Human Aggression Essay

This examine concerns one of the most influential whole works on human being bearing today. The title of this article is Human belligerence. This investigate was conducted by Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman who atomic number 18 both connected with the Department of Psychology at the Iowa State University. Their research was published in the yearbook Review Psychology Journal 2002, vol. 53 pages 27 to 51. Introduction We have heard or witnessed accounts of batch victimized by effect.Last September 2001, several hijackers took control of several planes and made them crash finished the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Bargonly several minutes after, an some other plane hit the Pentagon. In these events hundreds of people died while thousands more were seriously injured. It is true that historically we be all aware that military man are capable of rough fashion. Human violence is not new. (Arthur G. Miller, Ch 8 p. 169) Thus, the act of one someone killing a nother should not receive as a surprise for us.Yet in the prehistorical years, human behavior is getting more violent. These past events have triggered the scientists and psychologists to once again examine the alkali cause of violence in human behavior. One of the recent studies was made by Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman. This essay seeks to understand the ecumenic Aggression instance which is a theory-based model proposed by Anderson and Bushman. The objective is to analyze this model in relation to the previous researches on aggressive human behavior and to determine the innate differences of this research to the previous studies.An overview of how this research was conducted will also be explained. The General Aggression Model Anderson and Bushman acknowledge the works of the previous police detectives before them. These previous researches have all immensely contributed to our present understanding of how violence is brought about. Some of these researches concl uded that the accessibility of guns, global warming, violence against children in schools and widespread pic to violent cheer media are all contributing factors to increasing violence.Several theories have also been proposed on human aggression. These are the Cognitive Neo-association Theory, Social Learning Theory, Script Theory, and the Excitation Transfer Theory. Anderson and Bushman believe, however, that these researches on human aggression pauperism a theoretical model that will integrate all these works into a complete whole. (Gerald Amada, 2005, p. 2) They quotation a statement made by Jules Henri Poincare, to wit Science is built up with fact, as a house is with stone. But a collection of fact is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. (Poincare) This theoretical model is known as the General Aggression Model.The General Aggression Model is primarily a theoretical model. There were no specific subjects used or laboratory experiments conducted. It simply inc orporated the existing theories that have been published about human aggression. What makes it different from the other research on this topic is that it adds form and structure to the present theories about human aggression by consolidative these mini-theories about aggressive behavior to form one complete model on Human Aggression.The General Aggression Model (GAM) examines the effect of certain versatiles interacting with the thoughts, mood and emotion and the arousal of an individual that may chip in to the counselling of violence. According to Anderson & Bushman, our thoughts, mood and emotion and our arousal not only interact with each other to determine whether a individual will remove in aggressive behavior but they are influenced by two factors a) the Situation Factors and b) the Person Factors. The Situation Factors pertain to the features of the crabbed situation that may outgrowth or decrease the aggression.For example insult, frustration, drugs, the presence of a gun, the presence of a religious leader or the presence of uncomfortable situation. This means that depending on the presence or absence of any of these variables there is a higher or lower probability that aggressive behavior will follow. The Person Factors pertain to the characteristics of a person that he brings to the particular situation. These Person Factors include traits, beliefs, attitude, sex, values and long-term goals. This means that a persons beliefs can serve as a powerful stimulus that may influence aggressive.For example, a person who has the tendency to feel that he has been unjustly treated by others is more in all probability to bring into being suspicious of other people, and to harbor ill will against others. He is also more likely to engage in aggressive behavior. (Stephen Swartz, 2007, p. 2) Under the GAM, the Person Factors and the Situation Factors are only the first stage to the commission of human aggression. The second stage happens when there is an interaction among the Person Factors/Situation Factors with the three innate states the cognition (hostile thoughts), affect (mood and emotion) and the arousal (physiological process).For example, when a child is exposed to a television show which exhibits violent scenes (Situation Factors) this has an effect on the cognitive in the sense that it gives access to the childs hostile thoughts. eternal exposure therefore to these violent scenes means that access to hostile thoughts is increased making it more likely that the child will develop a script of his own and manifest aggressive behavior. (Thomas Brady, 2004 p. 3) The relationship between violent video games and human aggression is made clear using the GAM.This research warns us that adolescents exposure to video games increases the likelihood that he will behave aggressively. (Thomas A. Kooijmans, 2004, p. 1) Video games like Doom or mortal combat explicitly shows two characters attacking each other and trying to kill each other. (Situational Factor) This variable interacts with the Arousal or the physiological changes that are already happening to a child who is reaching puberty. The ternary stage is the appraisal and the decision making process. At this stage the individual evaluates and appraises all these variables that enter his brain.From past on he will either make a snap judgment (impulsive decision) or he may re-appraise the whole situation and come up with a more controlled and deliberate action. And then the exsert stage is the outcome. Evaluation of the General Aggression Model The GAM is unlike the previous theories of human behavior. It is more colonial and at the same time it is more integrative. (Psychology An International Perspective) It is more complex in the sense that it takes into account not only the character traits and the personality of the individual but it also includes his sexual state such as his emotions and thoughts.It is more integrative because it successfully sa w the connection among the past researches on human aggression and combined them under the GAM. The GAM is also more realistic compared to the other mini-theories on human aggression. Some of the other theories on human behavior even boldly claim that there is a direct relationship between some variables or factors such that the presence of these variables can help shout human behavior. On the other hand, the GAM only highlights how complex human behavior is.There are so many processes that must be taken into consideration before we could actually predict human behavior. As the Anderson and Bushman explained, the Situational Factors and the Person Factors are not the only variables to be considered in predicting future aggressive behavior. Any researcher must also take into account the persons internal state such as his mental state, emotional state and the physical state. Before, I thought that engaging in aggressive behavior or performing an act that causes damage to another is a lways a conscious and deliberate produce of the mind or the emotion.I thought that if a person commits violent behavior it is either because it is premeditate or it is because of heightened emotion. It is only now that I realized that the stimulus for aggression may also come from extrinsic factors that have no relation to the person engaging in aggressive behavior. For me, the most fundamental piece of information I found in this research paper is that certain Situational Factors such as the hot temperature or existing frustration may result to aggression.Conclusion The General Aggression Model is indeed one of the most comprehensive researches that deal with aggressive human behavior. As a theoretical model of human aggression, it is the first research to see the connection between the persons characteristics, the particular situation he is in, his thoughts, his emotion and the physiological processes in his body. Though it provides a model for explaining how aggressive behavior is brought about, it admits that human behavior is unpredictable.