Social psychology week 7b - Term Paper Example

24 June Contextualizing Aggression Several have defined aggression in the context of attitude, emotion or even motive. However, Baron and Richardson (7) indicated that aggression does not generally pertain to any of those above-mentioned traits but as a form of behavior in which they play an important role yet not necessarily responsible for the action. This paper aims to contextualize aggression, identify responses that are incompatible with and might reduce aggression, and comparison of the individual predictors of prejudice.

Baron and Richardson suggests that, aside from inducing empathy, humor and mild sexual arousal can also be away of deterring human aggression (343). These two responses were considered as incompatible to aggressive behavior but were noted to reduce aggression. Humor effectively reduces aggression when the materials used do not include hostile pictures but only those that are silly and ludicrous as other forms of humor may aggravate the behavior (Baron, and Richardson 347). On the other hand mild forms of erotic materials may induce positive feelings of excitement and pleasure thus it was considered as incompatible response to aggression and may reduce the behavior in the process.

However, emphasis must be observe on the term “mild” as stronger level of arousal can negate the effect and result to negative reactions (Baron, and Richardson 349). Demographic factors such as age, education level and residence predict prejudice of an individual better than other factors because of their attitudes and internal standards such that they define what is important according to their standards and highly prejudiced those that they believe does not belong to their group. This can be proved through some sort of interracial aggression and the behavior can be heightened by how people within this demographic categories assess their self-worth as against those that are not within their level (Baron, and Richardson 243).

In summary, aggression is not an incident that pertains to motive, attitude, or emotion but a behavior in which these factors play an important role in order to classify aggressive behavior among human beings. Aside from empathy, humor and mild sexual arousal are other incompatible responses that reduce aggression in such a way that these two responses drive the attention of the aggressive person to other responses than what he/she felt. Lastly, demographic factors such as age, education level and residence predict prejudice of an individual better than other factors because of their attitudes and internal standards that reflect how they assess their self-worth as against those that are not within their level.

Works CitedBaron, Robert A., and Richardson, Deborah R. “Human Aggression”. 2nd ed. New York: Plenum Press. 1994. Web. 24 June 2013.