Case 2 aggression assessment
1. How can aggression be measured?
- Antisocial behaviour denotes
behaviour that violates social norms
of appropriate conduct. It is a
broader construct than aggression in
that it includes behaviours that are
not intended to harm other people,
such as vandalism or lying.
Coercion is defined as "an action
taken with the intention of imposing
harm on another person or forcing
compliance." Defined in this way,
coercion can be seen as a form of
instrumental aggression. Coercive
action can take the form of threats,
punishments, or bodily force, and it
is directed as much at gaining
compliance as at causing harm.
Coercion is seen as a form of social
influence, which highlights the
social nature of this type of behaviour and brings it conceptually closer to processes of
communication and interaction not previously examined in the context of aggression.
In contrast to antisocial behaviour and coercion, which are broader constructs than
aggression, the term violence is more narrow in meaning and is restricted to
behaviours carried out with the intention of causing serious harm that involve the use
or threat of physical force, such as hitting someone over the head, or taking another
person's life.
Observing aggressive behaviour in natural contexts
- information can be collected in an
unobtrusive way without people
realising that their behaviour is being
observed and recorded. the fact that
people are not made aware that they are
being observed and therefore have no
chance to opt out poses particularly
strict ethical constraints on this type of
method. Observational measures in
natural contexts mainly come in two
forms: naturalistic observation in which
the researcher records behaviour as it
unfolds naturally without manipulating the situation in any way, and field experiments
that involve a systematic yet unobtrusive manipulation of certain variables to observe
the effects of that manipulation on the likelihood of aggressive behaviour.
- Naturalistic observation: One aim of observation in natural contexts is to obtain a
picture of the various forms of aggression in a particular setting, and the frequency
with which they occur. In this type of research, the natural flow of behaviour is first
recorded, then broken down into more fine-gained units of analysis, and finally
assigned to the pre-defined categories.
1
, - Field experiments: directed at exploiting inconspicuous everyday situations to
examine the link between certain antecedent conditions and subsequent aggressive
responses. field experiments involve the unobtrusive variation of one or more
variables in order to assess their impact on aggressive behaviour as the dependent
variable. Despite their advantages in terms of allowing the analysis of naturally
occurring behaviour uncontaminated by social desirability concerns, many additional
variables may operate in field situations which are not under the experimenter's
control. In addition, a key feature of experimental research, namely the random
allocation of participants to experimental conditions, is often not possible in natural
contexts without making people aware that they are part of an experiment. Uniform
children were more aggressive than children wearing their own clothes because they
were less recognizable.
Observing aggressive behaviour in the laboratory
- In this setting, situations can be created by the investigator to meet three essential
criteria: (1) that respondents are exposed to an experimental manipulation aimed at
influencing their aggressive response tendencies (2) that they can be randomly
assigned to the experimental and control conditions (3) that many factors which might
influence participants' behaviour over and above the experimental treatment can be
controlled.
- The teacher-learner paradigm. This paradigm uses the set-up of an alleged learning
experiment in which one person adopts the role of a teacher and presents a word
association learning task to another person, the learner. In the first round, pairs of
words are presented to the learner. In the second round, only the first word of each
pair is presented, and the learner has to correctly remember the second word of the
pair. Errors made by the learner are punished by the teacher through administering
aversive stimuli. Unbeknownst to the participants, assignment to the two roles is
rigged so that the participant always ends up as the teacher, and the learner is a
confederate of the experimenter. The participant's choice of punishment intensity
represents the measure of aggressive behaviour. In the original version of this
paradigm, punishments are delivered in the form of electric shocks, the strength of
which is determined by the teacher. Buss developed an "aggression machine" that
enabled respondents to choose the intensity and the duration of electric shocks which
they thought would be delivered to the learner whenever he made a mistake. In later
studies, electric shocks were replaced by outer aversive stimuli, such as loud noise or
air blasts to the throat, and the intensity and duration chosen by the participant were
used as measures of aggressive behaviour. a criticism of the teacher-learner paradigm
has been that if they accept the cover story, participants may be motivated by prosocial
concerns in that they want to help the alleged learner to improve his task performance,
rather than show aggressive behaviour. In addition, it can only measure
proactive/unprovoked aggression, as the learner has no opportunity to revenge.
- essay evaluation paradigm. in this paradigm, the aggressive behaviour consists of
delivering negative evaluations of an essay purportedly written by the target person.
Participants are told that they are to provide a written solution to a problem-solving
task which will then be evaluated by a fellow participant, who is in fact a confederate
of the experimenter. They are also informed that the evaluation will be expressed in
terms of the number of electric shocks delivered by the evaluator, with one shock
indicating the best possible and ten shocks indicating the worst possible evaluation.
Irrespective of the quality of their solution, participants then receive either few or
many shocks, depending on whether they are in the provocation or control condition.
In the second and main phase of the experiment, the roles are reversed and the
2
1. How can aggression be measured?
- Antisocial behaviour denotes
behaviour that violates social norms
of appropriate conduct. It is a
broader construct than aggression in
that it includes behaviours that are
not intended to harm other people,
such as vandalism or lying.
Coercion is defined as "an action
taken with the intention of imposing
harm on another person or forcing
compliance." Defined in this way,
coercion can be seen as a form of
instrumental aggression. Coercive
action can take the form of threats,
punishments, or bodily force, and it
is directed as much at gaining
compliance as at causing harm.
Coercion is seen as a form of social
influence, which highlights the
social nature of this type of behaviour and brings it conceptually closer to processes of
communication and interaction not previously examined in the context of aggression.
In contrast to antisocial behaviour and coercion, which are broader constructs than
aggression, the term violence is more narrow in meaning and is restricted to
behaviours carried out with the intention of causing serious harm that involve the use
or threat of physical force, such as hitting someone over the head, or taking another
person's life.
Observing aggressive behaviour in natural contexts
- information can be collected in an
unobtrusive way without people
realising that their behaviour is being
observed and recorded. the fact that
people are not made aware that they are
being observed and therefore have no
chance to opt out poses particularly
strict ethical constraints on this type of
method. Observational measures in
natural contexts mainly come in two
forms: naturalistic observation in which
the researcher records behaviour as it
unfolds naturally without manipulating the situation in any way, and field experiments
that involve a systematic yet unobtrusive manipulation of certain variables to observe
the effects of that manipulation on the likelihood of aggressive behaviour.
- Naturalistic observation: One aim of observation in natural contexts is to obtain a
picture of the various forms of aggression in a particular setting, and the frequency
with which they occur. In this type of research, the natural flow of behaviour is first
recorded, then broken down into more fine-gained units of analysis, and finally
assigned to the pre-defined categories.
1
, - Field experiments: directed at exploiting inconspicuous everyday situations to
examine the link between certain antecedent conditions and subsequent aggressive
responses. field experiments involve the unobtrusive variation of one or more
variables in order to assess their impact on aggressive behaviour as the dependent
variable. Despite their advantages in terms of allowing the analysis of naturally
occurring behaviour uncontaminated by social desirability concerns, many additional
variables may operate in field situations which are not under the experimenter's
control. In addition, a key feature of experimental research, namely the random
allocation of participants to experimental conditions, is often not possible in natural
contexts without making people aware that they are part of an experiment. Uniform
children were more aggressive than children wearing their own clothes because they
were less recognizable.
Observing aggressive behaviour in the laboratory
- In this setting, situations can be created by the investigator to meet three essential
criteria: (1) that respondents are exposed to an experimental manipulation aimed at
influencing their aggressive response tendencies (2) that they can be randomly
assigned to the experimental and control conditions (3) that many factors which might
influence participants' behaviour over and above the experimental treatment can be
controlled.
- The teacher-learner paradigm. This paradigm uses the set-up of an alleged learning
experiment in which one person adopts the role of a teacher and presents a word
association learning task to another person, the learner. In the first round, pairs of
words are presented to the learner. In the second round, only the first word of each
pair is presented, and the learner has to correctly remember the second word of the
pair. Errors made by the learner are punished by the teacher through administering
aversive stimuli. Unbeknownst to the participants, assignment to the two roles is
rigged so that the participant always ends up as the teacher, and the learner is a
confederate of the experimenter. The participant's choice of punishment intensity
represents the measure of aggressive behaviour. In the original version of this
paradigm, punishments are delivered in the form of electric shocks, the strength of
which is determined by the teacher. Buss developed an "aggression machine" that
enabled respondents to choose the intensity and the duration of electric shocks which
they thought would be delivered to the learner whenever he made a mistake. In later
studies, electric shocks were replaced by outer aversive stimuli, such as loud noise or
air blasts to the throat, and the intensity and duration chosen by the participant were
used as measures of aggressive behaviour. a criticism of the teacher-learner paradigm
has been that if they accept the cover story, participants may be motivated by prosocial
concerns in that they want to help the alleged learner to improve his task performance,
rather than show aggressive behaviour. In addition, it can only measure
proactive/unprovoked aggression, as the learner has no opportunity to revenge.
- essay evaluation paradigm. in this paradigm, the aggressive behaviour consists of
delivering negative evaluations of an essay purportedly written by the target person.
Participants are told that they are to provide a written solution to a problem-solving
task which will then be evaluated by a fellow participant, who is in fact a confederate
of the experimenter. They are also informed that the evaluation will be expressed in
terms of the number of electric shocks delivered by the evaluator, with one shock
indicating the best possible and ten shocks indicating the worst possible evaluation.
Irrespective of the quality of their solution, participants then receive either few or
many shocks, depending on whether they are in the provocation or control condition.
In the second and main phase of the experiment, the roles are reversed and the
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