social psychological explanations of aggeession.

Social pychological approachesSocial learning theory-aggressive behaviour is learnt through observationand immitation. vicarious learning is when a child witnesses a role model ,who they deem to be successful, being rewarded. the child may not imitate behaviour immediatly but instead may store it for future use. this suggest cognition plays a part in SLT. cognition is rejected by classical conditioning, therefore SLT seems a more holeistic approach to learning.

Research- Bandura bobo doll study. when role model acted aggressively to bobo doll and was subsequently rewarded for this, the chilren also played more aggressively.

As children learn in their own social and cultural context what behaviours are rewarded and therefore appropriate, SLT offers anexplanation to why some cultures seem less aggressive thenothers. For example chinease are seen as timid people.

SLT would predict video games to cause aggressive behaviour if the player views the game as successful. research supports this as US students who admiited to playing violent games also admitted to anti social behaviour. Thesample is however bias as US Students are from a western culture and therefore in poorer cultures who do not have accsess to video games, aggression still exsists. this suggest other factors are involved. perhaps biology is a key factor. aggression seems to be present cross-culturally,thus suggesting a genetic quality.

Deindividuation- being part of a crowd or concealing ones identity in a uniform, leads to lossof responsibility and redfuced inhibitons. along with reduced rational thinking. people feel part of thecrowd and therefore not identiiable.

Zimbardos prison experiment offers support for deindividuation. the participants who were assigned guard roles, where previously tested psychologically and wereall decent members of the cummunity. during the experiment they seemed to switch personalities and act aggressively towards prisoners. humiliting them on occasions. Asfar as deindividuation is concerned, the uniforms offered the men loss of identity. however another explanation comes from conformity. did the guards conform to the role and act out stereotypes? prisoners also wore uniform, so…