Real Cause Behind Angry And Aggressive Behavior example essay topic

Many psychologists have done research in the field of anger and aggression as it is one of the most common emotions experienced by humans. If prolonged, it can lead to devastating effects such as depression, headaches and various other disorders. A lot of work is being done to help people over come anger and to learn to forgive others. Anger is a feeling which results due to unfulfilled expectations, injustice, frustration, injury or it might be biologically determined. Aggression is the action you take in response to your anger i.e. attacking an individual or a group. There are five inter related dimensions (i.e. cognition, emotion, communication, affect and behavior) which operate simultaneously in any angry situation.

Cognition refers to our present thoughts, emotion is the physiological arousal that anger produces, communication is the way in which we show our anger to people, Affect is the way we experience life when we are angry, and lastly, behavior is the way we act when we are angry. All these dimensions collectively shape our thoughts and actions when we are angry or frustrated (web Anger. htm). The real cause behind angry and aggressive behavior is still unclear. Some theorists such as Freud and Konrad Lorenz said that people behaved aggressively because it is 'human nature' to be hostile and aggressive towards people who we dislike or who are different from us. They said that heredity, hormones, or brain dysfunction were the possible causes of aggression and totally ruled out other possibilities such as external influences.

Other theorists (for example Brine and Kelley) said that frustration lead to anger. The social learning theorists (such as Bandura) believed that aggression was not innate nor did frustration lead to anger. According to him, people learned to become aggressive by observing aggressive models and receiving payoffs following aggression. The fault with all these theories is that they have attributed aggression to only one cause, ignoring the other side of the issue.

It would be wrong to say that aggression is directly a consequence of heredity as child rearing and observational learning does play a major role in shaping a person's behavior. Thus, we have to consider both sides of the argument and accept that all these influences are important factors in causing aggression. (web) Every person behaves differently when frustrated or angered by someone. Anger and aggression take many forms, some being quite subtle. Sometimes when a person is angry, he / she notices a direct change in behavior. Your behavior can become aggressive (name calling, fault finding, slashes of temper), assaultive (slapping, shoving, hitting), hurtful (gossip, stealing), rebellious (anti-social, refusal to talk). These changes in behavior are obvious and can be noticed by the person who is undergoing the change as well as third parties.

However, you can also act in less obvious ways such as being irritable, jealous, resentful, judgmental or sulky. Anger can sometimes result in indirect behavior and the person suffering may not know the real cause of the behavior. Such behaviors include withdrawal, depression, mental illness, poor health, alcoholism, over eating, anxiety, or crying. Verbal remarks which may be direct or indirect also reflect what mood a person is in and through these verbal, physical and psychological cues, one can easily recognize his anger.

Apart from recognizing anger, it is also essential to understand anger. What gives rise to anger and aggression? Why are some children more violent than others? Is it because they are genetically different? Or is it due to the differences in their environment and upbringing? Socio-biologists say that the frequency with which countries fight against one another show that we are born with an aggressive nature.

We have an urge to destroy anything that stands in our way. These people argue that in order to survive, humans need to be aggressive, to protect their own land and conquer others territory. Research has shown that by stimulating certain parts of an animal's brain, you can make him aggressive and by stimulating other parts, you can make him gentler and less aggressive. In 1996, a man named Charles Whitman killed his wife and mother and later killed 14 other people.

An autopsy showed that there was a large tumor in the limbic system of his brain (same area that caused aggression in animals). This proves that aggression may sometimes have a physical basis. It can also have genetic, chemical or hormonal basis. A survey has revealed that adopted children living with aggressive parents have less chances of being aggressive compared to those children who have the genes of an aggressive parent. (web) Physiological factors also play an important role in determining aggression in people.

High testosterone (male sex hormone) is associated with unfaithfulness, more sexual urges, more divorce and anti social behavior. A viral infection known as rabies is known to cause violent behavior. Around 90% of the women complain that they become irritable before menstruation and 50% of the crimes by women in jail occurred during or before their menstrual cycle. Furthermore, about three times in a thousand, a male inherits and extra X or Y chromosome.

So instead of XY they are either or XYZ. At one time it was believed that those men who had an extra chromosome committed more violent acts and were sent to jail more frequently. (web) So inheritance clearly plays a pivotal role in shaping our behavior. Another theory states that frustration results in anger. For instance if you have a meeting with your boss and you get stuck in heavy traffic, you honk but the cars refuse to move, what will happen? Immediately you will feel that you are loosing your temper. When we hope for more than we get, or when we are intentionally hurt, insulted, cheated or made fun of we feel frustrated and this leads to anger and aggression.

The frustration-aggression hypothesis states just this: anger naturally results from frustration. Berkowitz states that apart from frustration, all sorts of unpleasant stimuli (such as bad odor, cigarette smoke, fear, pain, discomfort and so on) combined together cause aggressive behavior. One explanation of aggression / anger is provided by the social learning theory. This theory denies that frustration automatically leads to aggression or that humans are innately aggressive. Instead it asserts that we learn to be aggressive by observing others who act violently or aggressively.

Bandura argues that aggression can be learned either by observing aggressive people or by receiving and / or expecting rewards following aggression. The rewards can be in the form of status, praise from others, reduced tension, self-praise, etc. 'The Social Learning Theory also incorporates cognitive processes, like rational problem-solving, 'trial runs' in fantasy to see what might happen if I did, and the self-control procedures of self-observation, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement. Even children are able to control their aggression if they have some understanding of why someone else frustrated them (Malick & McCandless, 1966) ' (web social learning theory, para. 1). All of us frequently face unpleasant situations which suggest that there would be certain payoffs for different actions.

All human beings have certain emotional responses, motives and urges to seek certain payoffs and cognitive processes to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of different responses such as aggression, social withdrawal, depression, etc. Finally a person chooses a response and then evaluates its usefulness. If the response is reinforced, it is likely to be used over and over again. Unfortunately in most situations, aggression pays off.

By crying and whining, a child gets what he wants. The teacher who checks papers strictly and threatens to flunk the most students gets the most study time from students. The cognitive-environmental theorists claim that behavior is a result of observational learning. This theory also over simplifies human behavior by completely ignoring the biological and physiological aspects, the emotional needs, and the unconscious processes. Berkowitz says that even though cognition can stop an aggressive impulse, certain unpleasant events automatically give rise to negative emotions even before the person can think of what has happened and how to go about it. Cognitive theory is a very strong theory, even though it may not be a complete one.

Thus we can see that neither biological, nor cognitive processes independently control aggression. Both factors work together to make us experience an emotion. Some psychoanalysts such as Freud and Rocklin believe that people become aggressive to re gain their lost pride. A survey by Toch revealed that 40% of aggressive prisoners had low self esteem and needed to prove to others that they were strong by harming and hurting others. Eric and Fromm said that in order to lead successful lives we need to conform to the rules of the society. This lack of freedom and inability to live according to one's own wishes results in sadistic aggression. (web).

Child rearing also plays an important role in determining how aggressive a child will be when he grows up. By the age of five, a child has learnt to become either hostile and aggressive, or gentle and caring. Aggression at age 8 correlates. 46 with aggression at age 30. (web) Four factors are associated with angry, aggressive children (a) impulsive temperament, (b) parents who neglect or insult the child, (c) a parent who allows his child to use aggression as a means of gaining power, (d) a parent who punishes the child by hitting or shouting.

Aggressive children usually belong to aggressive families where the parents are not only aggressive with each other but also with their children and where the child's aggressive behavior has been strictly punished. Apart from the family, in the outside world, we find new ways to express our frustration and hostility. A lot of studies have revealed that TV makes children more hostile, especially if they see the bad guy getting away or gaining respect as a result of his hostility. For example the good looking TV star is usually quick and powerful with his fists and documentaries at times show that the most hostile country always wins the war.

Such TV programs often reinforce the hostile behavior in children. A longitudinal study of 557 children, ages 6-10, growing in Chicago revealed that children who identified with aggressive characters and violent TV shows grew up to be more violent than other children of their age. The result was the same in both men and women. (web anger. html) Having studied all the different approaches to aggression we are left circling around the same question: Do we attribute aggression to human nature or learned behavior? In these discussions, we realize the old nature-nurture debate. The problem with these theories is that both sides over simplify and claim all the influence.

Theorists who hold genes and hormones responsible for aggressive behavior imply that hostility is part of human nature. 'Indeed, 60% of Americans buy this idea, saying 'there will always be wars, it is human nature. ' How sad that we are not better educated... There is, of course, a lot of fighting between countries, tribes, religions, spouses, and parents and children. But there is no evidence that we humans have inherited more of a tendency to dislike, fight, be violent, or to make war than to like, trust, be cooperative, or to make friends. ' (web: human nature vs. learned behavior, para. 1) Despite the belief that aggression is innate, Er on, Gentry and Schlegel state that aggression can be controlled. (web) Parents should spare time for their children and make sure that they are not exposed to any violence at least at home.

V chip should be used to block TV channels that show violent programs. Schools should have training programs that teach students to become better citizens by avoiding aggressive behavior and ways to overcome anger. Apart from external support, every person should try to control his own temper by (a) blocking thoughts that provoke anger (b) try to reduce anger by focusing on other, more pleasant emotions (c) If someone treats you badly, act calmly and try to talk things out peacefully or use humor to distract your thoughts (if your boss fired you try to imagine him hanging upside down from a tree) (d) If angry, remind yourself of the consequences of hostile behavior (e) learn to forgive others and empathize with others by trying to understand why they did what they did. Anger is usually regarded as something negative and therefore some people try to suppress their anger to be accepted by the society rather than curing it. We " ll have to admit that heredity does play an important role in shaping a person's behavior. All human beings have the tendency to get aggressive and angry even if they haven't been exposed to any violence in media or in their surroundings.

At some point in their lives, all humans act aggressively regardless of how good their external environment is. On the other hand, external factors also play a pivotal role in determining how aggressive a person is. Therefore, we cannot say that there is only a single cause of aggression for all human beings; it varies from person to person. For some, aggression might be learnt, for others it may be innate. Whatever the cause might be, aggression should be properly channelized and cured so that this world becomes a better place to live in. (Words 2,220)