Discuss two psychological theories of aggression (24mrks)

Aggression can be defined as a range of behaviours that cause harm to someone or something through verbal or physical actions. Bandura (1963) formed the Social Learning Theory as an extension of the traditional Learning Theory to explain these behaviours. Learning theory suggests that we learn by direct experience but Social learning theory claims that we learn by the example of a model (people around us). In recognition of cognitive factors a series of stages are considered, for example, Attention must be paid.

There are also key principles as the individual must form a mental representation. This means they will remember the incident in order to apply it only in similar events with appropriate rewards. This does not mean they will immediately repeat the behaviour, especially after observing significant consequences. Production of behaviour must also be considered as they will only repeat the behaviour if it is maintained by direct experience. If mental representations are successfully formed and they repeat the behaviour to experience punishments, the behaviour will not continue.

Bandura supported this theory with evidence from the Bobo Doll study. He studied children between the ages of three and five to test the influence of models and found that when children in the first condition were shown an adult model acting violently towards the Bobo Doll they were far more likely to repeat the behaviour than the children in the condition where they observed the model that ignored the doll. 70% of children in the non-violent condition showed zero levels of violence, which suggests that the children imitated the behaviour of the model. This supports the Social Learning Theory as the results show that the impact of an aggressive model produces a higher level of aggression in the children.

However it has been debated that the results lack ecological validity. The Bobo Doll is a toy that was designed to be hit and therefore the children may have been acting under demand characteristics as they thought this behaviour was expected of them. As a reverse statistic 30% of children in the non-violent condition still expressed aggressive behaviour, a significant amount. This devalues the evidence to support Social Learning Theory, suggesting that aggressive behaviours may not purely be caused by the example of a model.

A second theory of aggression is the Deindividuation. Zimbardo suggested that individuals act with aggression when their identity is hidden as this allows them to act outside the consequences of moral standards. Three contributing factors of this are the influences of: being in a crowd, in an altered state of consciousness and wearing a uniform or disguise. Prentice-Dunn and Rogers separated self-awareness into two types: public self-awareness in which people were concerned about their image and impact on others and private self-awareness in which people consider their own thoughts and feelings.

Watson supported this theory with his cross-cultural studies of 23 societies and their warriors. He found that when going to war, warriors who disguised themselves with tribal paint and masks acted with more violence towards their victims than those who fought without disguise. Without disguise only 1/8 tribe members were very violent, with disguises12/15 members of the tribe were very violent. This supports the Deindividuation theory as the tribe with a disguise to cover their identities acted far more aggressively than those without, as suggested directly by the contributing factors.

However there are issues with this study as it could be suggested that this theory is gender biased. Watson only considered men in his study and Cannavale et al (1970) found that females responded differently under deindividuation and increased levels of aggression were only found in men. This suggests that deindividuation only encourages aggression in men. Therefore it can also be argued that deindividuation is not the cause of aggression as not everyone acts aggressively when their identity is hidden. 

Furthermore neither theory recognises the impact of other approaches on aggressive behaviours. The Biological Approach would argue that hormones have a higher impact on aggression than models or identity as high levels of testosterone cause aggressive behaviours. This suggests that the Social Learning Theory and Deindividuation Theory are not correct when describing the cause of aggressive behaviour.

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