Nature vs. Nurture: Aggression
For decades, scientists have been debating about the issue of nature versus nurture. Are a person’s personality traits a result of nature or of his or her environment? Is aggression something we are born with or is it something we learn from our environment? According to the American Psychological Association, the word ‘aggression’ is defined as “behaviors that cause psychological or physical harm to another individual”. There are many studies that have been done to show that aggression and other personality traits is something that is innate in us and also is something that we learn from our environment.
For arguments that state that aggression is something innate in humans, theories such as the Psychodynamic …show more content…
Studies such as the one conducted by Roy C. Herrenkohl and M. Jean Russo (2001) suggest that different aspects of strident child nurturing can influence children at different developmental stages. According to their study, factors such as a family’s socioeconomic status (SES), maternal interaction with the child and severe physical discipline by mothers is what affects aggression. Children who come from families with low SES tend to experience harsher childhoods due to the stresses that they face and also because the stress affects parenting and causes the parents to be harsher. It is also because the parents are unable to cope with parenting due to lack of resources. As for maternal interaction with the child, when a child’s emotional needs are not met at a very young age, this gives them the perception that they do not deserve affection and are not worthy and this causes them to be angry which eventually leads to aggression. Using severe physical methods to discipline a child can also lead to aggression because it terrorizes and humiliates the child and causes the child to feel threatened by the world and one of the options the child has to cope with the situation is by using aggression. However it does not explain how some individuals who come from such situations and faced the same kind of upbringing manage to motivate …show more content…
In a recent study about how media violence affects aggression, Krahé et al (2001) found that in response to media violence by repeated exposure to reduce fear and anxiety, aggression-enhancing cognitions are stimulated and sooner or later, increases the likelihood of beginning proactive aggressive behavior. The exposure and outcome that was aggression-related were variables that caused less physiological responses towards a violent film clip for individuals who repeatedly used violent media content and these were specific to only violent stimuli and not for other stimuli such as happy or sad clips. They also found that the individuals’ physiological response was not only reduced for violent clips but was also reduced for sad clips. This can be explained by the fact that sad and violent clips contain similar themes of violence and death. Child upbringing which is also an environmental factor has also been considered to play a part in aggression. Megan Tripp De Robertis and Alan J. Litrownik (2004) conducted a study which was the first to report that there is also a relationship between parent disciplinary conducts and child aggression in foster parent homes and not only in biological family homes. This theory is also counterproductive because in some situations where children who come from harsh environments in biological family homes move into foster parent
For decades, scientists have been debating about the issue of nature versus nurture. Are a person’s personality traits a result of nature or of his or her environment? Is aggression something we are born with or is it something we learn from our environment? According to the American Psychological Association, the word ‘aggression’ is defined as “behaviors that cause psychological or physical harm to another individual”. There are many studies that have been done to show that aggression and other personality traits is something that is innate in us and also is something that we learn from our environment.
For arguments that state that aggression is something innate in humans, theories such as the Psychodynamic …show more content…
Studies such as the one conducted by Roy C. Herrenkohl and M. Jean Russo (2001) suggest that different aspects of strident child nurturing can influence children at different developmental stages. According to their study, factors such as a family’s socioeconomic status (SES), maternal interaction with the child and severe physical discipline by mothers is what affects aggression. Children who come from families with low SES tend to experience harsher childhoods due to the stresses that they face and also because the stress affects parenting and causes the parents to be harsher. It is also because the parents are unable to cope with parenting due to lack of resources. As for maternal interaction with the child, when a child’s emotional needs are not met at a very young age, this gives them the perception that they do not deserve affection and are not worthy and this causes them to be angry which eventually leads to aggression. Using severe physical methods to discipline a child can also lead to aggression because it terrorizes and humiliates the child and causes the child to feel threatened by the world and one of the options the child has to cope with the situation is by using aggression. However it does not explain how some individuals who come from such situations and faced the same kind of upbringing manage to motivate …show more content…
In a recent study about how media violence affects aggression, Krahé et al (2001) found that in response to media violence by repeated exposure to reduce fear and anxiety, aggression-enhancing cognitions are stimulated and sooner or later, increases the likelihood of beginning proactive aggressive behavior. The exposure and outcome that was aggression-related were variables that caused less physiological responses towards a violent film clip for individuals who repeatedly used violent media content and these were specific to only violent stimuli and not for other stimuli such as happy or sad clips. They also found that the individuals’ physiological response was not only reduced for violent clips but was also reduced for sad clips. This can be explained by the fact that sad and violent clips contain similar themes of violence and death. Child upbringing which is also an environmental factor has also been considered to play a part in aggression. Megan Tripp De Robertis and Alan J. Litrownik (2004) conducted a study which was the first to report that there is also a relationship between parent disciplinary conducts and child aggression in foster parent homes and not only in biological family homes. This theory is also counterproductive because in some situations where children who come from harsh environments in biological family homes move into foster parent