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DEFINING AGGRESSION: THREE DISTINCTIONSWhen we think of aggression and violence, most of us probably think first of crimes committed by one individual against another. According to a recent national survey, each year 16 percent of all married persons engage in some act of physical violence against their mate, ranging from throwing something to using a knife or a gun on them. A great many parents commit surprising levels of violence against their own children. The same study showed that 13 percent of the parents had hit their child with an object in the previous year, 58 percent had slapped or spanked their child, and 3 percent had threatened their child with a gun or knife sometime in the child.s life. The authors estimate that about 1.5 million children are physically injured by their parents each year. The most violence in families occurs between siblings. In a given year, 40 percent of all children hit their own siblings with an object, and 16 percent beat up their sibling. Because people frequently treat one another so badly, even destructively, social psychologists have done a great deal of research to try to understand the violence people do to each other, usually under the general heading of research on aggression. Although it might seem that everybody understands what aggression is, there is considerable disagreement about how to define it. Let us make three important distinctions here. The first is whether we should define aggression simply in terms of hurtful behavior, or whether we need to take into consideration whether the person has hurtful intentions. The simplest definition of aggression, and the other favored by those with a learning or behaviorist approach, is that aggression is any behavior that hurts others. One of the first attributions people make about aggression is of the person.s intent. If a person tries to hurt someone, we ordinarily consider her to be aggressive; if she is not trying to cause harm, she is not being aggressive. A second major distinction is also needed, between antisocialand prosocialaggression. Normally we think of aggression as bad. After all, if an aggressive act results from an intent to hurt another person, it must be bad. But some aggressive acts are good. We applaud the police officer who shoots a terrorist who has killed innocent victims and is holding others hostage. A third distinction is between aggressive behavior and aggressive feelings, such as anger. Our overt behavior does not always reflect our internal feelings. Someone may be quite angry inside, but make no overt effort to hurt another person. We need to consider both the factors that increase anger and the restraints that may prevent it from being translated into aggressive action. Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1116
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