aggression theories
Social Psychology Assignment one
Word count
2474
Critically evaluate two theories of Aggression. Which do you think most successfully explains behaviour? Use relevant research to support your answer.
The two theories I have chosen are the Frustration theory created in 1939 “Frustration-Aggression hypothesis is a theory of aggression proposed by Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer and Sears” (Weinberg et al 2007,p537)
And Social Learning theory “social learning hypothesis was developed mainly by Bandura and Walters”(Hill.G 2001, p74)
I chose these because they are very dissimilar and attempt to understand aggression from two completely different out looks.
Frustration Theory
This theory says that when a person becomes frustrated they will also become aggressive whether this aggression is Hostile Aggression, Reactive Aggression or Instrumental Aggression. It says that frustration will always lead to some from of aggression. A real life example of this would be missing the bus; this would cause you to feel frustrated, the result would be a form of aggressive behaviour for example snapping at a colleague at work.
The first critique I would have for this theory would be, does frustration always lead to aggression? Is it not possible to calm yourself down and relieve the frustration without the result being aggression? This is one of the disputes that other psychologists have argued and presented their own theories for example “Buss 1997 frustration must involve the element of attack” (http://rechten.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/Algemeen/overigepublicaties/2005enouder/A-FAT/A-FAT.pdf 01/02/11 this showed that a person can become frustrated with out it leading to an aggressive act however if the person feels attacked or threatened they will always become aggressive, this may be obvious aggression in the form of violence, or verbal attack or it may be passive aggression, which is less obvious and may show up at a
Word count
2474
Critically evaluate two theories of Aggression. Which do you think most successfully explains behaviour? Use relevant research to support your answer.
The two theories I have chosen are the Frustration theory created in 1939 “Frustration-Aggression hypothesis is a theory of aggression proposed by Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer and Sears” (Weinberg et al 2007,p537)
And Social Learning theory “social learning hypothesis was developed mainly by Bandura and Walters”(Hill.G 2001, p74)
I chose these because they are very dissimilar and attempt to understand aggression from two completely different out looks.
Frustration Theory
This theory says that when a person becomes frustrated they will also become aggressive whether this aggression is Hostile Aggression, Reactive Aggression or Instrumental Aggression. It says that frustration will always lead to some from of aggression. A real life example of this would be missing the bus; this would cause you to feel frustrated, the result would be a form of aggressive behaviour for example snapping at a colleague at work.
The first critique I would have for this theory would be, does frustration always lead to aggression? Is it not possible to calm yourself down and relieve the frustration without the result being aggression? This is one of the disputes that other psychologists have argued and presented their own theories for example “Buss 1997 frustration must involve the element of attack” (http://rechten.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/Algemeen/overigepublicaties/2005enouder/A-FAT/A-FAT.pdf 01/02/11 this showed that a person can become frustrated with out it leading to an aggressive act however if the person feels attacked or threatened they will always become aggressive, this may be obvious aggression in the form of violence, or verbal attack or it may be passive aggression, which is less obvious and may show up at a