Most researchers on media and aggression have examined the behavioral effects of viewing physical aggression in the media. Conversely, in the current study, I examined longitudinal associations ...between viewing relational aggression on TV and subsequent aggressive behavior. Participants included 467 adolescents who completed a number of different questionnaires involving media and aggression at 3 different time points. Results revealed that viewing relational aggression on TV was longitudinally associated with future relational aggression. However, early levels of relational aggression did not predict future exposure to televised relational aggression. Conversely, there was a bidirectional relationship between TV violence and physical aggression over time. No longitudinal evidence was found for a general effect of viewing TV, as all significant media effects were specific to the type of aggression viewed. These results support the general aggression model and suggest that viewing relational aggression in the media can have a long-term effect on aggressive behavior during adolescence.
Assumptions regarding the importance of empathy are pervasive. Given the impact these assumptions have on research, assessment, and treatment, it is imperative to know whether they are valid. Of ...particular interest is a basic question: Are deficits in empathy associated with aggressive behavior? Previous attempts to review the relation between empathy and aggression yielded inconsistent results and generally included a small number of studies. To clarify these divergent findings, we comprehensively reviewed the relation of empathy to aggression in adults, including community, student, and criminal samples. A mixed effects meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies involving 106 effect sizes revealed that the relation between empathy and aggression was surprisingly weak (r = −.11). This finding was fairly consistent across specific types of aggression, including verbal aggression (r = −.20), physical aggression (r = −.12), and sexual aggression (r = −.09). Several potentially important moderators were examined, although they had little impact on the total effect size. The results of this study are particularly surprising given that empathy is a core component of many treatments for aggressive offenders and that most psychological disorders of aggression include diagnostic criteria specific to deficient empathic responding. We discuss broad conclusions, consider implications for theory, and address current limitations in the field, such as reliance on a small number of self-report measures of empathy. We highlight the need for diversity in measurement and suggest a new operationalization of empathy that may allow it to synchronize with contemporary thinking regarding its role in aggressive behavior.
► Reactive relational aggression was associated with increases in peer rejection. ► Proactive relational aggression was associated with decreases in peer rejection. ► Proactive relational aggression ...predicted increases in emotion regulation skills. ► Reactive relational aggression tended to predict decreases in emotion regulation skills. ► Anger was significantly associated with increases in several subtypes of aggression.
The central goal of this study was to examine the prospective associations between forms (i.e., physical and relational) and functions (i.e., proactive and reactive) of aggressive behavior with social (i.e., peer rejection) and affective (i.e., anger, emotion regulation skills) processes during early childhood (N=96, mean age=42.80 months, SD=7.57). A cross-lagged path analysis revealed that proactive relational aggression was uniquely associated with decreases in peer rejection, whereas reactive relational aggression was associated with increases in peer rejection over time. Proactive relational aggression predicted decreases in anger, whereas reactive relational aggression tended to be associated with increases in anger. Proactive relational aggression uniquely predicted increases in emotion regulation skills, whereas reactive relational aggression tended to be associated with decreases in emotion regulation skills over time. Finally, anger was significantly associated with increases in several subtypes of aggressive behavior. In sum, the findings provide further support for the distinction between subtypes of aggressive behavior in young children.
Summary
Intimate partner aggression (IPA) is a social issue that affects the workplace. While IPA has been relatively ignored by management scholars due to notions that it is a private domestic ...matter, recent research offers mounting evidence of its spillover effects at work, including consequences for victims, perpetrators, coworkers, and organizations. To date, scholarly research on IPA and work has been impeded because existing research is scattered across disciplines with differing conceptualizations and emphasis. This integrative review aims to clarify the constructs of IPA and work‐related IPA (WIPA), summarize existing IPA and work research, integrate prior studies to offer a nomological network of antecedents and consequences of IPA victimization and perpetration, and propose specific recommendations that can further stimulate scholarly attention on this important research area.
Psychopathy is a multifaceted construct that has been linked to aggression. Yet, few studies have explored the association between physical, verbal, and indirect aggression using the 4‐facet model of ...psychopathy in community samples, and to date, no studies exist that test for male and female differences. The present study aimed to understand what facets of psychopathy predict aggressive behavior for men and women, while controlling for important risk factors, such as Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). Drawing from a large Bulgarian community sample (N = 565), a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the use of the 4‐facet model of the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV; Hart et al., ). Hierarchical linear regressions revealed that physical aggression was predicted by affective and antisocial psychopathic traits, and ASPD. Verbal aggression was predicted by the interpersonal facet, and indirect aggression was predicted by the antisocial psychopathy facet and ASPD. Sex significantly moderated the associations among facets of psychopathy and physical and indirect aggression. Specifically, the affective facet was positively associated with physical aggression only for women, whereas the antisocial facet was positively associated with indirect aggression only for men. Results suggest that the 4‐facet model of psychopathy is sensitive to capture important similarities and differences between males and females when predicting forms of aggression in community samples. These findings underscore the importance of understanding how men and women differ in their risk‐factors for aggressive behavior, which will better inform violence interventions based on sex‐specific needs.
Two types of aggression in human evolution Wrangham, Richard W.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
01/2018, Letnik:
115, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Two major types of aggression, proactive and reactive, are associated with contrasting expression, eliciting factors, neural pathways, development, and function. The distinction is useful for ...understanding the nature and evolution of human aggression. Compared with many primates, humans have a high propensity for proactive aggression, a trait shared with chimpanzees but not bonobos. By contrast, humans have a low propensity for reactive aggression compared with chimpanzees, and in this respect humans are more bonobo-like. The bimodal classification of human aggression helps solve two important puzzles. First, a long-standing debate about the significance of aggression in human nature is misconceived, because both positions are partly correct. The Hobbes–Huxley position rightly recognizes the high potential for proactive violence, while the Rousseau–Kropotkin position correctly notes the low frequency of reactive aggression. Second, the occurrence of two major types of human aggression solves the execution paradox, concerned with the hypothesized effects of capital punishment on self-domestication in the Pleistocene. The puzzle is that the propensity for aggressive behavior was supposedly reduced as a result of being selected against by capital punishment, but capital punishment is itself an aggressive behavior. Since the aggression used by executioners is proactive, the execution paradox is solved to the extent that the aggressive behavior of which victims were accused was frequently reactive, as has been reported. Both types of killing are important in humans, although proactive killing appears to be typically more frequent in war. The biology of proactive aggression is less well known and merits increased attention.
In contrast to male rats, aggression in virgin female rats has been rarely studied. Here, we established a rat model of enhanced aggression in females using a combination of social isolation and ...aggression-training to specifically investigate the involvement of the oxytocin (OXT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) systems within the lateral septum (LS). Using neuropharmacological, optogenetic, chemogenetic as well as microdialysis approaches, we revealed that enhanced OXT release within the ventral LS (vLS), combined with reduced AVP release within the dorsal LS (dLS), is required for aggression in female rats. Accordingly, increased activity of putative OXT receptor-positive neurons in the vLS, and decreased activity of putative AVP receptor-positive neurons in the dLS, are likely to underly aggression in female rats. Finally, in vitro activation of OXT receptors in the vLS increased tonic GABAergic inhibition of dLS neurons. Overall, our data suggest a model showing that septal release of OXT and AVP differentially affects aggression in females by modulating the inhibitory tone within LS sub-networks.
Humans are simultaneously exceptionally peaceful and exceptionally violent (the peace–violence paradox).We discuss a social evolutionary theory of human aggression to resolve this paradox. The human ...aggression profile combines low propensities for reactive aggression with high propensities for proactive aggression (especially coalitionary proactive aggression).Socio-cognitive advances in the mid-Pleistocene are hypothesised to have enabled lower-ranking males to form alliances that effectively controlled coercive alpha males, driving selection against reactive aggression and coercive behaviour and for proactive aggression (especially coalitionary proactive aggression).Diverse social signalling molecules are associated with human reactive and proactive aggression, including steroids (testosterone, cortisol), neuropeptides (oxytocin, vasopressin), and monoamines (serotonin, dopamine).
Humans present a behavioural paradox: they are peaceful in many circumstances, but they are also violent and kill conspecifics at high rates. We describe a social evolutionary theory to resolve this paradox. The theory interprets human aggression as a combination of low propensities for reactive aggression and coercive behaviour and high propensities for some forms of proactive aggression (especially coalitionary proactive aggression). These tendencies are associated with the evolution of groupishness, self-domestication, and social norms. This human aggression profile is expected to demand substantial plasticity in the evolved biological mechanisms responsible for aggression. We discuss the contributions of various social signalling molecules (testosterone, cortisol, oxytocin, vasopressin, serotonin, and dopamine) as the neuroendocrine foundation conferring such plasticity.
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