Jerks
Subjective Socioeconomic Status Causes Aggression: A Test of the Theory of Social Deprivation
Tobias Greitemeyer & Christina Sagioglou
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Seven studies (overall N = 3690) addressed the relation between people’s subjective socioeconomic status (SES) and their aggression levels. Based on relative deprivation theory, we proposed that people low in subjective SES would feel at a disadvantage, which in turn would elicit aggressive responses. In 3 correlational studies, subjective SES was negatively related to trait aggression. Importantly, this relation held when controlling for measures that are related to 1 or both subjective SES and trait aggression, such as the dark tetrad and the Big Five. Four experimental studies then demonstrated that participants in a low status condition were more aggressive than were participants in a high status condition. Compared with a medium-SES condition, participants of low subjective SES were more aggressive rather than participants of high subjective SES being less aggressive. Moreover, low SES increased aggressive behavior toward targets that were the source for participants’ experience of disadvantage but also toward neutral targets. Sequential mediation analyses suggest that the experience of disadvantage underlies the effect of subjective SES on aggressive affect, whereas aggressive affect was the proximal determinant of aggressive behavior. Taken together, the present research found comprehensive support for key predictions derived from the theory of relative deprivation of how the perception of low SES is related to the person’s judgments, emotional reactions, and actions.
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Talking About School Bullying: News Framing of Who Is Responsible for Causing and Fixing the Problem
Sei-Hill Kim & Matthew Telleen
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Our content analysis examines how American news media have framed the question of who is responsible for causing and solving the school bullying problem. We identified presence of considerable victim blaming in news coverage. Among potential causes examined, victims and their families were mentioned most often as being responsible. When talking about how to solve the problem, the media were focusing heavily on schools and teachers, while bullies and their families — the direct source of the problem — were mentioned least often. We also found that liberal newspapers were focusing more than conservative papers on social-level responsibilities, while conservative papers were more likely than liberal papers to attribute responsibility to individuals, suggesting that the political orientations of news organizations can affect which level of responsibility will be highlighted. Drawing upon the notion of frame building, we discuss in detail how several internal and external factors of news organizations can affect their selective uses of frames.
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Evidence That Self-Affirmation Reduces Relational Aggression: A Proof of Concept Trial
Christopher Armitage & Richard Rowe
Psychology of Violence, forthcoming
Objective: Acts of relational aggression cause significant social and personal costs, and interventions are needed to reduce relational aggression in community as well as clinical settings. The present study used a persuasive message coupled with a self-affirmation manipulation to reduce relational aggression among a group of adolescents recruited from the community.
Method: Participants (N = 503) all received a persuasive message designed to reduce relational aggression and were randomly allocated to participate in a self-affirming or nonaffirming task.
Results: Findings demonstrated a significant reduction in relational aggression over 1-month among participants who were randomized to the self-affirmation condition (d = −0.50) in contrast with a small increase in relational aggression in the control condition (d = +0.20). Contrary to expectations, these effects were not mediated by message processing or changes in interpersonal affect.
Conclusion: The present study used the novel approach of asking pupils to self-affirm following a persuasive message and showed that it was possible to reduce relational aggression. Self-affirmation shows considerable promise as a means of augmenting the delivery of interventions to reduce antisocial behavior in addition to other social and health behaviors.
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Environmental Determinants of Aggression in Adolescents: Role of Urban Neighborhood Greenspace
Diana Younan et al.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, July 2016, Pages 591–601
Objective: Neighborhood greenspace improves mental health of urban-dwelling populations, but its putative neurobehavioral benefits in adolescents remain unclear. We conducted a prospective study on urban-dwelling adolescents to examine the association between greenspace in residential neighborhood and aggressive behaviors.
Method: Participants (n = 1,287) of the Risk Factors for Antisocial Behavior Study, a multi-ethnic cohort of twins and triplets born in 1990 to 1995 and living in Southern California, were examined in 2000 to 2012 (aged 9−18 years) with repeated assessments of their aggressive behaviors by the parent-reported Child Behavior Checklist. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from satellite imagery was used as a proxy for residential neighborhood greenspace aggregated over various spatiotemporal scales before each assessment. Multilevel mixed-effects models were used to estimate the effects of greenspace on aggressive behaviors, adjusting for within-family/within-individual correlations and other potential confounders.
Results: Both short-term (1- to 6-month) and long-term (1- to 3-year) exposures to greenspace within 1,000 meters surrounding residences were associated with reduced aggressive behaviors. The benefit of increasing vegetation over the range (∼0.12 in NDVI) commonly seen in urban environments was equivalent to approximately 2 to 2.5 years of behavioral maturation. Sociodemographic factors (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) and neighborhood quality did not confound or modify these associations, and the benefits remained after accounting for temperature.
Conclusion: Our novel findings support the benefits of neighborhood greenspace in reducing aggressive behaviors of urban-dwelling adolescents. Community-based interventions are needed to determine the efficacy of greenspace as a preemptive strategy to reduce aggressive behaviors in urban environments.
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Sarah Teige-Mocigemba, Fabian Hölzenbein & Karl Christoph Klauer
Social Psychology, Summer 2016, Pages 136-149
Abstract:
Researchers have long argued that aggressive individuals automatically tend to perceive hostile intent in others, even when it is in fact absent (hostile attribution bias). Wilkowski and Robinson (2012) recently showed, however, that aggressive individuals were particularly accurate in the identification of subtle cues of facial anger, indicating greater perceptual sensitivity to anger information rather than a biased perception or interpretation. We tested the generality of this finding in four paradigms with different stimuli. As predicted by Wilkowski and Robinson, the more aggressive participants were, the more accurately they identified subtle aggressive information, whereas accuracy in the identification of nonaggressive emotional information was not a function of self-reported aggressiveness. The discussion focuses on the generality and limitations of the findings.
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Paul Adachi & Teena Willoughby
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
The longitudinal association between competitive video game play and aggression among young adults and adolescents was examined. Young adults (N = 1,132; Mage = 19 years) were surveyed annually over 4 years about their video game play and aggression, and data from a 4-year longitudinal study of adolescents (N = 1,492; Mage = 13 years) was reanalyzed. The results demonstrated a longitudinal association between competitive video game play and aggressive behavior among both age groups. In addition, competitive video game play predicted higher levels of aggressive affect over time, which, in turn, predicted higher levels of aggressive behavior over time, suggesting that aggressive affect was a mechanism of this link. These findings highlight the importance of investigating competitive elements of video game play that may predict aggression over time.
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Stephanie Fowler & Andrew Geers
Psychology of Men & Masculinity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Men have higher morbidity and mortality rates than women across the life span. One potential explanation for this gap is greater pressure for men to express their masculine toughness. Situations that threaten masculinity often result in compensatory behaviors (e.g., binge drinking) geared toward proving toughness. The present research tested the hypothesis that threats to masculinity would lead men to behave in ways that express toughness to a greater extent if they were highly masculine, as measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory. Further, we anticipated that self-affirmation would ameliorate the compensatory responding exhibited by higher masculine men under threat. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental cells in a 2 (Masculine Identity Threat: yes, no) × 2 (Self-Affirmation: yes, no) between-subjects factorial design. Results indicated that men expressed masculine toughness to a greater extent when facing a masculinity threat than when under no threat. Further, higher masculinity amplified the effect of threat in expressing toughness. Results also showed that the opportunity to self-affirm reduced expression of toughness among higher masculine men facing a masculinity threat. Theoretical contributions, implications, and future directions for this line of research are discussed.