How does biological perspective explain aggression

Someone who takes the biological perspective might consider how certain types of brain injury might lead to aggressive actions. Or they might consider genetic factors that can contribute to such displays of behavior.

Biopsychologists study many of the same things that other psychologists do, but they are interested in looking at how biological forces shape human behaviors.

Some topics that a psychologist might explore using this perspective include:. This perspective has grown considerably in recent years as the technology used to study the brain and nervous system has grown increasingly advanced. Today, scientists use tools such as PET and MRI scans to look at how brain development, drugs, disease, and brain damage impact behavior and cognitive functioning. One of the strengths of using the biological perspective to analyze psychological problems is that the approach is usually very scientific.

Researchers utilize rigorous empirical methods, and their results are often reliable and practical. Biological research has helped yield useful treatments for a variety of psychological disorders. The weakness of this approach is that it often fails to account for other influences on behavior. Things such as emotions , social pressures, environmental factors, childhood experiences, and cultural variables can also play a role in the formation of psychological problems.

For that reason, it is important to remember that the biological approach is just one of the many different perspectives in psychology. By utilizing a variety of ways of looking a problem, researchers can come up with different solutions that can have helpful real-world applications. There are many different perspectives from which to view the human mind and behavior and the biological perspective represents just one of these approaches.

By looking at the biological bases of human behavior, psychologists are better able to understand how the brain and physiological processes might influence the way people think, act, and feel. This perspective also allows researchers to come up with new treatments that target the biological influences on psychological well-being. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Discovering Psychology.

Evaluation Evidence to support the dual role of serotonin and dopamine has mainly been found in animal studies.

Ferrari et al conducted an experiment that forced rats to fight at exactly the same time every day for 10 days. On the 11th day the rats were not allowed to fight and the level of serotonin and dopamine was measured in their brain.

This shows that consistent aggressive behaviour had changed the rats brain chemistry. Hormones Hormones are chemicals that regulate and control physiological processes. They also control responses to external threats. Testosterone has been linked to aggression and aggressive behaviour. Testosterone is produced by males in the testes.

Women produce testosterone in the adrenal glands. Testosterone produces male characteristics. Research on the link between testosterone and aggression has mainly involved studies using correlational analysis or the measurement of levels of testosterone between aggressive and non-aggressive people.

Archer conducted a meta-analysis of 5 studies and found a low positive correlation between testosterone and aggression. However, the difference was not statistically significant. Research suggests that higher levels of testosterone is associated with dominance behaviour rather than aggression.

Some types of dominance behaviour may involve aggression but most do not. Evaluation Research has not found a consistent link between testosterone and aggression. A few studies have found a strong positive correlation between high levels of testosterone and high levels of aggression.

However, other studies have found no association. Bain et al found no significant differences in testosterone levels and men convicted of violent and non-violent crimes. Kreuz and Rose also found no difference in testosterone levels in a group of 21 prisoners who had been classified as violent and non-violent. Furthermore research suggests that testosterone far from causing aggressive behaviour actually has positive health benefits. Levels of testosterone in males decline as they get older.

Testosterone supplements have been used successfully to treat age related depression in males. McNicholas et al conducted a study of men who had been treated with testosterone replacement therapy and found statistically significant increases in positive mood and decreases in negative mood.

Reduction in levels of testosterone are linked to the development of depression in older males. Read the handout and answer the questions. Total views 44, The hormone also affects physical development such as muscle strength, body mass, and height that influence our ability to successfully aggress.

Although testosterone levels are much higher in men than in women, the relationship between testosterone and aggression is not limited to males. Studies have also shown a positive relationship between testosterone and aggression and related behaviors such as competitiveness in women Cashdan, Although women have lower levels of testosterone overall, they are more influenced by smaller changes in these levels than are men.

It must be kept in mind that the observed relationships between testosterone levels and aggressive behavior that have been found in these studies cannot prove that testosterone causes aggression—the relationships are only correlational. In fact, the effect of aggression on testosterone is probably stronger than the effect of testosterone on aggression. Engaging in aggression causes temporary increases in testosterone.

Perhaps this is why the fans of the Montreal Canadiens, a professional ice hockey team, rioted after their team won an important game against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Testosterone is not the only biological factor linked to human aggression. Recent research has found that serotonin is also important, as serotonin tends to inhibit aggression.

In one experiment assessing the influence of serotonin on aggression, Berman, McCloskey, Fanning, Schumacher, and Coccaro first chose two groups of participants, one of which indicated that they had frequently engaged in aggression temper outbursts, physical fighting, verbal aggression, assaults, and aggression toward objects in the past, and a second group that reported that they had not engaged in aggressive behaviors. In a laboratory setting, participants from both groups were then randomly assigned to receive either a drug that raises serotonin levels or a placebo.

Then the participants completed a competitive task with what they thought was another person in another room. During the task, the person who won each trial could punish the loser of the trial by administering electric shocks to the finger. As you can see in Figure 9. The aggressive participants who had been given serotonin, however, showed significantly reduced aggression levels during the game. Participants who reported having engaged in a lot of aggressive behaviors right panel showed more aggressive responses in a competitive game than did those who reported being less aggressive left panel.

The aggression levels for the more aggressive participants increased over the course of the experiment for those who did not take a dosage of serotonin but aggression did not significantly increase for those who had taken serotonin. Data are from Berman et al. Perhaps unsurprisingly, research has found that the consumption of alcohol increases aggression.

Alcohol increases aggression for a couple of reasons. Executive functioning occurs in the prefrontal cortex, which is the area that allows us to control aggression. Acute alcohol consumption is more likely to facilitate aggression in people with low, rather than high, executive functioning abilities. Second, when people are intoxicated, they become more self-focused and less aware of the social situation, a state that is known as alcohol myopia.

As a result, they are less likely to notice the social constraints that normally prevent them from engaging aggressively and are less likely to use those social constraints to guide them. We might normally notice the presence of a police officer or other people around us, which would remind us that being aggressive is not appropriate, but when we are drunk we are less likely to be so aware.

The narrowing of attention that occurs when we are intoxicated also prevents us from being aware of the negative outcomes of our aggression. Alcohol also influences aggression through expectations. If we expect that alcohol will make us more aggressive, then we tend to become more aggressive when we drink. If you were to try to recall the times that you have been aggressive, you would probably report that many of them occurred when you were angry, in a bad mood, tired, in pain, sick, or frustrated.

And you would be right—we are much more likely to aggress when we are experiencing negative emotions. Frustration occurs when we feel that we are not obtaining the important goals that we have set for ourselves. We get frustrated when our computer crashes while we are writing an important paper, when we feel that our social relationships are not going well, or when our schoolwork is going poorly. How frustrated we feel is also determined in large part through social comparison.

If we can make downward comparisons with important others, in which we see ourselves as doing as well or better than they are, then we are less likely to feel frustrated. But when we are forced to make upward comparisons with others, we may feel frustration.

When we receive a poorer grade than our classmates received or when we are paid less than our coworkers, this can be frustrating to us. Although frustration is an important cause of the negative affect that can lead to aggression, there are other sources as well. In fact, anything that leads to discomfort or negative emotions can increase aggression.

Consider pain, for instance. Berkowitz b reported a study in which participants were made to feel pain by placing their hands in a bucket of ice-cold water, and it was found that this source of pain also increased subsequent aggression.

As another example, working in extremely high temperatures is also known to increase aggression—when we are hot, we are more aggressive. Griffit and Veitch had students complete questionnaires either in rooms in which the heat was at a normal temperature or in rooms in which the temperature was over 32 degrees Celsius 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The students in the latter condition expressed significantly more hostility. Hotter temperatures are associated with higher levels of aggression Figure 9.

McGregor et al. The participants in the study had been selected, on the basis of prior reporting, to have either politically liberal or politically conservative views. When they arrived at the lab they were asked to write a short paragraph describing their opinion of national politics. Then the participants read an essay that had supposedly just been written by another person in the study. The essay that the participants read had been prepared by the experimenters to condemn politically liberal views or to condemn politically conservative views.

Thus one-half of the participants were provoked by the other person by reading a statement that strongly conflicted with their own political beliefs, whereas the other half read an essay that supported their beliefs liberal or conservative. At this point, the participants moved on to what they thought was a completely separate study in which they were to be tasting and giving their impression of some foods. Furthermore, they were told that it was necessary for the participants in the research study to administer the food samples to each other.

The participants then found out that the food they were going to be sampling was spicy hot sauce and that they were going to be administering the sauce to the same person whose essay they had just read! In addition, the participants read some information about the other person that indicated that the other person very much disliked eating spicy food. Participants were given a taste of the hot sauce which was very hot and then instructed to place a quantity of it into a cup for the other person to sample.

Furthermore, they were told that the other person had to eat all the sauce. The threatening essay had little effect on the participants in the exam control condition. On the other hand, the participants who were both provoked by the other person and who had also been reminded of their own death administered significantly more aggression than did the participants in the other three conditions.

Data are from McGregor et al. Just as negative feelings can increase aggression, positive affect can reduce it. Then the participants were, according to random assignment, shown either funny cartoons or neutral pictures. When the participants were given an opportunity to retaliate by giving shocks as part of an experiment on learning, those who had seen the positive cartoons gave fewer shocks than those who had seen the neutral pictures. It seems that feeling good about ourselves, or feeling good about others, is incompatible with anger and aggression.

This makes perfect sense, of course, since emotions are signals regarding the threat level around us. When we feel good, we feel safe and do not think that we need to aggress.

Of course, negative emotions do not always lead to aggression toward the source of our frustration. If we receive a bad grade from our teacher or a ticket from a police officer, it is not likely that we will directly aggress against him or her. Displaced aggression occurs when negative emotions caused by one person trigger aggression toward a different person.

It is clear that negative affect increases aggression. And you will recall that emotions that are accompanied by high arousal are more intense than those that have only low levels of arousal. Thus it would be expected that aggression is more likely to occur when we are more highly aroused, and indeed this is the case.

Arousal probably has its effects on aggression in part through the misattribution of emotion. If we are experiencing arousal that was actually caused by a loud noise or by any other cause, we might misattribute that arousal as anger toward someone who has recently frustrated or provoked us. We have seen that when we are experiencing strong negative emotions accompanied by arousal, such as when we are frustrated, angry, or uncomfortable, or anxious about our own death, we may be more likely to aggress.

However, if we are aware that we are feeling these negative emotions, we might try to find a solution to prevent ourselves from lashing out at others. Perhaps, we might think, if we can release our negative emotions in a relatively harmless way, then the probability that we will aggress might decrease.

Maybe you have tried this method. Have you ever tried to yell really loud, hit a pillow, or kick something when you are angry, with the hopes that doing so will release your aggressive tendencies?

The idea that engaging in less harmful aggressive actions will reduce the tendency to aggress later in a more harmful way , known as catharsis , is an old one. It was mentioned as a way of decreasing violence by the Greek philosopher Aristotle and was an important part of the theories of Sigmund Freud.

Many others believe in catharsis too. One of the earliest attempts to link genetics and violent behavior occurred during the s, when researchers thought they had discovered a propensity for violence in men born with an extra Y chromosome. Although the studies attracted a lot of attention at the time, further examination of XYY males revealed that they did not display any particularly violent tendencies.

Furthermore, XYY males are extremely rare, and thus the syndrome could not possibly explain the frequency and prevalence of violent behavior around the globe. Scientists agree that there is probably a genetic component to aggression because violent behavior tends to run in families.

However, with a complex behavior like aggression, it is especially difficult to separate genetic and environmental contributions. Most likely it is possible to inherit a predisposition to violence, but psychologists also stress that modeling aggressive behavior in the home is the surest method for propagating violence. A large body of research implicates the amygdala as a key brain structure for mediating violence.

They noted that the animals were remarkably tame and showed little fear. Later research indicated that docile behavior associated with Kluver-Bucy syndrome is likely mediated by the amygdala, as selective removal of that structure produced similar effects on fear and aggression.

It is also possible to increase aggression through modulation of the amygdala. In animals, electrical stimulation of the amgydala augments all types of aggressive behavior, and there is evidence for a similar reaction in humans.

Sniper Charles Whitman, who killed several people from the University Tower at Texas, left a note behind that begged people to examine his brain for possible dysfunction. His autopsy revealed he had a tumor pressing into his amygdala. Hormones and Serotonin Testosterone is another attractive candidate for mediating aggression because males in of all ages, races and cultures are more physically aggressive than their female counterparts.

In animals, testosterone is linked to social aggression. Reducing testosterone in the alpha male by castrating him eliminates his dominant social status, and restoring testosterone through injection causes him to regain his social status.

However, administering testosterone to males with less social status does not usually allow them to take over the alpha male position, indicating that there is not a direct relationship between testosterone and position in the dominance hierarchy.

There is some evidence in humans that high testosterone males are more likely to be socially aggressive, but no evidence that they are necessarily more violent. Often they are successful in professions that thrive on competition, such as successful leading of a company, running for president, or pursuing a sports career.