Understanding Aggression: Social Learning and Deindividuation Theories

This essay provides a theoretical explanation of aggression, exploring two key perspectives: the Social Learning Theory and the Deindividuation Theory. The Social Learning Theory posits that individuals learn aggressive behaviors by observing and imitating role models, emphasizing the roles of attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation in this process. The essay highlights how children learn from their environment, including real-life situations and media influences. The Deindividuation Theory examines aggression within group settings, suggesting that individuals in crowds or groups may experience reduced self-awareness and responsibility, leading to increased aggression. Factors like environmental influences, alcohol/drug use, and anonymity are discussed as contributors to deindividuation. The essay concludes by summarizing the key concepts and implications of both theories, emphasizing that aggression is influenced by a combination of internal and external factors.

Theoretical Explanation of
aggression

 Introduction
 The social learning theory
 Deindividuation Theory
 Conclusion
 References
Table of Content

 It is vital to understand the meaning of term aggression. It can be defined
as a form of anti-social behaviour, which shows lack of emotional concern
for welfare of others.
 It is a cognitive, cultural process as well as biological response that affect
all the human beings (Allen and Anderson, 2017).
INTRODUCTION

 As per the theory and individual gets aggressive by imitating the role
models. It is clearly stated that observation learning is the reason behind
aggression in a person and the learning is reinforced vicariously. And it is
copied in the future.
 There are four meditational processes that take place during the copy of
observations that our attention retention reproduction as well as
motivation.
 Let's discuss them one by one in relation to attention it can be understood
by individual as they pay attention on the models aggressive behaviour.
 Individuals store and code the observed Behavior for longer duration of
time in the memory and then use them it is called retention.
The social learning theory

 They have taken the knowledge by observing others giving ideas from
behaviour that they perform along with that the locations and information
they are given so it is seen that all these things guide the behaviour in a
person.
 In regard with children it is seen that they learn aggressive responses by
seeing and observing others in the various social influences (Parrott and
Eckhardt, 2018). The children learn from real life situations along with that
what is going on in their surroundings and media they have access to.
 It is also observed that individuals that believe in aggression produce
reinforcement. This reinforcement help in gaining financial rewards in
raising the self esteem of a person as well as if other people support on the
same.
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 It is important to note that all the children look at the behaviour of their
surroundings and start learning from them. It is seen that the society in
whole impacts the behaviour and the students get to understand and imitate
them.
 It can be understood with help of an example as if a child sees that the
parents at aggressively and talk in an aggressive manner then there are full
chances that they will imitate the behaviour and will do the same. In this
regard bandura conducted various studies in relation with Bobo doll.
 However it is analysed that children one sees I think with attention and
understands it then they understand it and it comes in their behaviour.
Along with that it is seen that they retain it for longer duration of time and
even for always.
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 It is seen that they will learn no matter it is positive or negative from the
behaviour of others that they reinforce. The social learning theory suggests
that individuals learn by seeing the activities of others, according to this
theory. They next assess the impact of those behaviours by looking at the
positive and negative implications.
 Children social network members who use substances, according to social
learning theorists, serve as role models for them. Children are more likely
to develop favourable expectations of substance use if they perceive role
models, such as parents or friends, using substances with favourable
effects.
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 This theory is based on the behaviour of individual in the crowd. It is
evaluated that in crowd there are various people and their collective mind
so that irritates the humans and the irritation causes anger. The individual
loses temper when they get irritated.
 It is seen that the people have different behaviour that causes aggression
and behaviour of aggression (Marganski, and Melander, 2018). As they are
unable to understand each other and the thoughts are different.
 As per the theory it is said that the aggression in not always interpersonal
but it occurs due to the activity of others and that are outside the
individual.
Deindividuation Theory

 The main causes of the individualisation are due to environment in the
group and other factors. When people want reduction responsibility or
along with that they are altered by the use of drugs or alcohol the
behaviour changes (Brezina, 2017).
 In today's time aggression is seen as result of reduced inhibition among the
people due to drinking excessive alcohol or aggressive use of night clubs.
It is seen that the focus is on psychological process where the self
awareness is one of the main reason of the deindividuation is that is the
behaviour of individuals as well as norms.
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 They should try to decrease the factors and improve the self control. When
given the task of administering electric shocks to confederates,
deindividuated participants who focused on external attention signals
exhibited more aggressive behaviour by administering more painful shocks
than the control group (Fox, 2017).
 This is because the experimental group was forced to neglect their own
values and self-identity in favour of other things like loud music and video
games.
 As a result, rather than mere anonymity in a group, this supports the
premise that becoming less self-aware leads to deindividuation, which
leads to violence. So as per the theory it can be analysed that if a person
works in group or is part of crowd he is likely to be aggressive or violent.
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 Aggression causes various problems and harms the people so that they are
unable to work. It is observed that the causes of aggression lie inside as
well as outside.
 It is now seen that if people that hear loud music have more chances of
getting aggression. As they become violent and aggressive. It became vital
to know about these factors and then take actions. As the person that plays
more video games are also likely to be more aggressive. The main and
important point that is part of this theory is that the people are aggressive
when they work in crowd.
 The crowd is main reason because of which individuals turn aggressive
and lose self control and that causes problems (Hermann, and et.al., 2018).
According to the study, deindividuation or anonymity played a significant
role, because when one appears anonymous, they are more prone to act
aggressively than if their identity is readily known.
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 From the above presentation it is seen that aggression is an activity that
shows behaviour of a person in respect to that of others. It is caused due to
various triggers and frustration.
 It has impact on others as well. There are two theories that are discussed
that show the behaviour of people in aggression. The two theories of
aggression are the Social Learning Theory and the Deindividuation Theory
Conclusion