The Development of Aggression

Aggression has always been an important concern of mankind. The pervasive question of why human beings are aggressive is reflected in contemporary concern with antisocial and delinquent be havior, classroom behavioral management, and aggressive behavior in defense of self and national interest. The involvement of psychologists interested in problems of aggression has focused on the assessment of conditions leading to the instigation, learning, and performance of aggressive behavior. Specifically, it has been asked: 1. Under what circumstances does the individual acquire a predis position to be aggressive? 2. By what processes does the individual acquire aggressive responses? 3. What conditions appear to elicit these responses? Studies of aggression have indicated the importance of three factors which contribute to the instigation, learning, and performance of such behaviors: (α) frustration, as experienced through punitiveness, restrictive-ness, and rejection; (ĥ) modeling of aggressive figures in the environment; (c) norms or reinforcement contingencies surrounding aggressive action. The Frustration-Aggression Paradigm The major impetus of recent studies on aggression comes from the