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Related Concept Videos

Aggression01:47

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Humans engage in aggression when they seek to cause harm or pain to another person. Aggression takes two forms depending on one’s motives: hostile or instrumental. Hostile aggression is motivated by feelings of anger with intent to cause pain; a fight in a bar with a stranger is an example of hostile aggression. In contrast, instrumental aggression is motivated by achieving a goal and does not necessarily involve intent to cause pain (Berkowitz, 1993); a contract killer who murders for...
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A modern form of aggression is bullying. As you learn in your study of child development, socializing and playing with other children is beneficial for children’s psychological development. However, as you may have experienced as a child, not all play behavior has positive outcomes. Some children are aggressive and want to play roughly. Other children are selfish and do not want to share toys. One form of negative social interactions among children that has become a national concern is...
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Related Experiment Video

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The Resident-intruder Paradigm: A Standardized Test for Aggression, Violence and Social Stress
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Aversive Learning and Trait Aggression Influence Retaliatory Behavior.

Tanaz Molapour1, Björn Lindström2, Andreas Olsson1

  • 1Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet Stockholm, Sweden.

Frontiers in Psychology
|July 5, 2016
PubMed
Summary

Aversive learning, where neutral cues are paired with unpleasant stimuli, influences retaliatory behavior. Aggressive traits amplify this effect, increasing antisocial actions toward those previously associated with negative experiences.

Keywords:
aggressionanti-socialaversivefear-conditioninginteractionlearningretaliationsocial

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Social Behavior

Background:

  • Aversive learning, a fundamental process, shapes responses to environmental cues.
  • Understanding how learned negative associations influence social interactions is crucial.
  • Retaliatory behavior is a complex social response influenced by past experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of aversive learning in social retaliatory behavior.
  • To examine how learned expectancies and anger mediate retaliation.
  • To explore the interaction between aggressive traits and aversive learning in antisocial behavior.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a modified fear-conditioning paradigm with conditioned stimuli (CS; neutral faces) and unconditioned stimuli (US; electric shocks).
  • Assessed aversive learning through skin conductance responses (SCRs) to CSs.
  • Measured retaliatory behavior by allowing participants to administer shocks to CSs during a test phase; Experiment 2 included online ratings of US expectancy and anger.

Main Results:

  • Participants demonstrated successful aversive learning, showing higher SCRs to faces paired with shocks.
  • Retaliation (administering shocks) was greater towards faces associated with more intense aversive experiences.
  • Aggressive traits correlated with retaliation specifically towards CSs linked to aversive learning.

Conclusions:

  • Learned aversions significantly influence retaliatory behavior in social contexts.
  • Aggressive traits potentiate antisocial actions when combined with aversive learning experiences.
  • This study highlights the interplay between learning, individual differences, and social aggression.