Практическое занятие №14
Psychology Science as my data for study.
Task 1. Give a talk about the problems: Example 1: Aggression
We all have seen people who seem to be very aggressive. Why are some people consistently more aggressive than others? Each of the five approaches to personality provides at least one answer.
Psychoanalytic theorists tend to explain behaviour in terms of unconscious processes. The classic psychoanalytic explanation of aggression proposes that each of us possesses an unconscious death instinct – a desire to self-destruct. However, because a healthy personality does not self-destruct, these impulses may unconsciously be turned outward and expressed against others in the form of aggression. Later psychologists elaborated on another psychoanalytic concept, frustration, to explain aggression. These theorists argued that aggression results when we are blocked from reaching our goals. A person who experiences a great deal of frustration, perhaps someone who is constantly falling short of a desired goal, is a likely candidate for persistent aggressive behaviour.
Personality theorists from the trait approach focus on individual differences in the stability of aggressive behavior. For example, many years ago a team of researchers measured aggressiveness in eight-year-old children by asking students in several classrooms such questions as «Who pushes or shoves children? (Huesmann, Eron, & Yarmel, 1987). Twenty-two years later, the investigators again interviewed the subjects, who were now thirty years old. They discovered that the children who had been identified as aggressive in elementary school were the most likely to engage in aggressive behavior as adults. The children who pushed and shoved others often grew into adults who engaged in spouse abuse and violent criminal behaviour.
How do trait psychologists explain this lifelong stability in aggressive behaviour? One factor they point to is a genetic predisposition to act aggressively. Evidence now suggests that some people inherit more of a predisposition toward aggression than others (Rushton et al., 1986). Although it is always difficult to find out what is inherited and what is learned.
Psychologists with a humanistic approach to personality explain aggressive behaviour in yet another way. Many of these theorists deny that some people are born to be aggressive. In fact, most have argued that people are basically good. They believe all people can become happy, nonaggressive adults if allowed to grow and develop in an enriching and encouraging environment. Problems develop when something interferes with this natural growth process. Aggressive children come from homes in which basic needs are frustrated. If the child develops poor self-image, he or she may strike out at others in frustration. The solution is to provide a warm and accepting environment for the child to grow up in.
The behavioral/social learning approach contrasts in many ways with the humanistic view. According to this approach, people learn aggressive behaviour in the same way they learn other consistent behaviours. If the aggression is continually met with rewards instead of punishment, the result will be an aggressive adult.
Children who watch other people get what they want with aggressive behaviour also learn that aggression can be rewarding. Aggressive playmates can serve as powerful role models for children, who may learn that hurting others is sometimes useful.
Finally, cognitive psychologists approach the question of aggressive behaviour from yet another perspective. Their main focus is on the way aggressive people process information. To better understanding this, imagine you are walking alone through a park. Two teenage boys, walking about thirty feet behind you, suddenly quicken their pace. What is your reaction? Perhaps the boys are in a hurry. May be they want to ask you for the time. Or may be they want to harm you. This situation contains a fair degree of ambiguity, and different people see it differently.
Cognitive personality psychologists argue that how you respond to this or that situation is a function of how you interpret it. Whether you see the circumstances as threatening will cause you to run away, prepare to fight, or move out of the way. The cognitive approach proposes that some people are more likely than others to interpret ambiguous situations as threatening. These people also are more likely to respond by acting aggressively.