Human Aggression PERSPECTIVES IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY A Series of Texts and Monographs • Edited by Elliot Aronson INTRINSIC MOTIVATION By Edward L. Deci SCHOOL DESEGREGATION By Harold B. Gerard and Norman Miller HUMAN AGGRESSION By Robert A. Baron A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. Human Aggression ROBERT A. BARON Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana PLENUM PRESS • NEW YORK AND LONDON Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Baron, Robert A Human aggression. (Perspectives in social psychology) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Aggressiveness (Psychology) I. Title. BF575.A3B35 301.6'3 77-24567 ISBN 978-1-4615-7197-1 ISBN 978-1-4615-7195-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-7195-7 © 1977 Plenum Press, New York Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1977 A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher To The Little Red-Haired Girl, who is the source of my incompatible responses, and to my parents, who gave me the freedom to grow. Preface: A Note to My Colleagues An announcement appearing in a recent issue of a newsletter distrib uted quarterly to several thousand psychologists read, in part, as fol lows: Free. A bibliography of approximately 350 books on human aggression is available from Prof. Gordon W. Russell. (Italics added) Given such a wealth of existing materials on aggressive behavior, one may well wonder why, at the present time, I have chosen to add to this huge assemblage by writing still another volume on the same topic. While this is an eminently reasonable question, I hope that I can respond to it with equally reasonable answers. Basically, my decision to produce the present volume stemmed from two major sources. First, it grew quite naturally out of my own teaching experience. Over the years, I have frequently conducted both advanced under graduate and graduate classes on the topic of human aggression. Un fortunately, in selecting appropriate texts for these courses, I have often found myself confronting something of a dilemma. The choice, it seemed, was one between two distinct categories of books. In the first were several scholarly, comprehensive treatises, which were designed for professional audiences and which, as a result, were far "over the heads" of the students I asked to read them. In the second group, by way of contrast, were a number of briefer, simpler texts, more readily comprehended by unsophisticated readers. Disappointingly, though, these were also usually quite restricted in scope. Thus, while both groups offered certain important advantages, neither seemed quite ap propriate for several of my courses. Vll PREFACE ix also many newer lines of research, to which I will return below, are represented in various chapters. And finally, I have included a sepa rate unit on methods for the study of aggression-a feature that I believe to be unique to the present volume. In these ways, I have at tempted to produce a text that is as broad and eclectic in coverage as I could make it. While the present volume grew, in part, out of my desire to pro duce what I thought might prove to be a useful teaching aid, it also developed out of a second major motive. During the past few years, a large number of new-and to me, exciting-lines of investigation have emerged in rapid order. These have been extremely varied in scope, including, among many others, such diverse topics as the effects of sexual arousal upon aggression, the impact of environmental factors (e.g., heat, noise, crowding) upon such behavior, interracial aggres sion, and the influence of heightened self-awareness. Despite the fact that such topics have already generated a considerable amount of re search, they were not, to my knowledge, adequately represented irt any existing volume. Given this state of affairs, it seemed to me that a reasonably comprehensive summary of this newer work might prove both useful and timely. In particular, I felt that it might serve as a useful source of reference both for new researchers wishing an over view of the field and for established researchers whose harried sched ules made it difficult for them to keep up with all lines of research and all new developments. The present volume, then, was written with this second goal firmly in mind. In sum, Human Aggression grew out of my desires to (1) provide a text suitable for use in con junction with advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses on aggression and (2) provide a useful summary of recent lines of investigation as yet unincorporated into existing texts. Looking back, I can honestly say that I have spared no effort in my attempts to attain these goals. Given the imperfect nature of all human endeavors, though, I am also sure that I have fallen short of my ideal objectives in several different respects. My major hope, then, is simply that I have at least moved in the right (i.e., useful) directions. Of course, in an important sense, only you, my colleagues and readers, can tell me whether, and to what extent, this is in fact the case. Thus, I eagerly and a bit impatiently-await your judgments and comments. ROBERT A. BARON West Lafayette, Indiana Acknowledgments In writing this text, I have been aided immeasurably by many individ uals. While I could not hope to list all of them here, I can, at the least, offer my thanks to those whose assistance has been most important. First, I would like to thank the many colleagues who-by keeping me abreast of their own work, responding to my requests for reprints and preprints, and sharing their ideas with me-have made a sub stantial contribution to this volume. In a very real sense, it could not have been written without their aid. Second, I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to my good friend 001£ Zillmann, who, through our many personal discus sions, has often helped me to shape and hone my ideas. His contribu tion to the present volume in this and many other ways is gratefully acknowledged. Third, I wish to extend special thanks to Ed Oonnerstein, whose thoughtful and insightful reviews of the entire manuscript helped me to improve it in many different respects. Fourth, I would like to express my gratitude to Seymour Weingar ten, my editor, whose enthusiasm for the project was always high and whose expert opinions, thoughtful suggestions, and unflagging sense of humor (!) helped guide it to successful completion. And finally, I wish to thank my wife, Sandra, who evaluated each chapter as it was completed, who prepared the entire manuscript for publication, and who, through her support and encouragement, helped me to face all those lonely and seemingly endless sessions at the typewriter. To her, to the other persons mentioned on this page, and to many others as well, a warm and heartfelt "THANKS!" R.A.B. xi Contents 1. AGGRESSION: DEFINITIONS AND PERSPECTIVES 1 Aggression: A Working Definition ...................... 5 Aggression as Behavior ............................ 7 Aggression and Intention .......................... 8 Aggression as Harm or Injury ...................... 10 Aggression Involves Living Beings ................. 11 Aggression Involves an Avoidance-Motivated Recipient 12 Aggression Defined: A Recapitulation .............. 12 Hostile versus Instrumental Aggression ............. 13 Contrasting Theoretical Perspectives on Aggression: Instinct, Drive, or Social Learning? ............. 15 Aggression as Instinctive Behavior: Innate Urges toward Death and Destruction ............. 16 Aggression as an Elicited Drive: Motivation to Harm or Injure Others ........................... 21 Aggression as Learned Social Behavior: Direct and Vicarious Training for Violence ............ 32 Summary............................................. 36 2. AGGRESSION: METHODS FOR SYSTEMATIC STUDY .. 39 Laboratory Methods for the Study of Aggression: Hurting within the Context of a Controlled Psychological Environment 42 xiii xiv CONTENTS Verbal Measures of Aggression: When Words (or Evaluations) Harm ........................ 43 "Play" Measures of Aggression: Assaults against Inanimate Objects ......................... 47 "Safe" Attacks against a Live Victim: Noninjurious Physical Aggression ....................... 51 Direct Physical Aggression: Hurt without Harm ..... 54 Field Methods for the Study of Aggression: Harm-Doing Behaviors in Naturalistic Settings ............... 69 Aggression in Traffic Situations: Horn Honking at Intersections .............................. 69 Personal Confrontations: Direct Elicitation of Overt Aggression ............................... 71 Summary 74 3. SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF AGGRESSION ......... 77 Frustration: Interpersonal Thwarting as an Antecedent of Aggression ................................... 79 Evidence Suggesting That Frustration Facilitates Aggression ............................... 80 Evidence Suggesting That Frustration Does Not Facilitate Aggression ...................... 83 Frustration and Aggression: A Tentative Resolution 87 Verbal and Physical Attack: Direct Provocation from Others as an Antecedent of Aggression ......... 92 Exposure to Aggressive Models: The Impact of Witnessed Violence ...................................... 98 Exposure to Live Aggressive Models: The "Contagion" of Violence ............................... 99 Aggressive Models in the Mass Media: The Effects of Filmed and Televised Violence ............. 101
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