California, Santa Cruz

Timothy D. Wilson
University of Virginia

Robin M. Akert
Wellesley College

slides by Travis Langley

Henderson State University
Chapter 12
Ag g ressio n :
W h y Do W e Hu rt
Oth er Peop le?
Can W e Preven t It?

“Nothing is more costly,

nothing is more sterile,
than revenge.”
-- Winston Churchill
 What Is Aggression?
Aggression
Intentional behavior aimed at doing harm or
causing pain to another person.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 What Is Aggression?

InstrumentalAggression
Aggression as a means to some goal other
than causing pain.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
 What Is Aggression?
HostileAggression
Aggression stemming from feelings of
anger and aimed at inflicting pain.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Is Aggression Inborn or Learned?
For centuries, scientists, philosophers, and
other serious thinkers have been arguing
about the human capacity for aggression.
• Some are convinced that aggression is an
inborn, instinctive human trait.
• Others are just as certain that aggressive
behavior must be learned.
 Is Aggression Inborn or Learned?
Freud elaborated on the more pessimistic view
that brutish traits are part of human nature.
He theorized that humans are born with an
instinct toward life, which he called Eros,
and an equally powerful instinct toward
death, which he called Thanatos.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Is Aggression Instinctual?
Situational? Optional?

The EvolutionaryArgument
Males are theorized to aggress for two reasons:
1. Males behave aggressively to establish dominance over
other males. The idea here is that the female will choose
the male who is most likely to provide the best genes and
the greatest protection and resources for their offspring.
2. Males aggress "jealously" in order to ensure that their
mate(s) are not copulating with others. This ensures their
paternity.
Research supporting the evolutionary perspective is
provocative but inconclusive because it is impossible to
conduct a definitive experiment.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
 Is Aggression Instinctual?
Situational? Optional?
Aggression among the lower animals:

Most people assume that cats will instinctively stalk and kill
rats. Kuo (1961) attempted to demonstrate that this was
a myth. He performed a simple little experiment:

He raised a kitten in the same cage with a rat. Not only did
the cat refrain from attacking the rat, but the two became
close companions. Moreover, when given the opportunity,
the cat refused either to chase or to kill other rats; thus
the benign behavior was not confined to this one buddy
but generalized to rats the cat had never met.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Is Aggression Instinctual?
Situational? Optional?
Aggression among the lower animals:

Chimpanzees are the only nonhuman species in which groups

of male members hunt and kill other members of their
own kind.
Bonobos, on the other hand, are known as the “make love,
not war” ape. Prior to engaging in activities that could
otherwise lead to conflict, bonobos engage in sex, This
sexual activity functions to diffuse potential conflict.
The bonobo are a rare exception, however. The near
universality of aggression strongly suggests that
aggressiveness has evolved and has been maintained
because it has survival value.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
 Aggression and Culture
Whether or not aggressive action is actually
expressed depends on a complex interplay
between:
– Innate tendencies,
– Various learned inhibitory responses, and
– The precise nature of the social situation.
 Aggression and Culture
Cross-cultural studies have found that human
cultures vary widely in their degree of
aggressiveness.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 CHANGES IN AGGRESSION
ACROSS TIME
IN A GIVEN CULTURE, CHANGING SOCIAL
CONDITIONS FREQUENTLY LEAD TO
STRIKING CHANGES IN AGGRESSIVE
BEHAVIOR.
FOR EXAMPLE, AGGRESSIVENESS FROM
PREVIOUSLY PEACEFUL PEOPLE CAN
COME ABOUT WHEN A SOCIAL CHANGE
PRODUCES INCREASES IN COMPETITION.
REGIONALISM AND AGGRESSION
ARGUMENT-RELATED HOMICIDE RATES FOR
WHITE SOUTHERN MALES ARE
SUBSTANTIALLY HIGHER THAN THOSE FOR
WHITE NORTHERN MALES, ESPECIALLY IN
RURAL AREAS.
SOUTHERNERS ARE
MORE INCLINED TO
ENDORSE VIOLENCE
FOR PROTECTION AND
IN RESPONSE TO
INSULTS.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
 Neural and Chemical
Influences on Aggression
Aggressive behaviors in human beings, as well
as in the lower animals, are associated with
an area in the core of the brain called the
amygdale.
• When the amygdale is stimulated, docile
organisms become violent.
• Similarly, when neural activity in that area is
blocked, violent organisms become docile.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Neural and Chemical
Influences on Aggression
Certain chemicals have been shown to influence
aggression.
Serotonin, a chemical substance that occurs
naturally in the midbrain, seems to inhibit impulsive
aggression.
In animals, when the flow of serotonin is disrupted,
increases in aggressive behavior frequently follow.
Violent criminals have particularly low levels of
naturally produced serotonin.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Neural and Chemical
Influences on Aggression
Too little serotonin can lead to increases in
aggression, but so can too much testosterone, a
male sex hormone.
1. Laboratory animals injected with testosterone became
more aggressive.
2. Naturally occurring testosterone levels are significantly
higher among violent criminals than nonviolent criminals.
3. Juvenile delinquents have higher levels.
4. More aggressive fraternities’ members have more.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Gender and Aggression
Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin (1974)
demonstrated that boys appear to be more
aggressive than girls.
Among boys, there
was far more
“nonplayful” pushing,
shoving, and hitting
than among girls.
 Gender and Aggression
But research on gender differences is more
complicated than it might seem on the surface.
Although young boys tend to be more overtly
aggressive than young girls (in the sense that they
lash out directly at the target person), girls tend to
express their aggressive feelings more covertly:
– Gossiping,
– Engaging in more backbiting, and
– Spreading false rumors about the target person.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

DOES CULTURE MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
SEX DIFFERENCES IN AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIORS TEND TO
HOLD UP ACROSS CULTURES.
IN ONE STUDY, TEENAGERS FROM ELEVEN DIFFERENT
COUNTRIES, MOSTLY IN EUROPE AND ASIA, READ
STORIES INVOLVING CONFLICT AMONG PEOPLE AND
WERE ASKED TO WRITE THEIR OWN ENDINGS.
IN EVERY ONE OF THE COUNTRIES, YOUNG MEN
SHOWED A GREATER TENDENCY TOWARD VIOLENT
SOLUTIONS TO CONFLICT THAN YOUNG WOMEN DID.
DOES CULTURE MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Although within a given culture, men showed
consistently higher levels of aggression than
women, culture also played a major role.
For example, women from Australia and New
Zealand showed greater evidence of
aggressiveness than men from Sweden and
Korea did.
 VIOLENCE AMONG INTIMATE PARTNERS

• SOME 22% OF ALL VIOLENT CRIMES AGAINST

WOMEN IN A TYPICAL YEAR WERE
COMMITTED BY THEIR INTIMATE MALE
PARTNERS.
• FOR MEN, THE FIGURE IS 3%.
• HUSBANDS ARE FAR MORE LIKELY TO
MURDER THEIR WIVES THAN VICE VERSA.
Alcohol and Aggression

“Oh that wasn’t me talking, it was the alcohol talking.”

Image copyright The New Yorker.

 Alcohol and Aggression
Why can alcohol increase aggressive behavior?
1. Alcohol often serves as a disinhibitor—it reduces our
social inhibitions, making us less cautious than we
usually are.
2. It appears to disrupt the way we usually process
information. This means that intoxicated people often
respond to the earliest and most obvious aspects of a
social situation and tend to miss the subtleties.
3. When individuals ingest enough alcohol to make them
legally drunk, they tend to respond more violently to
provocations than those who have ingested little or no
alcohol.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Pain, Discomfort, and Aggression
If an animal is in pain and cannot flee the scene, it
will almost invariably attack; this is true of rats,
mice, hamsters, foxes, monkeys, crayfish, snakes,
raccoons, alligators, and a host of other creatures.

In those circumstances, animals will

attack members of their own species,
members of different species, or
anything else in sight, including
stuffed dolls and tennis balls.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Pain, Discomfort, and Aggression
Humans can act more aggressively when
experiencing:
– Pain
– Heat
– Humidity
– Air pollution
– Offensive odors

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Social Situations and Aggression
Aggression can also be caused by unpleasant
social situations.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Social Situations and Aggression
Frustration andAggression

Frustration-Aggression Theory
The idea that frustration—the perception
that you are being prevented from
attaining a goal—increases the probability
of an aggressive response.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
 Social Situations and Aggression
Frustration andAggression

Barker, Dembo, & Lewin (1941):

• Children who played with toys
immediately played joyfully.
• Children frustrated by waiting were
extremely destructive: Many smashed
the toys, threw them against the wall,
stepped on them, and so forth.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Social Situations and Aggression
Frustration andAggression

Several things can increase frustration and,

accordingly, will increase the probability that
some form of aggression will occur:
– Delay
– Goal proximity
– Unexpectedness of the frustration

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Social Situations and Aggression
Frustration andAggression
What circumstances can turn frustration to
aggression?
– The size and strength of the person responsible for
your frustration.
– That person’s ability to retaliate.
– Proximity of the person.
If the frustration is understandable, legitimate, and
unintentional, the tendency to aggress will be
reduced.
 Being Provoked and Reciprocating
Aggression frequently stems from the need to reciprocate
after being provoked by aggressive behavior from another
person.
But even when provoked, people do not always reciprocate.
When convinced the provocation was unintentional, most of us
will not reciprocate.
If there are mitigating circumstances, counter-aggression will
not occur.
But to curtail an aggressive response, these mitigating
circumstances must be known at the time of the
provocation.
 Aggressive Objects as Cues
Aggressive Stimulus
An object that is associated with aggressive
responses and whose mere presence can
increase the probability of aggression.
 Imitation and Aggression
Children frequently learn to solve conflicts
aggressively by imitating adults and their
peers, especially when they see that the
aggression is rewarded.

Source of images: www.clipart.com

 Imitation and Aggression
The people children imitate the most, of
course, are their parents.
And if the parents were abused as children,
this can set a chain of abuse in motion.
Indeed, a large percentage of physically
abusive parents were themselves abused by
their own parents when they were kids.
 Imitation and Aggression

Social Learning Theory

The idea that we learn social behavior (e.g.,
aggression) by observing others and
imitating them.
In a classic series of experiments, Albert Bandura
and his associates demonstrated the power of
social learning.
 Imitation and Aggression
• Bandura’s basic procedure was to have an adult
knock around a plastic, air-filled “Bobo” doll (the
kind that bounces back after it’s been knocked
down).
• The kids were then allowed to play with the doll.
• In these experiments, the children imitated the
aggressive models and treated the doll in an
abusive way.
• Children in a control condition, who did not see the
aggressive adult in action, almost never unleashed
any aggression against the hapless doll.
 Violence in the Media:
TV, Movies, and Video Games
 EFFECTS ON CHILDREN
1. BY THE TIME THE AVERAGE AMERICAN CHILD
FINISHES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, HE OR SHE WOULD
HAVE SEEN 8,000 MURDERS AND MORE THAN 100,000
OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE.
2. 58% OF ALL TV PROGRAMS CONTAIN VIOLENCE—AND
OF THOSE, 78% CONTAIN NOT A SHRED OF
REMORSE, CRITICISM, OR PENALTY FOR THAT
VIOLENCE.
3. OME 40% OF THE VIOLENT INCIDENTS SEEN ON TV
DURING A PARTICULAR YEAR WERE INITIATED BY
CHARACTERS PORTRAYED AS HEROES OR OTHER
ATTRACTIVE ROLE MODELS FOR CHILDREN.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 EFFECTS ON CHILDREN
The more TV violence individuals watch as children,
the more violence they exhibit later as teens and
young adults.
Watching a violent film has the effect of increasing
the number of aggressive acts committed during
a game—primarily by the youngsters who already
rated as highly aggressive by their teachers.
Even children who are not inclined toward aggression
will become more aggressive if exposed to a
steady diet of violent films over a long period.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 EFFECTS ON CHILDREN
Priming by TV has a tendency to increase the
probability of an aggressive response when
children subsequently are frustrated or hurt,
exposing children to an endless stream of
violence in films and on TV might have a
similar tendency to prime an aggressive
response.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 EFFECTS ON CHILDREN
Playing violent video games seems to have the same kind of
impact on children that watching TV violence does.
Violent video game playing positively correlates with
aggressive behavior and delinquency in children.
The relationship was found to be stronger for children who
had been more prone to violence beforehand.
The relationship is more than correlational. Exposing a random
sample of children to a graphically violent video game had a
direct and immediate impact on their aggressive thoughts
and behavior.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 What About Adults?
• The amount of time spent watching
television during adolescence and early
adulthood correlates positively with
likelihood of subsequent violent acts against
others.
• This association was significant regardless
of parental education, family income, and
neighborhood violence.
 What About Adults?
• Daily homicide rates in the United States
have almost always increased during the
week following a heavyweight boxing match.
• Moreover, the more publicity surrounding the
fight, the greater the subsequent increase in
homicides.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 What About Adults?
• Still more striking, the race of prizefight
• Daily homicide rates in the United States
losers was related to the race of victims of
have almost always increased during the
murders after the fights: After white boxers
week following a heavyweight boxing match.
lost fights, there was a corresponding
• increase
Moreover, in the more of
murders publicity surrounding
white men the
but not of
fight, men.
black the greater the subsequent increase in
homicides.
• After black boxers lost fights, there was a
corresponding increase in murders of black
men but not of white men.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 THE NUMBING EFFECT
OF TV VIOLENCE
REPEATED EXPOSURE TO DIFFICULT OR
UNPLEASANT EVENTS TENDS TO HAVE A
NUMBING EFFECT ON OUR SENSITIVITY
TO THOSE EVENTS, AS INDICATED BY
REDUCTIONS IN:
• EMOTIONAL RESPONSE,
• PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE, AND
• PERCEPTION OF BRUTALITY.
HOW DOES MEDIA VIOLENCE AFFECT
OUR VIEW OF THE WORLD?
• ADOLESCENTS AND ADULTS WHO WATCH
MORE THAN 4 HOURS PER DAY ARE MORE
LIKELY TO HAVE AN EXAGGERATED VIEW OF
THE DEGREE OF VIOLENCE TAKING PLACE
OUTSIDE THEIR OWN HOME.
• HEAVY TV VIEWERS HAVE A MUCH GREATER
FEAR OF BEING PERSONALLY ASSAULTED.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 WHY DOES MEDIA VIOLENCE
AFFECT VIEWERS’ AGGRESSION?
1. “If they can do it, so can I.”
2. “Oh, so that’s how you do it!”
3. “Those feelings I am having must be real
anger rather than simply a stressful day.”
4. “Ho-hum, another brutal beating; what’s
on the other channel?”
5. “I had better get him before he gets me!”
 Does Violence Sell?
• People who saw a nonviolent, non-sexual show
were able to recall brands advertised during
commercials better than the people who saw a
violent show or a sexually explicit show.
• This was true both immediately after viewing and
twenty-four hours after viewing and was true for
both men and women of all ages.
• Violence and sex seem to impair viewers’
memory.
 Violent Pornography and
Violence against Women
Scripts
Ways of behaving socially that we learn
implicitly from our culture.

1. Sexual scripts adolescents are exposed to suggest to

them the traditional female role is to resist the male’s
sexual advances and male’s role is to be persistent.
2. Although 95% of the males and 97% of the female high
schoolers surveyed agreed that a man should stop
sexual advances as soon as a woman says no, nearly
1/2 of those same students also believed that when a
woman says no, she doesn’t always mean it.
 Violent Pornography and
Violence against Women
• During the 1990s, this confusion prompted several colleges
to suggest that dating couples negotiate an explicit
contract about their sexual conduct and limitations at the
very beginning of the date.
• But social critics lambasted these
measures on the grounds that they
encouraged fear and paranoia,
destroyed the spontaneity of
romance, and reduced the
excitement of dating to something
resembling a field trip to a lawyer’s
office. They were eventually dropped.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Violent Pornography and
Violence against Women
• Coincidental with an increase in date rape
has been an increase in the availability of
magazines, films, and videocassettes
depicting vivid, explicit sexual behavior.
• Careful scientific research suggests an
important distinction between simple
pornography and violent pornography.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 Violent Pornography and
Violence against Women
• Exposure to violent pornography promotes greater
acceptance of sexual violence toward women and
is almost certainly a factor associated with actual
aggressive behavior toward women.
• After watching violent pornography, men express
more negative attitudes toward women and have
more aggressive sexual fantasies.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 How to Reduce Aggression
“Stop hitting your brother!”
“Turn off the TV and go to your room!”

• Trying to curb the aggressive behavior of their

children, most parents use some form of
punishment.
• Some deny privileges; others use force.
• How well does punishment work?
 Does Punishing Aggression
Reduce Aggressive Behavior?
• If punishment takes the form of an aggressive act, the
punishers are actually modeling aggressive behavior for the
person whose aggressive behavior they are trying to stamp
out and might induce that person to imitate their action.
• Several experiments demonstrated that threat of relatively
severe punishment does not make committing a
transgression less appealing to a preschooler.
• On the other hand, the threat of mild punishment—of a
degree just powerful enough to get the child to stop the
undesired activity temporarily—leads the child to try to
justify his or her restraint and, as a result, can make the
behavior less appealing.
USING PUNISHMENT ON VIOLENT ADULTS

• DOES THE THREAT OF

HARSH PUNISHMENTS FOR
VIOLENT CRIMES MAKE
SUCH CRIMES LESS
LIKELY?
• DO PEOPLE WHO ARE ABOUT TO COMMIT
VIOLENT CRIMES SAY TO THEMSELVES, “I’D
BETTER NOT DO THIS BECAUSE IF I GET
CAUGHT, I’M GOING TO JAIL FOR A LONG
TIME; I MIGHT EVEN BE EXECUTED.”
• THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE IS MIXED.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
USING PUNISHMENT ON VIOLENT ADULTS
LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS INDICATE THAT
PUNISHMENT CAN INDEED ACT AS A DETERRENT IF
TWO “IDEAL CONDITIONS” ARE MET:
• IT MUST BE PROMPT.
• IT MUST BE UNAVOIDABLE.

IN THE REAL WORLD, THESE IDEAL CONDITIONS ARE

ALMOST NEVER MET, ESPECIALLY IN A COMPLEX
SOCIETY WITH A HIGH CRIME RATE AND A SLOW
CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM LIKE OUR OWN.
During the past thirty years, the homicide rate in the United
States has fluctuated between 6 and 10 murders per year
for every 100,000 people in the population.
This statistic is striking when one compares it to other
industrialized countries like Germany, England, and France,
where the homicide rate has remained stable at less than
1 per 100,000.
 Catharsis and Aggression
• Conventional wisdom suggests that one way
to reduce feelings of aggression is to do
something aggressive.
• “Get it out of your system” has been a
common piece of advice.
• This common belief is based on an
oversimplification of the psychoanalytic
notion of catharsis.
 Catharsis and Aggression
Catharsis
The notion that “blowing off steam”—by
performing an aggressive act, watching
others engage in aggressive behaviors, or
engaging in a fantasy of aggression—
relieves built-up aggressive energies and
hence reduces the likelihood of further
aggressive behavior.
THE EFFECTS OF AGGRESSIVE ACTS
ON SUBSEQUENT AGGRESSION
• WHEN FRUSTRATED OR ANGRY, MANY OF US DO FEEL
LESS TENSE AFTER BLOWING OFF STEAM BY
YELLING, CURSING, OR PERHAPS EVEN HITTING
SOMEONE.
• BUT DOES AGGRESSION REDUCE THE NEED FOR
FURTHER AGGRESSION? DOES PLAYING COMPETITIVE
GAMES, FOR EXAMPLE, SERVE AS A HARMLESS
OUTLET FOR AGGRESSIVE ENERGIES?
• GENERALLY, THE ANSWER IS NO. IN FACT, THE
REVERSE IS TRUE: COMPETITIVE GAMES OFTEN MAKE
PARTICIPANTS AND OBSERVERS MORE AGGRESSIVE.
THE EFFECTS OF AGGRESSIVE ACTS
ON SUBSEQUENT AGGRESSION
What about watching aggressive games? Will
that reduce aggressive behavior?

• As with participating in
an aggressive sport,
watching one also
increases aggressive
behavior.
THE EFFECTS OF AGGRESSIVE ACTS
ON SUBSEQUENT AGGRESSION
Finally, does direct aggression against the
source of your anger reduce further
aggression? Again, the answer is no.
• When people commit acts of aggression, such
acts increase the tendency toward future
aggression.
• Outside the lab, in the real world, we see the
same phenomenon: Verbal acts of aggression
are followed by further attacks.
 BLAMING THE VICTIM OF OUR AGGRESSION

• WHEN SOMEBODY ANGERS US, VENTING OUR

HOSTILITY AGAINST THAT PERSON DOES SEEM TO
RELIEVE TENSION AND MAKE US FEEL BETTER, AT
LEAST TEMPORARILY—ASSUMING THE PERSON WE
VENT ON DOESN’T DECIDE TO VENT BACK ON US.
• BUT “FEELING BETTER” SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED
WITH A REDUCTION IN HOSTILITY.
• WITH HUMAN BEINGS, AGGRESSION IS DEPENDENT
NOT MERELY ON TENSIONS—WHAT A PERSON FEELS—
BUT ALSO ON WHAT A PERSON THINKS.
 BLAMING THE VICTIM OF OUR AGGRESSION

• Research participants who inflicted either

psychological or physical harm on an innocent
person who had done them no prior harm then
derogated their victims, convincing themselves
they were not nice people and therefore deserved
what they got.
• This reduces dissonance, all right—and it also sets
the stage for further aggression, for once a person
has succeeded in derogating someone, it makes it
easier to do further harm to the victim in the
future.
 The Effect of War on
General Aggression
• When a nation is at war, its people are more
likely to commit aggressive acts against one
another.
• Being at war serves to legitimize violence as
a way to address difficult problems.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

• Crime rates for 110 countries from 1900 on show
that compared with similar nations that remained
at peace, after a country had fought a war, its
homicide rates rose substantially.
 The Effect of War on
General Aggression
The fact that a nation is at war:
(1) Weakens the population’s inhibitions
against aggression,
(2) Leads to imitation of aggression,
(3) Makes aggressive responses more
acceptable, and
(4) Numbs our senses to the horror of cruelty
and destruction, making us less
sympathetic toward the victims.
 What Are We Supposed to Do with
Our Anger?

It is possible to control our

anger by actively enabling it
to dissipate.
“Actively enabling” means using
such simple devices as counting
to ten before shooting your
mouth off.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

VENTING VERSUS SELF-AWARENESS
• IF YOUR CLOSE FRIEND OR SPOUSE DOES
SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOU ANGRY, YOU
MAY WANT TO EXPRESS THAT ANGER IN A
WAY THAT HELPS YOU GAIN INSIGHT INTO
YOURSELF AND THE DYNAMICS OF THE
RELATIONSHIP.
• BUT FOR THAT TO HAPPEN, THE ANGER MUST
BE EXPRESSED IN A NONVIOLENT AND NON-
DEMEANING WAY.
VENTING VERSUS SELF-AWARENESS
• Although it is probably best to reveal your anger
to the friend who provoked it, at least if you are
hoping to resolve the problem between you,
sometimes it is helpful to write down your feelings
in a journal.
• Benefits of “opening up” are due not simply to
venting of feeling but primarily to the insights and
self-awareness that usually accompany such self-
disclosure (Pennebaker, 1990).
 DEFUSING ANGER THROUGH APOLOGY

• ONE WAY TO REDUCE AGGRESSION IS FOR

THE INDIVIDUAL WHO CAUSED THE
FRUSTRATION TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR
THE ACTION, APOLOGIZE FOR IT, AND
INDICATE THAT IT IS UNLIKELY TO HAPPEN
AGAIN.

“Oops! My bad!”
 THE MODELING OF
NONAGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR
• Modeling works with nonaggressive behavior
too.
• When children see adults, when provoked,
express themselves in calm, respectful
manner, children subsequently handle their
own frustrations with less aggression.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

 6th edition

Social Psychology
Elliot Aronson
University of California, Santa Cruz

Timothy D. Wilson
University of Virginia

Robin M. Akert
Wellesley College

slides by Travis Langley

Henderson State University