Page 580 - Understanding Psychology

catharsis: releasing anger or aggression by letting out powerful negative emotions
Sometimes something provokes you and you become violent. Maybe your friend borrowed something without telling you. Maybe another driver refused to let you merge into traffic. Psychologists explain acts of violence that arise from such situations with the frustration-aggression hypothesis. This is the idea that frustration or a failure to obtain something expected leads to aggression. The hypothesis, though, fails to note that frustration does not always lead to aggressive behavior. For instance, if your friend trips and falls into you, knocking a soda out of your hands, you may not feel angry once you realize that it was an accident.
Leonard Berkowitz (1989) proposed a modified frustration-aggression hypothesis. Berkowitz proposes that frustration leads to aggression only in certain instances. For example, when a stranger bumps into you, you may strike that person if you have done so before or if the person does not intimidate you. However, you will probably not strike that person if you have never been in a fight or have had bad experiences with fighting.
CONTROLLING AGGRESSION
Aggression, then, is a combination of biological, cognitive, person- ality, and environmental factors. Knowing this, how do we limit and con- trol aggression? One method is through catharsis. Catharsis involves releasing anger or aggression by expressing powerful negative emotions. For instance, when you are angry, you should “get it off your chest.” This might mean talking to a friend, playing a tough game of soccer, or hitting a punching bag for a while. Unfortunately, critics of catharsis believe that any expression of aggression is negative. They point out that expressing your aggression may lead to more aggression.
Other strategies of controlling aggression include punishing children for violent behavior and cutting down on the violence they observe. Excessive punishment, though, may trigger aggressive behavior. People can also be taught to control their aggression. Aggressive behavior can be
controlled by teaching people to accept frustrations and move on and to react to disappointments in ways other than violence. If people do not view violence as an option, then they will not resort to violence.
GROUP CONFLICT VERSUS COOPERATION
Conflicts between groups are a fact of everyday life: some level of hostility does exist between women and men, young and old, workers and bosses, African Americans and whites, Catholics and Protestants, and students and teachers. Why do these conflicts exist, and why do they persist? Let us consider the findings of a group of psychologists (Sherif & Hovland, 1961) who
Environmental Factors
?Did You Know? Did You Know?
American Violence Social psychologists blame our culture for the increasing amount of violence. They say that social changes have left people feeling isolated and discon- nected. The American culture encourages self-centeredness and violence. Arnold Goldstein of the Center for Research on Aggression at Syracuse University com- mented, “We are a nation whose role mod- els, presidents, and leaders on Wall Street have set the tone for the country—I’m going to get mine” (Benson & Roehlkepartain, 1993).
566 Chapter 19 / Group Interaction