Aggression and society

The problem of human aggression is a timeless issue in a sense that aggression was, is, and will be in the center of numerous debates among philosophers, psychologists, artists, biologists, and many other people who somehow relate to the problems of human psychology. Constant search for the causes, origins, and ways of preventing, or at least reducing, aggressive tendencies makes the importance of this issue evident.
Aggression seems to be so natural and cultural norms so often approve the expression of hostility and aggression that people frequently behave violently not even thinking about it. Mass media is saturated with violence to reflect the real state of affairs in a society. Sometimes it is useful to take a book, which approaches the “ordinary” problem and looks at the issue from unconventional point of view. Among other books, A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, makes a reader question social norms and attitudes towards aggression. Burgess, through the experiences of a narrator, the teenage boy Alex, who enjoys committing violent crimes, takes a reader to the prohibited side of the discussion about violence. Thanks to this outlook, we can see that society provides double expectations from its members (especially young people who form their worldviews and moral values) demanding exercise of aggression, but at the same time, keeping it as sinful and criminal.
What is the origin of violence? Is aggression natural or is it a product of civilization? Can we avoid behaving violently living in society? Why adolescents are the most aggressive? Is it possible to prevent aggression or control violent behaviour?
These questions are easy to ask but very difficult to answer. The present paper aims to examine the question of aggression from a social-cognitive perspective that incorporates two theories of aggression: the social learning theory of aggression and the social cognitive model of aggression developed by Albert Bandura (1973) and currently used by Patterson, LeBaryshe, & Ramsey (1989).
The social learning theory, developed by Albert Bandura (1973), holds that people learn to behave aggressively responding to different kinds of situation. If aggressive behaviour is reinforced by approval of others, this behaviour tends to be perceived as right way of behavior in a particular situation. If aggressive resolution of a difficulty in a situation is punished, aggressive behaviour tends to be eliminated from possible ways of problem resolution. According to the social cognitive theory, aggressive behaviour is determined by a way an individual perceives and interprets situational stimuli. Social behaviour is controlled by learned programs for behaviour, or scripts. The scripts are stored in memory and then used as guides for behaviour (Eron 1994, p. 7). Applying social and cognitive approaches to the phenomenon of aggression it is expected to find the answer to the question of origins of aggression and the ways of preventing (or reducing) violence without taking away human passion.
A Clockwork Orange poses the problem of co-existence of the destructive force of aggression and productive passion for life. The unfortunate result of double standards of aggression, described in the book, was reducing a human being to a plant - submissive orange. The aim of the present paper is to analyse society as a source of aggression and to discuss the possibility of preventing or reducing of aggression. Aggression here is defined as intentionally harmful or destructive behavior. There are two forms of aggression – hostile and instrumental. Here, only the hostile (or reactive, or affective) form of aggressive behavior, where emotions play a great role, is discussed. There are some doubts about existence of instrumental aggression (except in the cases of psychopaths), since humans are emotional species and any intend to harm another member of humanity as a rule is accompanied by some degree of emotional arousal*. The focus of this paper is violence as a subtype of aggression. Violence is the most obvious type of aggression expressed in behavior. There are many forms of aggression that are not violent, but they seem to be very difficult to be told apart from non-aggressive behaviors, while all violent acts are aggressive.
The issue of aggression is considered with a focus to adolescent population, because people in this group are in the critical stage (or a point of the continuum) of their development. Adolescents (especially males, that is supported by the study of Luster & Oh (2001) are considered as one of the most violent parts of population (Huesmann 1994, Sheldon 1999, Guetzloe 1999). Therefore, the paper focuses on aggressive behaviour of adolescent males.
The discussed book presents a reader with very vivid image of a young offender. It might be argued that Alex, the main character and a narrator, has exaggerated aggressive characteristics and he cannot be considered as a typical young delinquent.  Such underestimation of violence in society can be very dangerous. The rejection of seeing the presented instances of violent behavior as reality may be a result of ”close-sight” effect, when we know the object from a distance, but standing close to we cannot recognize it. Then, being told the name of the object, we protest, “No, it is not it. It’s an enlarged copy”. We are wondering then, why is a kid so violent? But, as Sheldon Braaten (1999) phrases it, “should we be asking, “Why not?” The society does everything to create and keep up with a beneficial environment for “dangerous” teenagers. Eleanor Guetzloe (1999) explores the cause for the development of aggression and violence in the young. In her opinion, it is impossible to prevent aggression at the primary level in our society “with its laws, customs, religions, expectations, and rewards”.
Both articles point out the role of society in the development and maintenance of violent behavior. The topic of violence does not lose its relevance because the norms, values, and expectations of society do not change: many people perceive the inevitability of aggressive behavior and violent means of communicating one’s identity, and society often rewards this type of behavior. The issue brought by the book of Burgess definitely is of social origin and psychological nature: how to be passionate in one’s expressions of life drive, yet being obedient to the restriction determined by society? How to be non-aggressive in the society based on violence?
There are many theories, which give explanations with varying soundness of arguments for aggressiveness in humans. For example, instinct theory (Lorenz 1976), theories of biological, including neural (Moyer 1976, 1983), genetic (Asher 1987; Olweus 1979), and biochemical, influences (Bushman & Cooper 1990), frustration-aggression theory (Dollard 1939) are some of the hypothetical models which attempt to explain aggressive behavior (Myers & Spencer 2001, p. 385-389). The choice of social and cognitive model is determined by the research findings of Groer (1986), who examined specific characteristics of the groups with little or no aggression (mentioned in the lecture of Russell Day, 13.03.02).  The findings indicate that the primary source of aggression is the structure of society. Although, there is no doubt that biology and chemistry play significant role in aggression, it seems that the defining role in expression of violence and hatred is played by society.
It might be argued that the frustration-aggression theory is quite compatible with the chosen approach of this paper. Yes, indeed. However, there is a problem of overgeneralization in this theory that makes it less preferable to discuss. The theory claims there is a cause-effect relationship between aggression and frustration: frustration leads to some form of aggressive behavior, and aggression leads to frustration (Dollard 1939, cited in Huesmann 1994 p. 4). In fact, people who are frustrated can become helpless and hopeless; they can be victims of aggressive behaviour rather than aggressors. What does determine whether people respond aggressively or not aggressively being frustrated? The claim is that society is responsible for the differences in the individual responses to frustration and other aggression-triggered situations.
According to Albert Bandura (1973), preference for aggressive or violent behaviors is not innate; it is learned. Generally, new behaviors are learned either through direct experience or through observing of behaviors of others. Direct experience is formed by rewards or punishments of the consequences of the actions of an individual. This kind of conditioning has an effect on the choice of actions in response to aggression-triggered stimuli. Learning by observation “enables [people] to acquire complex patterns of behavior” by watching the performance of others (p. 44). The emotions that are part of passive response to places, people, and events, are stored in memory and then influence behavior. There are three sources of aggressive behavior discussed by Bandura: family influences (for example, violent parenting styles or child abuse can affect the development of violent behavior patterns in children), subcultures influences (the groups where aggressiveness is highly valued and honored provide a good environment for development and maintenance of violence), and symbolic modeling (mass media, especially television, provide children with role models and expectations, which are frequently aggressive in their nature Ribes-Inesta & Bandura 1976, p. 206-208). The categorization of sources of aggression seems to be simplistic, but it reflects the major influences, from which it is possible to derive more specific sources of aggressive behavior. For example, subcultural influences may be discussed with reference to school, or peer interactions, or religious organizations.
The processes of learning can be put in one concept of socialization, which basically forms an individual. Society provides its members with a worldview and instructions about how to use this worldview in everyday settings. However, society is not a homogenous institution with clear-cut norms and values; society provides people with numerous situations of choice. Leaving the discussion about free will to philosophers, it is necessary to recognize that choices made by people in such situations are predetermined by society. Discussing human agency, Bandura (1989) argues that “much human behavior is regulated by forethought embodying cognized goals, and personal goal setting is influenced by self-appraisal of capabilities” (p. 1175). Here, the notion of “cognized goals” indicates the place where we should turn to the social cognitive theory, articulated by Bandura in his analysis of aggression.
The social cognitive theory assumes that man is a thinking being capable of “self-direction” (Bandura 1973, p. 42). Humans are not totally conditioned organisms functioning thoughtlessly on the stimulus-response basis. In fact, “the responses that get conditioned are to a large extent cognitively induced rather than directly elicited by external stimuli” (p. 50).  In other words, it is argued, people cannot be conditioned without their awareness. The cognitive process (simplified for the sake of illustration) goes like this: we receive the stimuli, we interpret them, create a meaning based on our past experiences and the current states (biological influences should not be omitted that is noted by Ribes-Inesta and Bandura (1976, p. 205), then act according to the created meaning. In other words, cognitive processes such as memory, association, concept formation, language, attention, and problem solving mediate the stimulus-response process. Bandura notes that cognitive functioning is especially important in the observational learning when a person does not act immediately upon the observed event, but keeps all the perceived information in mind in order to retrieve in later. Since our memory is constructive, people are unlikely to retrieve the exact information, thus they employ cognition in order to finish remembered information into meaningful concepts.
Applying the social learning and social cognitive theories to the problem of aggression, it might be useful to discuss how a being, capable of self-direction and analysis, can commit violent acts revealing a beast. The violence can be a product of observational learning, when a child has an image of others using aggressive means for conflict resolution. Here, not only previous knowledge plays role, but also the specifics of the current situation: each situation where the violent mode of behavior has rewarding consequences serves as reinforcement.  Thus, the more a child behave aggressively getting what he or she wants, the more difficult it would be to change the perception of the right conduct later.
Interesting case is illustrated in A Clockwork Orange, where Alex understands the wrongness of his behavior, can feel the pain people experience, but he does not stop to do what he does. He creates the whole system of justifications for his actions, based on rational analysis of the surrounding world. Burgess urges us to think in a different way about violence and passion, having Alex say, “this biting of their toe-nail over what is the cause of badness is what turns me into a fine laughing malchik [boy]. They do not go into the cause of goodness, so why the other shop?” (Burgess, p. 34). Here we can see an important problem in the attitude towards violence in our society: why do not people try to show their children the passion in goodness? Why children should believe that good is good without knowing the reasons for being good, while receiving numerous explanations why doing bad is bad? It seems that there is a necessity for providing children with pro-social behavior justifications from the earlier days of their lives, not merely teaching them goodness by rejecting badness. Doing good should not be viewed less interesting, active, and motivating process than behaving violently.
Talking about double standards and labeling of violence, it would be interesting to note that adolescents are capable of rational analysis and they are critical in their own way; may be they are the most critical element of a society because they do not yet understand why should they passively accept social norms, rules, and expectations.  So, legitimate violence in society force adolescents to question the nature of goodness: “… and I thought to myself, Hell and blast you all, if all you bustards are on the side of the Good then I am glad I belong to the other shop” (p. 57). At this point we can see the lack of social learning - the kid himself decides what is black and what is white. It is dangerous. Is it ill? This kind of thinking and behaving is definitely anti-social, but who is to blame? It might be the case when the society failed to put the pro-social behavior scheme into the head of Alex and allowed him to think beyond the socially determined boundaries.
Another thing that allows anti-social behavior is that a society itself creates situations, which force an individual to question his views. If a person is socialized ‘properly’, he or she will seek for the justification and confirmation of pro-social behavior in order to stay in the limits of social sphere and reduce the cognitive dissonance**. All this shows the interdependence of social forces and cognition of an individual. According to Eron, Gentry, & Schlegel (1994), social behavior is controlled by “learned programs for behavior”, which are stored in memory in order to be retrieved later. So, learned by observation or direct experience program for acting violently in certain situations affects the choice of actions an individual prefers. However, not every script stored in memory is used. Eron claims that  “[o]nce script is retrieved, the child evaluates its appropriateness in light of existing internalized norms and also evaluates the likely consequences” (p. 7). The active use of both cognitive processes and past experience is necessary.
Going towards the concluding points it is worthy to note practical importance of both the social learning theory and the social cognitive theory. These hypothetical models can be used in development of aggression-reducing treatments for the individuals who have not yet hardened in their principles and beliefs. Adolescents tend to test the learned social norms and rules; then, depending of workability of a norm, adolescents act upon the formed beliefs throughout their lives. So, if we want to reduce the overall violence in our society it is necessary to revise the expectations provided to children. It seems impossible because, like Eleanor Guetzloe (1999) noted, the society would have to change its norms, laws, religions, customs, and rewards. Another issue is addressed by Braaten (1999), who discusses the perception of youngsters by adults. The research shows that adults perceive adolescents negatively. What is of more importance is that adolescents know that they are not respected by adults; they feel like they are citizens of a second sort. This is a very critical comment because in order to “cure” the problem we need to see it as a problem but not take it as a given misfortune. Again, this points out the duality of beliefs in society. Thus, the most prominent criticism of the social learning theory is that it does not reflect the reality of living in a society with double expectations. Apart from this, violence in human behavior is multiply determined; it is necessary to look at the phenomenon of aggression from many perspectives. However, the present paper does not allow exploring the question of aggression from all possible, or known, perspectives. Therefore, aggressive behaviour in adolescents (as a category of people who are most sensitive to social norms and rules) is examined using the social cognitive and social learning theories, which are interdependent. Etiology of aggression is very complex and includes a wide range of factors such as genetics, neuroanatomy, endocrinology, physiology, and many more. Therefore, the approach taken in this paper should be viewed as complementary to other approaches to the problem of violence in adolescents and in humans on the whole.
Is there hope? It seems that often the dangerousness of a phenomenon depends on social perception of it. Should we perceive aggression as unnatural for humans? As Emilio Ribes-Inesta (1976) notes, “[v]iolence in the human being is not an individual but a social phenomenon” because it “emerges from the system and not from the individual” (p.5). If aggression is a social phenomenon, logic suggests that humans can eliminate violent modes of behavior because they created it. However, how natural is society? Sometimes it seems that what is created by humans is more natural than nature itself! It sounds paradoxically that humans learned how to change the nature being unable to change certain social institutions. Ribes-Inesta expresses some hope in a possibility to changing social system referring to utopian social models like that of Marx and Engels (p.6). Alas, his view seems to be too unrealistic and we have to accept inevitability of aggression. However, there is hope in reducing aggression by developing programs for children based on such theories as social learning and social cognition theories in practice. According to Patterson, DeBaryshe, and Ramsey (1989), those programs would probably succeed which include such components as “parent training, child social-skills training, and academic remediation” (333).














Notes
* Emotional arousal can be an obstacle in completing certain tasks. For example, in a case of war people tend to absolve themselves from thinking that they harm other people.  There are several self-absolving practices discussed by Albert Bandura (1973): blaming and dehumanizing victims, displacement of responsibility, minimization of consequences, moral justification, and slighting by advantageous comparison (213-217). Thus, people tend to rationalize the actions in order to reduce emotional arousal, or empathy, that is a natural expression evolved to control human violence.
** The theory of cognitive dissonance developed by Festinger (1957). The main assumption of the theory is that “we feel tension (“dissonance”) when two simultaneously accessible thoughts or beliefs (“cognitions”) are psychologically inconsistent”. Festinger argues that to reduce this inconsistency of beliefs and actions we often adjust our thinking (Myers & Spencer 2001, p. 152).










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