What is social psychology - Essay Example

What is social psychology Social psychology deals usually with the role that social life plays upon human reactions. There are three basic types of responses or reactions in human societal behavior when exposed to something that opposes their comfort, i.e. aggressiveness, compliance and avoidance (Boeree, 1999) . Each one of these reactions are in response to the person's perception of the self vis--vis the world. When there was once upon a time a simple definition to psychology in terms of stimuli (outside environment) and reaction (from self), today it is accepted that psychology or rather social psychology is a process rather than a theory. This is a process of constant learning and change. There is an added dimension to the fact that an abstract angle has entered into the definition. Social psychology also involves anticipation, based on the interpretation that the self brings to the events that happen in the world around its person. That interpretation may be right or wrong - the definitions of right and wrong themselves being relative. It should be rather termed as real on unreal. Depending upon the amount of distortion of the events themselves the person will respond with a type of adaptation. It has to respond in some way because human are living organisms and need to constantly interact with their environment. That adaptation response again depends upon a number of external and internal factors such as biological or as it is termed today genetical, ethological and comparative. In other words adaptation can also be termed as learning; meaning that interpretation of the facts totally impacts the outcome of the human behavior; the outcome always being connected to the actual meaning of the environment and self. The study of this behavior and resulting experience is termed as social psychology. As mentioned above there are three types of responses to the external environment, aggressiveness compliance and avoidance. This article will look into the aspects that define aggressiveness. What is aggression Human aggression is any behavior directed toward another individual that is carried out with the proximate (immediate) intent to cause harm. In addition, the perpetrator must believe that the behavior will harm the target, and that the target is motivated to avoid the behavior (Anderson and Bushman, 2002). It is important here to understand the difference between aggression and harm. Aggression is an intended action meaning to harm, while harm is actually what happens as a result of aggression. Harm can also happen by accident when it was not intended, and it was not planned. In other words, aggression can be termed as forcefully imposing one's behavior on another upon finding some amount of resistance in providing the result the aggressor expects. Aggression develops into violence when, it "..has extreme harm as its goal (e.g. death)." (Anderson and Bushman, 2002). The terms aggression and violence are not interchangeable even though they are more or less indicating direct and willed harm. "All violence is aggression" says Anderson and Bushman (2002), "but many instances of aggression are not violent." Like wife beating or rape is violent, while berating wife or molestation are aggression. Aggression or expression of aggression is also not always negative or taken as negative by the society at large. For example wife-beating in the civilized world is definitely considered as aggression, labeled as criminal and punishable under the purview of the law. However, in may primitive African and Asian countries it is the prerogative of the husband to see that his wife "behaves" and he is appreciated by the society that he is able to be "a man". Aggression as per the definition is more described as physical and primitive behavior. Words associated with aggression would be brutal, cavemanship, cruel, primitive and so on. The modern world has added new terms to the aggression terms once known, i.e. lawsuits, computer warfare, and so on which have as devastating effects but maybe not as bloody, as primitive aggression. There are two schools of thought of on the aspect of aggression. The first is that aggression is a natural human trait which manifests itself spontaneously just as humans need to eat, or sleep, or have sex. The second school of thought states that aggression is totally or in massive amount the result of a number of external factors such as experience, environment and internal state of mind - and hence it is nurtured not natural. Is aggression a natural train or an acquired trait Dollard was of the opinion that, 'One of the earliest lessons human beings learn as a result of social living is to suppress and restrain their overtly aggressive reactions... although these reactions may be temporarily compressed, delayed, disguised, displaced, or otherwise deflected from their immediate and logical goal, they are not destroyed' (Dollard et al, 1939) which directly imply that aggression is as natural as drinking water. As aggression is expressed on application of certain stimuli - whether internal or external - it remains to be seen whether aggression is the creation of these stimuli or it is released because of the stimuli. Many leading psychologists agree that aggression is indeed natural and it is expressed adequately when provided with the appropriate triggers (Stainton Rogers 1995). On the other hand the guru of psychology, Freud believed that aggression is the combined result of our internal conflicts and external experiences. According to Freud there are two main focus points in the life of a human, i.e. the libido or the pleasure centre which motivates the positive behavior of man, and the thantos or the destructive focus of the human, out of which negative behavior is propagated. According to Freud this negative destructive trait is ordinarily pushed outward away from self. This trait spontaneously caused by frustration, rises when any obstruction is found in the path of achieving pleasure or when it obstructs alleviation of pain. The negative impact that the death instinct has on the individual and which is inbuilt in his gene, is turned externally and results in aggression (Dollard et al 1939). Freud's theory has been supported the world over and is widely accepted as the closest explanation for aggression and violence manifestations in human behavior. However, it is to be observed that Freud's theory has not taken into consideration the society around the human being neither did it allude to any societal interaction. Hence, Freud's theory mainly supports the assumption that aggression is an intrinsic trait that results from one's personality and not from the external stimuli. In other words, when we look at the Freudian theory, if human could achieve what they wanted and be able to satisfy all their perceived needs and thereby avoid frustration, there will be no aggression on their part. This means clearly that human beings are not actually naturally aggressive but are made so by different imbalances created between their expectations and results. Dollard on the other hand has shown in many studies that children learn extremely early in their childhood to suppress and limit aggressive behavior (Dollard et al 1939). Since this behavior is expressed extremely early in the childhood, it is aptly surmised that this trait takes roots right at birth or even before. There are a number of inconclusive studies where it was found that unborn babies who share the womb show aggressive behavior towards one another even as 5-6 months fetuses. In the same line the children are taught right from the start by the parents the limits of aggression that are permissible and/or tolerable. Hence, humans learn very early the norms of the society and how to live in a civilized world, which mainly involves control of unacceptable behavior. The unacceptable behavior is generally any act of aggression which go beyond the permissible limits set first by the parents and then by the law in the society. There are studies which go to contest this theory, on the pretext that not all people react in the same manner to the different levels of frustration; and hence not all frustration results in aggression. Berkowitz (1993) had brought in a new aspect into this theory based on this belief. He stated that indeed people react differently in the face of frustration. People may turn the frustration into suppressed emotional reaction which in turn will manifest itself as anger. The internalized anger creates pain which find its way out from the system in aggression. In this manner a chain of reaction is created, where frustration causes anger, anger fueled by the right amount of environmental stimuli is transformed into aggressive behavior. Here, though the external factors have been taken into consideration, it is not clear how far societal norms play in the chain of reaction. It is not know what exact role the society can play on this factor. However, it is very clear that frustration on its own can be a reaction coming from an imbalance between the society and the human being. The question here is whether there would be people who would be able to totally control their frustration and not get into the chain of events which turns it into aggression. Both Dollard at al (1939) and Berkowitz (1993) theories ignore completely the differences that exist between each human and attributes aggression to their own interpretations of facts and feelings. Social psychology on the other hand claims that aggression comes from the experiences that impact the human beings in their lives and the social interaction they have, though individualism plays an important role here as well. There are many external factors that have been proved to be triggers for aggression. These can be visual, audio or physical. In the visual example people who were exposed to violent movies tended to be more reactive and showed higher levels of aggression. Similarly when the violence was shown to children, they too tended to react aggressively. The same happened when they heard continuously abusive language - not necessarily targeted at them; and the same is repeated when the children or adults were exposed to physical abuse. It is not correct to infer here that all behavior is hence a result to some external stimuli because that would mean that without any external stimuli behavior of humans would be controlled. In theory this can be explained as a psychological process, but if all the behavior of man would be directly the result of some external event, then man actually has no control uver himself and no choice and no responsibility. This is definitely not the case. Humans do know the limits of permissible aggression, they do know their responsibility and expectation that the society places on them as part of a cohesive group; hence aggression cannot be interpreted as a mechanical reaction to stimuli. It is true however that all aggression is a result of some type of lack of control upon own reactions and is accepted as such by the society as well. Humans however are very complex in mind and because of this have a fall back system which prevents overt aggression in normal circumstances. The fall back system is the person's conscience and the knowledge of the consequences of his action. The control comes both from acceptance of the society as well as the use of hi free will. Going back to the Freudian theory, it is supposed that there is an underlying predisposition in each human being, right from the childhood, which conditions him (her) to be aggressive or not aggressive in the future. That means it is first of all a natural instinct. This predisposition or personality partially stems from genetic make up of the human being and partially from very early emotional stimulus and experiences. If the early process is skewed in any way, then the social behavior of the child will also be wrong according to whatever amount of deviation he experiences. It is in another words a failure to connect between the pleasure and reality principles. From these theories came the claim that aggression was indeed the result of a intrinsic need for survival whether in a society or in jungle the basic instinct remains the same: survival of the fittest. The fittest is known by his show of power. The show of power comes from aggression. There is a continuous building up of aggression in a person's psyche and that needs to be released from time to time in a safe way. As Dollard et al (1939) says aggression can be defined as an obstacle to a goal which results into frustration, which in turn results into aggressive behavior. Not only that, but also a frustrating situation can be the trigger for a potential aggression or violence. The same frustration can cause the aggression potential indirectly through internal emotional upheaval which would be channelised through anger in the event when a proper trigger is offered. None of the theories really can explain in full the reason for aggressive behavior in clear and concise terms. There are many theories which refer deprivation and separation from maternal affection as a potentiality for aggression. This can be a factor but definitely not the only influencing factor in developing aggression. There are learning theories cover more ground than other theories. This theory deals with behavior than can be learned and reinforced by rewards. The rewards bring a lot of pleasure and hence negative behavior is slowly decreased and aggression is eliminated. This theory says that behavior will be determined by the consequence with which it is met. The other face to this is the punishment of bad behavior which will again tend to decrease it since it is not a pleasurable consequence. However, repeated punishment will actually lead to increased aggression in the long run since it causes a high level of frustration on the victim. It is also shown that aggression is easily replicated and children whose parents were violent and aggressive tend to be violent and aggressive themselves. This is called operant learning. This is different from the normal psychoanalytic theories in the fact that it recognizes the determinants of behavior - rewards or punishment - externally. The theory however, keeps in focus the feelings of the person but allots higher importance on the external factors. There are drastic clashes between the social theories and other theories which imply that aggressions are genetic and an inbuilt trait. Social learning acknowledges fully external factors in development of aggression as well as its control through the application of the principles of operant learning whereby external controls such as reward and punishment play a very important role in the development of the end-product personality of the human being. Bandura (1977) also accepted that aggression can be learned and stated that the aggressiveness comes from three main sources, i.e. first and foremost from family or the contact the human being has very early in his life, second is the surrounding culture and beliefs and that include books, media, TV, etc and the third one is the peer group with whom the person is moving. In this way, criminal behavior can be inculcated. Social learning theory emerged as the most comprehensive theory for explaining behavior, especially aggressive and criminally violent behavior. The theory is applicable in all diversifications of psychology when it comes to behavior. The limitation of this theory is that is cannot assess or predetermine whether behavior is positivist or classical, i.e. based on environmental factors or free will respectively. It is not possible to fully apply this theory on the role of the inner feelings as it impacts behavior with or without external factors. There are a few more factors which result in aggression. These are failure to feel empathy, not being able to take a decision, self-control failure and victimized feelings all of which push a person towards external aggression. From some of these theories it feels like aggressive people are not normal. However, there are no studies to really prove this aspect conclusively. The aggressive people are different, definitely, but the difference is in degrees and not in cut-out properties. This is because the relationship between the ability of being cognitive and the cognition process which ends in aggressive behavior is a grey area. There are theories that look at opposed direction to explain aggressiveness, i.e. on what prevents aggressiveness so they can explain how it is propagated. In this bracket fall the moral development theory which implies that aggressive and violent behavior can be checked or propagated on the basis of morality and moral principles. This theory has people go through three phases from childhood to maturity, i.e. pre-morality or when the person is free from any control or thoughts of control, conventional conformity where the person understands and absorbs the morality of the group and abides to it, autonomous principles where the man learns to interpret reject and retain those principles which are applicable to his conscience and feeling of right. This makes is go from a the first primitive stage of punishment/obedience to the last stage of overall ethicality of moral principles. The biological theories of aggression have taken into consideration the individual and social aspects that take part into shaping the onset of aggressive behavior and their levels. The biological theories propose that people are actually born with the trait of aggressiveness - and that is biologically so as the nervous system itself becomes an obstacle for these people to conform to the societal norms around them. In other words this theory says that people are either extrovert in nature which is the result of having low arousal level of cortical system, or there are neurotic or introvert because they are over stimulated and react to external stimuli in exaggeration. There is a third plane here, and that is total lack of feeling for oneself or others which totally make them neutral but also totally uncontrollable. Eysenck (1963) had explained that the personality of humans influences heavily the way they learn and can control aggressive behavior since the development of their conscience is conditioned by their emotional reaction to the external environment. People's personalities are mostly average, but it has been seen that where P, N or E cores are high, those people are not able to control themselves from being aggressive. Conclusion Aggression is and has always been part of human society right from the start of civilization when man fought with stones and sticks to the present day where man fights with computer guided atomic missiles. Aggression has in this manner changed, but has not diminished and is not likely to do so either. It is not possible to exactly pinpoint where the theories converge, but all the above theories in some ways or other are incomplete when they take into consideration only one aspect of the human persona. Human beings are extremely complex and the complexity is further enhanced by their capacity to interpret things - internal and external - and adapt to it. The reality and the recognition of reality can be very different in different people which makes it obvious that no one formula can be applied to the reasons of aggressive behavior because the base cannot be brought to a constant for observation of change. It is accepted that aggression is the result of a stimuli - internal or external. It is also accepted that aggression can be due simple biological factors. However, none of the theories stand up in isolation. Aggression is a totally basic human trait almost an instinct which the civilization has brought under a subdued veneer and channelised differently. But aggression has not disappeared even in civilized societies. This shows that there is actually little control on the basic ingredient. Aggressive behavior was there and still is despite of the thousands of research studies, identification of factors and analysis of behavior. It may not be right to use the theories that propose biological make up as the reason for aggression without taking into consideration all the facts thrown up by the different studies and research done in the past. While social psychology tends to ignore the groups interaction by singling out the individual within the group and not as a whole, the biological theories look only at the internal aspects of the aggression. Both are inadequate in giving the right reason. Freudian theories highlight the importance of the first experiences with life as the foundation of the adult who can become aggressive or passive depending upon the experiences he went through when he was young. However, learning theories as well as control theories have amply shown that aggression is not pre-determined. Rather it can be learned with the help of a complexity of individual and societal processes. None of the theories can really be able to predict aggression nor are they able to explain fully within their limitation the reason for aggressive behavior. All the above theories however agree on the fact that aggression is heavily influenced by society, environment, and biological aspects. The amount of the inputs of each of these aspects actually determine how certain people will react to frustration or provocation. The genetic aspect is there definitely because it is clear that people are from birth extrovert or introvert or as mentioned earlier totally unaffected by external stimuli. However, the genetic factors do not solely predetermine the aggressiveness of the person. It very much depends upon the circumstances and situations he is exposed to and the way he interprets that reality. His interpretation is of utmost important because based on that interpretation his behavior will be manifested on the outside. The key it seems, is the fact that no one can predict or understand another person's reality; reality being a totally abstract term and relative to each human being according to what experience they had preceding the said incident. For example, you would feel extreme pity on a 10 year old girl begging on the road if you have a 10 year old girl at home and in your mind you compare her to your daughter. However, if you were exposed to beggar children theft, you will react quite aggressively towards the same child. The reality is that a beggar child approached you. However your reality can be anything - according to what you have experienced prior to this incident. Your experience makes you translate what you see in digestible bits according to history. Hence, the reality can be horrifying to some while okay for others. In children who have had bed time stories told after the lights were put off, lights off is a beautiful thing bringing with them a great deal of pleasant memories. For the children whose parents left immediately after the lights were out, this would irritate them to no end. Here too is how the reality provokes different feelings which are totally personal and not readable from outside. What you can read from outside is the reaction. Coming to the question to what extent aggressiveness can be described as "natural" I would say to a very large extent. All the theories above agree that there is a basic platform from aggression starts. That basic platform is the natural instinct of a human being to enact the survival of the fittest way of living that is inbuilt in every living organism. Survival of the fittest always involves aggression because nature weeds out the weak member of the species so the strong species can be able to procreate and produce healthy offsprings. Similarly, man needs to be aggressive to live in a society. Passive children are passed over at home, at school, and later in college. Passive people are ignored at promotions, at home and in peer groups. Everybody loves a leader - because the leader shows aggression and makes the group follow. It is important to understand and appreciate here that the society too plays an important part in shaping the nature of a person. However, every human being has an innate dormant aggression trait buried within. This hidden trait, sometime surfaces soon and sometime late. Sometimes it stays dormant throughout the lifetime. Whether it surfaces or not, or how soon the aggressive aspect of one's personality surfaces is totally dependent upon the external cues that life throws in the way of the human being. For example, a man can be extremely gentle and caring; but if his family is threatened the same gentle man can become a murderer. A woman can be a total slave to her husband, but totally revolt if her children are put in danger by the same husband. And then, if the gentle man is never threatened he may never know that he had it in him the mental and physical strength to kill someone. A similar example is what happens during war. People kill people during war; the same people who can lift a gun and shoot the enemy soldiers by hundreds, in peaceful time may not be able to slay a chicken for dinner. Aggression is definitely natural in my opinion; and it is to a great extent natural. But for it to develop to threatening level it needs external stimuli or internal interpretation that results in danger and self-conservation. The trigger being this, if the person is constantly exposed to aggression he may get used to it and continue it without rhyme or reason. But it starts with the right trigger. Aggression also manifests itself in wide variations depending upon the quality of the personality of the human being. Extroverts may flare up much sooner than an introvert. However, the reaction of an introvert may be much more powerful and violent than that of an extrovert. This is because the extrovert is reactive and does not store the aggression inside, while the introvert builds up emotional turmoil by not airing out the aggression. When the inner turmoil becomes uncontrollable, it bursts into great shows of aggression which are totally out of control. This is the theory that is applied when people chain a dog in isolation for a long time. The dog in its frustration become aggressive and starts biting anyone after some time. Similarly with humans, unless the frustration levels are aired out, emotions build up resulting in aggression. There is also another main aspect to aggressiveness - aggressive behavior seems to be higher in groups than in individual capacity. This is again because the human being needs to belong. Hence, a mob can commit extreme atrocities while none of the single persons that made the mob would in individual capacity commit it, or even condone such crimes. This shows that aggression can be and influenced from outside to a large extent. It can even be taught, though when taught, the original personality takes over and control a great deal of it. For example, a shy person will not start a fight even if he is a black belt karate expert. But the same person will jump to help someone in distress, despite his nature. In conclusion, it is clear that aggression is indeed a natural trait of man; a trait which is played upon many factors internally and externally, to produce aggression. References: 1. Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Englewood Ciffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc 2. Berkowitz, L., Aggression: Its Causes, Consequences, and Control (1993). 3. Berkowitz L., Pain and aggression: some findings and implications (1993) 4. Boeree, C George, Introduction to Social Psychology, < http://www.ship.edu/cgboeree/socpsy.html> 5. Craig, A Anderson and Brad J Bushman, Human Aggression 2005, < Bushmanhttp://arjournals.annualreviews.org/eprint/wZXD4ZASNg4bU/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231siteid=arjournals&keytype=ref&cookieSet=1> 6. Dollard, John, Doob, Leonard W., Miller, Neal E., Mowrer, O. H. and Sears, Robert R. (1939) Frustration and Aggression. New Haven and London: Yale University Press 7. Stainton Rogers, R., Stenner, P., Gleesen, K. and Stainton Rogers, W. (1995) Social Psychology: A Critical Agenda. Polity Press, Cambridge. Read More