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Aggression Questions:
1. Describe and evaluate social theories of aggression
One social theory that explains aggressive behaviour is the Social Learning Theory. The social
learning theory suggests that behaviour is learnt through observation/imitation and vicarious
reinforcement. It assumes that a person will observe a model and create a mental representation…

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groups of German school children playing handball. One team were playing in their own clothes,
whilst the other group were playing in orange clothes. The uniformed group showed more
aggressive behaviour than the other group. This study can be critiqued as it may have been
subjective at to what `aggressive…

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prisoners bringing in their traits and personalities from the outsides. The model believes that the
prisoners are not `black slates' and that this is why aggressive behaviour is shown. Normative states
from the real world are bought in from the prisoners and are continued in prison. This is supported

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aggression and androgens in prisoners. This is further supported by Dabbs who found that when
collecting testosterone levels from 692 prisoners, of those who had been involved with sex and
violence had higher testosterone levels than those criminals who had committed other crimes.

Additionally to this Vom Saal studied rats…

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studies are a good way of comparing the nature versus nurture. Monozygotic twins (MZ) have100%
identical genetics whereas dizygotic twins (DZ) only share up to 50% of the same genetics, hence
why using the results is a good comparison tool showing gripping evidence.
McGuffin did a study comparing MZ and…

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removed. The methodology of these studies can be critiqued due to observer bias as `aggressive
behaviour' is subjective and it could depend on the observer as to what defines as aggressive.

5. Describe and evaluate evolutionary explanations of human aggression

The evolutionary approach believes that aggression is innate from hunter-gatherer…

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Females also take part in aggressive behaviour but research has shown females are less physically
aggressive and show more passive aggression such as gossiping and ostracising in order to decrease
the attractiveness of another female. This would make the other female less likely to be closer as a
mate making…

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times. Even though the death rates in war are still high, as this aggressive behaviour is still happening
the cost must outweigh the benefits, therefore having some survival advantage. It is believed that
larger groups have a higher survival rate than smaller groups. Changon found that within the
Yanomamo tribes,…


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