The Five Theories Of Aggression In Social Psychology

Aggression is a very highly researched area in Social Psychology, due to this it includes a variety of different theories that aim to explain what may cause an individual to behave in an aggressive manor. In this essay we will discuss the five main theories and approaches to aggression in Social Psychology, and aim to show a greater understanding of how these theories have influenced how Social Psychologists perceive aggressive behaviour, and what they can potentially do to reduce it in the future.

Human aggression is referred to by Psychologists as any act that’s purpose is to injure another individual, this can include both mental and physical forms of abuse (Baron and Richardson 1994). Due to this belief, it is said that causing accidental

This theory aims to show that once a script has been learned and well-rehearsed, they can be highly associated with memory and action plans, for example it is believed that if a child has witnessed several accounts of violence from a television show, they are likely to start to act on these behaviours themselves as they get older. The Excitation Transfer Theory was introduced by Zillmann 1983, he states that if two events that cause an individual to experience arousal happen in short period of time, the second event is likely to cause the individual to experience even more arousal, thus causing them to experience a high level of anger. This is likely to cause them to act on their aggression long after the arousing event has passed as their level of anger is likely to remain high for a prolonged period of time due to the second event taking place. The Social Aggression theory (Tedeschi & Felson 1994) influences the idea that aggressive behaviour is related to social influence (Anderson & Bushman 2002). They claim that aggressive behaviour is related to

GAM (General Aggression Model) focuses on three different stages in understanding human aggression, the person and the stimulation outputs, their current internal states, and the outcomes of their decision making process ( DeWall , Anderson & Bushman 2011) this theory is superior to all other theories as it provides a much deeper understanding of aggression. Although this theory is tested more in a laboratory environment, it can also be used in the real world. It is the only theory of aggression that combines all known contributors, such as personality development, biological factors, cognitive processes, social processes, short term and long term memory and decision making processes (DeWall, Anderson & Bushman 2011) In turn, this theory aims to show that it is the combination of all of these factors that contribute to the act of aggression, for example individual differences such as personality traits or genetic factors and factors that may involve the situation such as an individual experiencing frustration, can in turn lead to aggressive thoughts and feelings, these can then lead to aggressive behaviour (Sanderson, 2010). One way to potentially help to reduce aggressive behaviour, which is related to The General Aggression Model, is to learn to control anger, this can be done by learning how to control certain