Analysis Of Different Theoretical Perspectives On Aggression

This essay will discuss the concepts underlying two different theoretical perspectives on aggression – Berkowitz’s (1990, 1993, 2012) cognitive neoassociation model and Dollard et el (1939), Miller (1941) frustration-aggression hypothesis.

According to Dollard et el. (1939), the frustration-aggression hypothesis gives that frustration can always lead to aggressive behaviour, and the way that the feelings of frustration occurs is that there would be something in the way of achieving a goal. Buss (1963) tries to demonstrate this behaviour asking the question: Does magnitude of frustration determine aggression level? For this participants were asked to teach an experimental confederate to perform well on a cognitive task by delivering electric shocks whenever the confederate gave the incorrect response. Buss manipulated the drive strength towards feeling frustration towards the situation using 3 experimental groups where the learner would reach the learning criterion after 30 trials: Know-How Group – where the learner’s performance was based on the participants own abilities and intelligence; Money Group – the fastest teacher-learner pair were rewarded with money and the Grades group – where the learner’s performance had an impact on the teacher’s grade. And the last group was the control group where the learner should have reach the learning criterion after 65-75 trials. The aggression was measured through the intensity of the shocks delivered. So it links in with the frustration-aggression hypothesis in the sense that the participants goal to attain the learning criterion was blocked and the frustration should have came from the relative inability of the learner to learn what the concept was. However the findings showed that the different intensities of frustration didn’t necessarily lead to the different intensities of aggression. As there was only a slight increase in aggression in the experimental groups. Perhaps leading to the conclusion that it is not always frustration that leads to aggressive behaviour.

Which differs to Berkowitz (1990) model of cognitive neoassociation which presents that aggression activates through aversive stimuli, such as frustration, noise, provocation etc. This leads to a negative effect activating our cognitive processing, letting us know which response to take in flight or fight. From that first experience of an aversive event, we begin to associate our bodily functions, feelings, thoughts and memories to that event, meaning that whether we took the flight or fight response is how we will most likely act when presented with the aversive stimuli again at a later date. Berkowitz and LePage (1967) demonstrate this behaviour using the phenomenon ‘weapon effect,’ this is because merely seeing a weapon should active aggression as we create the association between aggression and weapons through the mass media, so a weapon becomes a cognitive cue for aggression.

Participants were paired up with a confederate to come up with ways to increase car sales and were asked to evaluate each other’s ideas by delivering between 1 and 10 electric shocks, where the participant was receiving the shocks of 1 being the non angered condition and 7 being the angered condition. Now to test for weapon effect, some participants found a gun on the desk where they could shock the confederate, with half in this condition being told that the weapon belonged to the participant and the rest of the participants didn’t find any weapons. Also and additional control condition was set up that some angered participants found a racquets instead of a gun. After the shocks were delivered by the confederate, it was the participants turn to ‘evaluate’ the confederates’ ideas and the number of delivered shocks served as an indicator of participants’ aggression.

The two studies above show the difference in the concepts of both the cognitive neoassociation model and frustration-aggression hypothesis, in the sense that they both shift focus of the cause of aggression to different stimuli. Frustration-aggression hypothesis focuses just on frustration and goal attainment as a cause for aggression whereas the cognitive neoassociation model, while encompassing he feeling of frustration, takes into account other factors above frustration that can cause aggression, circulating around aversive stimuli’s. This could also relate to the fact that the frustration-aggression hypothesis is more limiting in its explanation and the study showed there was only a slight increase in aggression, implying that frustration is not a strong motive to cause an increase in aggression at a significant level. Whereas the cognitive neoassociation model is particularly suited to explain hostile aggression but can also through its activation process be relevant to other types of aggression.