To What Extent Does Situational Causes Aggression? Theories and Evidence

This article explores the extent to which situational factors cause aggression. It covers theories such as the Frustration-Aggression Theory, Social Learning Theory, and Social Interaction Theory, as well as models like the Cognitive Neoassociation Model and the General Aggression Model. Evidence from research studies is also presented to support the arguments. The article concludes with a critical discussion and suggestions for reducing aggression.

Running Head: Health Psychology 0
Psychology in Everyday Life

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Q. What extent does situational causes aggression? Include theories and evidence from
research studies to support your argument
Human aggression is a very basic and extremely complex social behaviour. It depends
on different situation as if condition is unfavourable; some sort of guilt is there or due to
frustration or anxieties.Aggression is a flexible behaviour for several of our elderly ancestors
who reside in small society. Males utilized aggression to food, protection, access to females,
and other resources. Females used aggression to protect their prosperity and gain funds for
them. Children also deal with emotional as well as cognition effect.However; aggression is
much more complicated in terms of both biological and psychological processes. It is human
disaster unsurpassed in most extraordinary forms (Watson, Tay & Brien, 2004).
Situational Effects on Aggression:
 Immediate situations can encourage or prevent it.
 Frustration, excitement and the elements can affect it (Principato, 2018).
Situational factors-
 Aggressive Cues: Various aggressive cues have been found to interrelate with
provocation to increase behavioural reactions, as well as intervening factors such as
anger and availability of aggressive cognitions. Other factors that increase aggression,
for instance exposure to vicious TV, computer games, or movies, additionally seem to
do so by cognitive effect (Huesmann & Bushman, 2009).
 Provocation: Provocation is a situation or an activity that potentially instigates an
aggressive reaction from the casualty. It might be conceptualized either as violation,
in which the individual is physically assaulted, verbally offended, or threatened in
which the individual is prevented from accomplishing a goal. Verbal or physical
provocation is one of the major causes of aggression. In this, individual have a
tendency to respond with slightly higher level of aggression that they get from others
(Benjamin, 2016).
 Frustration: It can be defined by obstruction in goal attainment. Many provocations
can be viewed as a sort of frustration in which an individual has been recognized as
responsible for the inability to achieve the goal. It can provoke aggression when the
basis of frustration is unjustified or unlawful.

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Theories of Aggression-
Frustration-Aggression Theory:
This theory is developed from the effort of Dollard et al. It hypothesized that
frustration was a vital antecedent of aggression, and that aggression was an unavoidable
consequence of frustration. According to Miller and Berkowitz, whether or not delivers a
forceful reaction depends upon several elements such as potential for discipline of aggressive
behavioural reactions. It is a conceivable response to frustration, enhanced by aggressive
signs.
This actually encourages a number of distinctive tendencies such as a tendency to
escape or to discover a way around the obstacle to attainment of goal. A predisposition that
eventually dominates is one of the most successful theories in reducing frustration
(Golsharifi, 2015).
Extinction Transfer Theory:
According to Zillmann, this theory suggests that psychological excitement dissipates
gradually. This theory proposes that arousal from one situation can be transferred to another
situation. If two arousing events are isolated by a short measure of time, arousal from the first
event might be misattributed to the second event. It also suggests that anger might be
continued over a long time if an individual has deliberately attributed or uplifted arousal to
anger.
Theories of
Aggression
Extinction
Transfer
theory
Social
Learning
theory
Social
Interaction
theory
Frustation-
Aggression
theory

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Social Learning Theory:
According to Bandura this theory of aggression, states that aggressive behaviour can
be learned either by direct experience or seeing someone else, behave aggressively, and by
following that individual’s behaviour. Aggression can be maintained if it is positively
reinforced; the response is supported and may be used against it. Reinforcement in one
situation can also intensify the likelihood in other situations. It clarifies the acquisition of
aggressive behaviour, by means of observational learning processes, and gives a suitable set
of ideas for understanding and portraying the convictions and expectations that guide social
conduct (Awang, Bidin, Omar & Latif, 2018).
Social Interaction Theory:
According to Felson this theory, illuminate aggressive behaviour as social influence
behaviour i.e., an actor utilizes forcible activities to deliver some changes in the target’s
behaviour. An actor acquire something of value (for e.g. money, administration, products,
security) to utilize coercive actions. The actor is a decision-maker whose decisions are
coordinated by the costs, expected rewards and likelihoods of obtaining diverse outcomes.
It provides an excellent way to comprehend recent findings that is frequently the
result of threats to high confidence.
Aggression Models-
 Cognitive Neoassociation Model:
Berkowitz proposes this model in 1993 which is planned to be a both a general
theory of feeling and a clarification of aggressive behaviour. This model suggests that
at whatever point an aversive stimulus is experienced, the individual naturally
encounters negative effect. This negative influence will trigger an assortment of lower
order associations and escape related inclinations. These inclinations include
aggression and escape related physiological responses, memories and thoughts.
In the event that aggression related inclinations are robust, the individual will
encounter rudimentary anger with respect of conscious and preconscious
responsiveness of these reactions. Thus, if escape related tendencies are powerful,
preconscious and conscious awareness with these responses will lead to rudimentary
fear experience. Fundamentally, it is not the familiarity of fear or anger that leads to
various escape related reactions or aggression, but instead it produce outrage
(Goldstein, 2012).
Depending upon the conditions, the individual may participate in higher order
cognitive processing with respect to outcomes of different courses of action, the
seriousness of the stimulus and the degree to which it is intentionally induced.
Berkowitz highlights that these higher order perceptions are not essential for

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aggression to occur. An individual can become aggressive without fascinating in
higher order cognitive processing. As such, aggressive behaviour does not need a
deliberative choice. In many instances, people may take part in aggressive behaviour
with no attention to why they are aggressing. This model is especially suited to clarify
hostile aggression; however, a similar spreading and priming activation processes are
also relevant to different types of aggression.
Fight Flight
(Krahé, 2013)
General Aggression model (GAM):
According to Anderson and Bushman, numerous input variables can influence the
probability of aggressive behaviour. Some are individual difference factors for e.g. attitude
towards violence and trait hostility. Others are situational factors for e.g. other pain and
weapons or the presence of guns. These inputs can influence aggressive behaviour through at
Unfriendly event (e.g., social
stress, frustration, pain
Adverse effect
Primitive associational responses
Aggression-related thoughts,
memories, and physiological
responses.
Escape-related thoughts,
memories, physiological
responses.
Rudimentary anger Rudimentary fear
Irritation and annoyance Fear

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least one of three routes: affect (expressive motor responses and hostile feelings), arousal
(perceived, physiological), and cognition (aggressive contents and hostile thoughts) (Pen,
2016).
Factors crossing these routes can affect an individual’s immediate appraisal of the
circumstance. This quick examination occurs automatically and incorporates an interpretation
of the situation (for e.g. malicious expectations of target person and the potential for harm)
and experience of affect and an interpretation (for e.g. outrage at target individual). Once a
quick appraisal of the situation has been made, reappraisal may happen. Reappraisal is a
conscious, effortful and an attentive process in which the individual considers additional
information concerning the circumstance, alternative social reactions to the situation,
practicality of the various alternatives, and results of carrying out the various alternative
social reactions. Since reappraisal is a rigorous procedure, it is attempted just when the
individual has adequate cognitive resources accessible. At the last stage in the model, the
individual settles on a decision to aggress or not to aggress (Bushman, Anderson & Allen,
2018).
This general model has four advantages over smaller area speculations. Firstly, it is
more economical than the set of existing normal speculations. Secondly, it better clarifies
aggressive acts that depend on multiple intentions, for e.g. both influence based and hostility
aggression. Thirdly, it will help in advancement of more comprehensive mediations designed
to treat who are constantly aggressive (Anderson & Bushman, 2018). GAM draws intensely
on recent work on the utilization of learning structures and improvement for decision-
making, perception, action, and interpretation.
Inputs
Routes
Outcomes
(Bushman & Anderson, 2002)
Person Situation
Social Encounter
Present Internal State:
Affect------Cognition-----Arousal
Appraisal and
Decision
Process
Thoughtful Action
Impulsive Action

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Critical Discussion:
In society, you will discover some individual more aggressive as compared to others,
with the levels varying in various social situations. Some situations provoke aggression in
individuals significantly more routinely, than others do. However, such situations do not give
rise to a similar level of aggressive behaviour in each individual. There are two main theories
that are critically evaluated i.e. Social learning theory and Frustration-Aggression theory.
The Social Learning theory of Bandura indicates the significance of modelling and
observing the state of mind, behaviour and emotional responses of others. This theory
recommends that for an individual to learn practices, which can only happen through direct
experience. The author argued that people, most probably children, learn aggressive reactions
from noticing others in various social influences, i.e. role models in their environment. Siegel
recommended that these reinforcements could be increased financial rewards, an ascent in
self-esteem or accepting recognition from other people assist this. Skinner suggested that
learning occurs through reinforcement, for e.g. an individual accomplishing what they want
through aggressive behaviour (Nydegger, 2018).
Frustration-Aggression theory does not generally prompt aggression, especially when
we deliberately suppress it on the grounds that it is not right or fear of social consequences,
for e.g. feedback from others, losing the friendship. Subsequently, it often displaces
aggression into other action, such as driving fast, sports etc. Zillmann argued that frustration
is not an adequate, but a necessary state for aggression and hostility. Since this theory decline
to stimulate different mechanisms for the decrease of such dissatisfaction and instigation that
drive the life for an uncertain period, until the point when forceful and hostile acts are
performed (Mummendey, 2012).
Conclusion:
In some ways, people are far more aggressive than other creatures depending upon the
various situations. All theories or models of aggression recommend that it is an important
part of human behaviour and experience. This relates to whether aggression is viewed as an
adaptive drive or as a versatile intuition that can facilitate survival of a person or social
group. There are certain threatening and provocative situations where many people will
probably respond aggressively. It does not generally reflect a hidden pathology and in few
circumstances, violent acts can be remunerated by positive societal recognition.
Consequently, other individual are likely to respond differently to people engaging in
similar kinds of behaviour, contingent on their perceived level of ability. Therefore, the ideal
way to reduce aggression is to dismiss revenge and striking back and to embrace love and
forgiveness.

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opinion in psychology, 19, 75-80
Anderson, C. A. & Bushman, B. J. (2018). Media Violence and the General Aggression
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Anderson, C., & Bushman, B. (2002) Human Aggression. Department of Psychology, 5, 27-
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Benjamin, AJ. (2016) Aggression. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264084403_Aggression#pf6
Brien, S., Tay, R. & Watson, B. (2004).Situational factors contributing to the expression of
aggression on the roads. IATSS Research, 28(1), 101-107
Bushman, B. & Huesmann, R. (2009) Aggression. Retrieved from:
http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/aggr/articles/Huesmann/2010.Bushman&Huesmann.A
ggression.HandbookSocial.pdf
Goldstein, A. (2012) The Ecology of Aggression. New York: Springer Science & Business
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or-something-which-we-learn/
Krahé, B. (2013). The Social Psychology of Aggression (2nd Ed.). New York: Psychology
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Principato, L. (2018). Factors and Behaviours Affecting Food Waste at Consumption Level:
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