Transcript Unit 2: Self and Others - Rosehill

Unit 2: Self and Others
Area of Study 1: Interpersonal and Group Behaviour
What is an attitude??
Write your own definition.
Compare your definition to the definition below:
An attitude is an evaluation that a person makes about an
object, a person, group, event or issue. Or about anything!!
What is your attitude towards:
 Homework
 Three day weekends
 VCE
 The world cup
 Your best friend
 The person sitting on your right
 Your teachers (be nice!)
Strong, Weak, Accessible
• Attitudes can be strong or weak. A strong attitude is more
likely to be long-lasting, character defining and influence
your behaviour.
• A weak attitude may not be long lasting and is less likely to
effect your behaviour.
• An attitude is said to be accessible if you use if often. An
accessible attitude may further be strong or weak.
How did you form these attitudes?
 Most likely explanation is from life experience.
 Forming attitudes is a continual process occurring
throughout our lives
 Attitudes can be modified when new experiences interact
with already existing attitudes
 There are many ways an attitude can be influenced- by
parents, teachers, peers, the media etc
 Try to identify where some of the attitudes you have already
identified have come from. Have any of these attitudes
changes over time? Who may have influenced the change?
Did you know that it is likely that the
attitudes you form now will stay with
you into adulthood?
A stable unchanging world
Before we go on I think I need to mention that we as humans
want a stable and unchanging world. We want to be able to
make sense of our world and predict the behaviour of others.
Try to keep this idea in mind as it is central to much of the
concepts we will study soon.
The Tri-component Model of Attitudes
 There are three parts to every attitude:
1) Affective component- the feelings and emotions
associated with the attitude
2) Behavioural component- the actions and behaviours
that you do to express the attitude
3) Cognitive component- the beliefs and thoughts that
you have associated with the attitude
The tri-component model argues that an attitude has all three
of the above. If one is missing, it is not an attitude.
Try to identify the affective, behavioural and cognitive
components of the attitudes already explored.
Attitudes and Advertising
 Out attitude towards a particular product will determine
whether or not we purchase the product. If you have a
favourable attitude towards a product you are more likely to
purchase it.
 Advertising companies will attempt to change peoples
attitudes in favour of you purchasing a product
 They may act to influence or change the affective, cognitive
or behavioural component of your attitude towards their
product.
Attitudes and Advertising
 Changing behaviour- coupons, price reductions, free samples
 Changing cognitions- change beliefs about a brand, make the
item more important, add beliefs
 Changing Affective response- tie positive emotions to the
brand or item; may use humour, fear, childhood memories;
may use colour and music to evoke emotion
The Tri-component Model of Attitudes
 In general, all three of the components of an attitude will be
consistent.
 For example, if you do not like vegetables you will get upset
when you are given them (affective), you will avoid eating
them (behavioural) and you will believe that they are not
necessary and you can get your vitamins from other foods
(cognitive).
 Another example my best friend really likes chocolate. She
feels happy when she sees it (affective), she eats it regularly
(behavioural) and she believes that a small amount is not bad
for her health (cognitive).
Cognitive Dissonance
 But are your feelings and beliefs always consistent with your
actions?
 When any one of the three components of an attitude is not
consistent with the other two components, we experience
discomfort. We know that there are inconsistencies in our
attitude. This discomfort is known as cognitive
dissonance.
Lets experience some cognitive
dissonance...
 Rate each of the 5 statements below on a 5 point Likert scale
with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree
 Global warming is a serious problem and is having disastrous
effects on our planet.
 We as a society are too reliant on fossil fuels.
 Every human has the right to shelter and food
 No child should die of preventable diseases.
 We have a large impact on the natural environment and
should protect our native plants and animals.
1) Do you choose to walk or take public transport whenever possible to reduce
carbon gas emission? Do you take shorter showers, turn your heater down and
turn off you appliances at the power-point when you have finished using them?
2) Do you have solar panels at home to reduce the amount of electricity you need
that is produced from coal? Will you buy a hybrid for your first car?
3) Do you donate food and clothes to local charity organisations?
4) Have you ever considered sponsoring a child in a third world country? Do you
donate money to organisations that vaccinate children against preventable
diseases?
5) Do you plant native plants in your garden at home to provide food and shelter
to native animals? Do you donate time or money to organisations that
rehabilitate land?
Too what extent do you display the above behaviours? Do your beliefs
(cognitions) and emotions match your behaviour? How do you feel if they
don’t? This is cognitive dissonance.
How do we deal with cognitive
dissonance?
 Ignore the cognitive dissonance (but this can be difficult)
 Change your attitude by changing your cognitions or
behaviour
 Studies have found that people will often change their
cognitions to fit with the behavioural and affective
components of an attitude.
 Explain some ways that you might deal with any
cognitive dissonance encountered on the previous slide.
The Influence of Attitudes on Interactions
 When you meet someone for the first time you make
judgements about them- even after a brief meeting
 This judgment may be based on what the person looks like,
how they approach you and what they say.
 Why do we do this? It is helpful to categorise people. This helps
us to adjust our behaviour accordingly and know what to
expect from the other person.
Sterotyping
 A stereotype is a set of commonly held beliefs and ideas





about a person or group
These beliefs and ideas may or may not be true
Stereotypes can be positive or negative e.g. Boys are good at
maths (good stereotype) and girls are not (bad stereotype)
Stereotypes ignore individual characteristics
Stereotypes help us to better understand our world and save
us work mentally. They help us to make faster decisions. They
help us to better interact with other people.
While stereotypes may be helpful, they also lead to prejudice
and discrimination
Prejudice
 Prejudice is a negative judgement made about a person just




because they belong to a particular group
Often a the person holding the prejudiced attitude will not
personally know any member of the group
Often directed at minority groups
A person or group can be prejudiced against for any reasonsex, race, age, hair colour, religion, sexual preference, looks,
profession, etc.
Can you think of some groups that may experience prejudice
in our culture?
Discrimination
 Prejudice involves negative ideas the thoughts. When these
negative thoughts are acted on discrimination occurs.
 Discrimination can take many forms including violence,
name calling, ignoring, put-downs, segregation and
exclusion.
Measuring Attitudes
 Observation of Behaviour
 Can provide information regarding a person’s attitudes based on
their behaviour, body language, facial expressions
 As we know however our behaviour is not always an accurate
indicator of our attitudes
 Self-Report
 Participants supply responses to questions via interview or
survey by questionnaire
Questionnaires
 Can be fixed-response or free-response
 Fixed response questionnaires provide numerical data that is
easier to analyse.
 Advantages: easy and fast to administer, can administer to
many of people, confidentiality may increase honesty, as an
experimenter is not needed social desirability is reduced
 Disadvantages: still prone to some social desirability;
participant may not have a clear awareness of their true
attitudes
Fixed Response Questionnaires
 Participants choose their response to an item from given
responses
 Advantages: easier to analyse, quicker for respondent to
complete, access first thoughts,
 Disadvantages: might not get the person’s true feelings,
 In social psychology, Likert-scale questionnaires are often
used to investigate attitudes. They can convey how strongly a
participant feels about a particular statement revealing
information about their attitudes.
Likert-type Rating Scales
 Typically have 20 items
 All items focus on a particular attitude
 Half the statements are expressed positively, half negatively
 Participants can select their agreement with a particular
statement from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” with
generally 3 – 5 items in-between.
 The questionnaire is scored with each participant receiving a
“score” after completion. The positive statements are scored
high while the negative statements score low. The higher the
score, the more positive the attitude.
Design-Your-Own Questionnaire
 Your task is to design your own questionnaire investigating





attitudes towards a topic of your choice.
Your questionnaire must use a 5 point Likert-scale and have
at least 15 items.
You will need to address the three components of an attitude
in your statements.
You will need to use both positive and negative statements
and score them accordingly.
You will need to give the questionnaire to 5 classmates and
score their responses.
This task comprises your second portfolio task.
Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination
 Prejudice and discrimination can be reduced using the
following:
 Inter-group Contact
 Sustained Contact- when people spend time with each other over an
extended period
 Mutual Interdependence- two groups are dependent on each other
in some way
 Equality- both groups must have equal status and be treated equally
 Super-ordinate goals- two groups of people are required to complete
a task with each group equally important to the task
 Cognitive Interventions- changing the way that people
think about others and other cultures
 No one strategy alone is adequate- they must exist in
combination
 Each group has been given a scenario. Suggest activities that
you may use to reduce the prejudice/discrimination in the
scenario. Relate these activities to the strategies outlined on
the previous slide.
Robber’s Cave Experiment
 Complete a flow chart outlining the “Robbers Cave
Experiment” conducted by Sherif in 1956.
Social Influence
 Social Influence- the ways in which people change their
behaviour or attitudes because of the direct or indirect
influence of others
 People are influenced by others in many ways. The first type
of influence that we will look at is group influence.
Status and Power within Groups
 What is a group?
 A group is two or more people that may influence each other or others and
who are working towards a common goal, interest or purpose. The
individuals need to feel that they are a part of the group and must interact
with each other.
 What is Status?
 Status is the level of importance of a particular person within a
group as perceived by the other members of the group. It is
relative and can easily change.
 What is Power?
 Power is the ability of one person to influence the thoughts,
feelings and behaviours of another person or persons.
Power
 People in groups have power for different reasons.
The Stanford Prison Experiment
 Our status, the role we play in society and the situation
we find ourselves in all influence our thoughts, feelings and
behaviour. This influence is not to be underestimated as
Philip Zimbardo found out in his famous Stanford Prison
Experiment. See video and textbook for more information.
 What do you think was concluded from this experiment?
Obedience
 What is obedience?
 Obedience is a type of compliance that occurs when a person
complies with a demand. If you are told to “clean your room” by
a parent and you do then you are obeying their order. If a
parent asks you “Can you please clean your room?” and you do
you are complying with their request as opposed to obeying a
command.
 What influences people to obey a command? What factors
influence people to obey others? These questions were ask by a
famous social psychologists named Stanley Milgram.
Milgram
 See Milgram slideshow.
Factors Influencing Obedience
 It appears that people will obey others even when it means
inflicting pain on others. But they do not enjoy it and express
remorse. So why do they obey?
 There are several factors that have been identified that
increase the chance of obedience
 Social Proximity
 Legitimacy of the Authority Figure
 Group Pressure
Social Proximity
 Milgram modified his experiment so that more distance
separated the experimenter and the teacher. When the
teacher was not in the room and gave instructions via a
phone or tape recording, compliance to the full 450V fell
from 65% to 20%. Compliance also decreased when the
teacher was closer to the learner.
 Milgram concluded that the closer the participant to the
authority figure the more likely they are to obey. The closer
the participant is to the learner the less likely they are to
obey.
Legitimacy of the Authority Figure
 Milgram believed that the legitimacy of the authority figure
would influence obedience. In his first experiment, the
experimenter was a university professor and the study took
place at Yale University. Milgram modified his experimental
design to test his hypothesis. He conducted the tests in a run
down building external to the university and in some
instances dressed as a janitor. Compliance to the 450V
dropped to between 48% to 20%.
 With higher levels of authority, people are more likely to
obey.
Group Pressure
 Milgram also altered the number of people present during
the experiment. Milgram recruited two more teachers
(confederates).
 In one situation, the confederates were trained to complain
and leave the study early. When this happened, only 10% of
participants delivered the full 450V shock.
 Conversely, when the confederates supported the
experimenter, conformity rose to 73%.
 It thus appears that group pressure is the most influential
factor in determining obedience.
Conformity
 Conformity refers to any behaviour that is motivated by
pressure from other members of a group. When we conform,
we act in a way that is expected and excepted by the others
members of a group. In some situations we conform despite a
difference between our own feelings, thoughts and
behaviours and the feelings, thoughts and behaviours of the
group.
 Can you think of a time in which you have conformed? You
may have agrees or disagreed with the conformity.
 Can you think of a time that you have been a non-conformist
and not conformed to the expectations of a group?
Solomon Asch
 Social psychologist Solomon Asch was interested in researching
the factors that influence conformity.
 He conducted a simple experiment that asked participants to
judge line lengths.
 He asked participants: “Which of the following lines- A, B, or Cmatches line X?”
 The answer appears simple- Line B. However, by changing his
experimental design 70% of participants answered incorrectly.
How do you think he got these results?
Asch
 Asch told participants that they were participating in a study
on perception. He had to lie about the real aim of the studyconformity- as knowing the study was investigating
conformity would influence people’s responses.
 The study took place with a group of 6 participants sitting
around a table. Only one was a true participant however and
the others were confederates. The participants were shown
the line X and asked to pick the line that matched from
various images one at a time taking turns. The true
participant was always seated last and so heard the response
of all of the other participants first.
Asch
 In the first few rounds the right choice was very obvious and
all participants agreed. However, after this the confederates
started answering incorrectly. Not just one of the
confederates but all of them.
 In all Asch ran 12 trials. He found that 75% of the
participants conformed (provided an incorrect answer to
agree with the group) on at least one occasion.
Approximately 30% agreed with the incorrect responses one
6 or more of the trials.
 That being said 25% of the participants did not conform on
any of the trials.
Asch
 When Asch asked the participants why they conformed many
said that they conformed because they felt that their
judgement must have been wrong as all of the other
participants made the same judgement.
 This makes sense- it is more likely that one person would be
wrong than two, three, four or even five!
 Some participants said that they provided the incorrect
response because they feared being the odd one out.
Factors Affecting Conformity
 Through various experiments, Asch and other social
psychologists have identified a range of factors that influence
conformity. These are:
 Normative Influence
 Culture
 Informational Influence
 Unanimity
 Group Size
 De-individuation
 Social Learning Theory
Normative Influence
 We want to be liked and accepted by others. The normative
influence theory states that we comply with others in order
to be accepted and liked by a group. We feel that people will
like us more if we agree with their thoughts, feelings and
actions.
 We are more likely to conform when we like the
person/people in the group.
 Studies have found that people who care very little about
what others think about them are less likely to conform.
Culture
 Asch’s experiments described previously has been replicated many
times across many cultures.
 High levels of compliance were seen in countries such as China,
Japan, Fiji and some African nations.
 Lower levels of compliance were seen in countries such as the
USA, Canada, and Western European countries such as France and
Portugal.
 Researchers have found a large difference in the conformity
between collectivist cultures and individualistic cultures.
Collectivist cultures work towards group goals and encourage
uniformity. Individualistic cultures focus on individuality, personal
achievement and independence.
Informational Influence
 We conform because we believe that the information that we
have been presented with is true.
 People are more likely to conform when they feel they are
incapable of making the correct decision/judgement on their
own. They may be out of their area of expertise and need to
rely on someone else’s judgement.
Unanimity
 When the all or a majority of a group holds the same belief,
we are more likely to conform.
 When just one other person disagrees, conformity drops
dramatically. Asch found that having just one of the
confederates in his study provide the correct answer against
the majority of the group, conformity fell to just 10%.
Group Size
 Asch varied the number of participants in his study- from a little as
1 to as many as 15. He found that as the number of participants
increased, so did conformity.
 It has however been suggested by more recent research that it is
not so much the size of the group that is important but the
number of individuals whose judgements seen independent.
 In the larger groups, participants seemed to think that after the
first 3 or 4 response the other participants were just following
what the first three participants said. Therefore it appears that its
the number of independent judgements that have the most impact.
This is supported by the finding that the highest rates of
conformity actually occur with a group size of 3 -4 .
De-individuation
 De-individuation is when you lose you identity when you are
in a group.You feel anonymous within the group.
 When an individual feels as though the have no identity
within the group they also feel that they are no longer
personal responsible for providing a correct answer. This is
the responsibility of the group.
Social Learning Theory
 Social Learning Theory- all our behaviours are learned and
occur as a result of whether these behaviours were rewarded
or punished in the past.
 This theory proposes that we conform because we have
learnt to and that in the past conformity has been rewarded.
 Conformity has allowed us to avoid embarrassment in the
past. When we have not conformed we may have experienced
negative feelings by expressing and incorrect idea, displaying
an inappropriate behaviour, etc
Group Behaviour
 The information presented so far focuses on the idea that we
behave differently when we are in a group compared to our
behaviour when we are alone.
 Peer pressure is the name given to the influence of your peer
group- those the same age, gender, etc. Peer pressure mostly
occurs during social activities and can be associated with
misconduct and family tension. It can be real or imagined.
 Peer pressure is considered a type of conformity. It can be
negative (pressure to drink, take drugs, etc) or it can be
positive (pressure to attend a party that you actually have a
lot of fun at, make new friends etc).
Pro-social and Anti-social Behaviour
 Pro-social behaviour- Behaviour that is performed with the
intention of helping someone. The soul intent of the
behaviour must be to help another. We have all performed
pro-social acts.
 Anti-social Behaviour- Behaviour with the intention of
causing deliberate pain, discomfort or disruption (directed
towards a person, group or property)
 First we will look at pro-social behaviour
 What do you think influences people to act pro-socially?
Factors we identify:
 Can make you feel better about yourself
 You care about the person- you know them
 Feel sorry for someone
 Empathy/sympathy
 Obliged to help Guilt if you do not help
 Upbringing
 Courtesy- family, society, social expectations
 Culture
Pro-Social Behaviour
 Under what circumstances are we more likely to help others?
 Psychologists have identified 3 major influences:
 Situational Factors
 Social Factors
 Personal Factors
Situational Factors
 Bystander Intervention and Effect
 Bystander Intervention is the tendency for a bystander to
intervene and help another.
 The bystander effect describes how bystanders are less likely to
help if other potential helpers are present. The more people
present the less likely an individual is to help.
Darley and Latane
 Bystander effect was researched by Darley and Latane (1968).
 They placed college students in individual booths hooked up using an
intercom. The students spoke to each other but only one of the students
was a real subject. One of the confederates suffered a seizure and Darley
and Latane recorded how many of the students went to assist him.
 When the subject believed that they were alone with the other student,
85% left their booth to assist. However, when the participant believed
that they were one of four students present, only 13% left to assist the
student suffering the seizure.
 They found that the more students the subject believed were present,
the less likely they were to get out of their booth and help.
 When other people are present, the onus on ourselves to
personally assist has been dispersed to others. This is known as
diffusion of responsibility.
Diffusion of Responsibility
 The tendency for us to not help someone in need when their
are other people present because of our belief that someone
else will offer assistance.
Social Factors
 Social norms are expectations placed on us by society. They
are guided by cultural rules that define appropriate values,
beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
 Social norms influence pro-social behaviour
Reciprocity Principle
 The tendency to help others if they have or will in future
help you
 This principle can be quite powerful as Krishnan and
Carment (1979) discovered. They had a university student (a
conferderate) offer help to another student. Later the
confederate in return asked for help from the student. They
found that 66% of the students offered the confederate help
when the confederate had earlier offered them help. 0% of
students who had not been offered help previously from the
confederate helped when asked.
Social Responsibility Norm
 The social responsibility norm states that we should help
others less fortunate than ourselves.
 We are even more likely to help when we believe that the
person needs help because of their situation and not through
their own wrong doing.
Personal Factors
 Helping behaviours can be influenced by personal factors
such as empathy, mood and competence.
Empathy
 Empathy- the ability to understand and experience situations
and emotions from another person’s perspective.
 Empathy increases the likelihood we will help someone in
distress. The more empathy we have for someone the more
likely we are to help them (empathy-altruism hypothesis)
Mood
 Mood- an emotional state at a given time and place; can be
short lived and change with the situation we are in
 People in a happy mood are more likely to help others. It is
suggests that this occurs because it is a way to share the happy
mood.
 There has been mixed results in the research on people in
bad moods. Some studies have found that people in bad
moods can be just as likely to help as someone in a good
mood. It appears that if the person in the bad mood focuses
on the person in need they are more likely to help. If they
focus on themselves however they are not likely to help.
Competence
 The most influential personal factor
 The ability to help when someone is in need (can be real or
perceived).
 For example, if someone falls and cut their leg, a person who
has received first aid training is more likely to help than
someone who has not.
Altruism
Situational Factors:
Personal Factors:
Social Factors:
Pro-social Behaviour
Word Bank:
o Social norms, culture, up-bringing, social responsibility, reciprocity
principle, bystander intervention, mood, competence, empathy
Make flash cards. Use a different colour for each type of factor.
Anti-Social Behaviour
 Any behaviour performed with the intention of causing pain,
discomfort or disruption to an individual, group or property.
 For a behaviour to be considered Anti-social it must be
deliberate, voluntary and must intend to cause harm
 Anti-social behaviour is of interest to psychologists as
studying it and understanding its causes can help prevent
anti-social acts and the pain and suffering they cause
 One of the largest influences of anti-social behaviour appears
to be group size
Factors that Influence Anti-Social
Behaviour
 Diffusion of Responsibility
 Audience Inhibition
 Cost-Benefit Analysis
 Social Learning Theory
Diffusion of Responsibility
 The tendency for us not to help someone in need when there
are other people around as we assume that someone else will
help
 Example: Kitty Genovese case- no one came to help her
because they assumed someone else would
 Diffusion of responsibility is reduced if you know the person
needing help, live in a small town, or are male (but not too
masculine!)
Audience Inhibition
 The reluctance to help when in front of other people
(audience) to avoid embarrassment if the person does not
need/want help
 Is increased in ambiguous situations- when the actions of the
person make it unclear as to whether or not they need help.
 Is reduced when less people are present
 Was investigated by Darley and Latane (1968) in there
“Smoke Filled Room Experiment”
The Smoke Filled Room
 Darley and Latane (1968)
 Told participants they were participating in a study on memory.
Deception was necessary as if participants knew the study was on
helping behaviours they would have been extra helpful
 Participants were asked to wait in the waiting room and fill out a
form outlining their personal details. The independent variable
was whether the participant filled the form out in an empty room
or in a room with two confederates who were also filling in
personal information forms
 While the participants filled out forms, smoke would enter the
room through a vent.
 How do you think the participants acted in the two experimental
conditions?
The Smoke Filled Room- Results
 Darley and Latane found that when the participants were alone,
they all investigated the smoke and went for help.
 However, when other people were present 90% stayed in the
room while it filled with smoke! They coughed, waved the smoke
away, rubbed their eyes and opened the window but did not go for
help.
 When the researchers asked why they didn’t go for help the
participants replied that there was no fire and therefore no danger.
 We would undoubtable assume that the fact that there were other
passive participants present had a large influence on their
behaviour!
Cost Benefit Analysis
 The evaluation we make about helping that weighs up the pros and
cons of a situation. The pros and cons can be personal and social.
 If the pros out-weigh the cons then we will help (pro-social). If the
cons out-weigh the pros, we will not help (anti-social).
 Example: A friend asks you to come watch him play footy on
Saturday. Its the last game for the season and you have been
promising you will come watch a game.Your mum has been asking
you all week to clean up your room. She wants it done by Sunday
morning as you have family coming for lunch.You also have to go
to the shops to get a new portfolio for Psychology class. Weigh up
the pros and cons and decide what you will do.
Role Play
 In groups devise a short role play that demonstrates cost-
benefit analysis.
Social Learning Theory
 Proposes that we learn how to behave by observing others
and either replicating or not replicating their behaviour based
on whether we observed positive or negative consequences.
 Observing the actions of others and their consequences is
called modelling.
 Bandura investigated Social Learning Theory in 1965 using a
Bobo doll. The results of the experiment quickly became well
known!
Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment
 Aim: To investigate the effect of observational learning and reinforcement
(positive or negative) on behaviour
 Participants: Pre-school aged children
 Method: Participants watched a series of videos. The film featured an adult
and a blow up clown Bobo. In the film, the adult punched Bobo and knocked
him down while shouting phrases such as “sockaroo”. The film however
ended with one of thee scenarios:
1. the adult was rewarded with praise and lollies for hitting the doll
2. the adult was scolded and smacked for hitting the doll.
3. the adult was neither rewarded or punished
o After the videos the children were allowed to play with the Bobo doll while
being observed through double windows.
What behaviours do you think the children displayed?
Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment
 Children who saw the violent behaviour were more likely to
mimic the behaviour of the adult and act violently towards
the Bobo doll
 Bandura later found that if the child waspersonally rewarded
for aggressive behaviour towards the doll they would act
violently even of they had seen the adult punished.
 It is however not exposure to behaviour that is the only
cause. We see violence on TV everyday and yet most of us do
not engage in such acts of violence. There are clearly many
more influences on behaviour than observation of reward and
punishment.
Aggression
 Deliberate behaviour intended to harm another (or object).
This harm can be physical or emotional.
 The causes and explanation of aggression have been long
debated. Today several theories exist.
Aggression: Ethological Approach
 Proposed by Conrad Lorenz (1930s)
 Ethology is a mix between psychology and zoology. Ethologists
study behaviour patterns of species in their natural environment.
Often, observations of one species are used to make predictions
about the behaviour of another species. For example, behaviour
patterns found in animals may be used to explain human
behaviour.
 The ethological approach believes that all living creatures have a
tendency towards aggression.- aggression is an instinct. This idea
has been supported by studies that have observed that many animal
species, even when raised in isolation, will act aggressively.
Further support has come from genetic studies. These studies have
found that aggression can be inherited.
Aggression: Ethological Approach
 Whether this aggressive instinct is realised or not depends on
the introduction of a releaser- an environmental stimulus
that triggers the aggression.
 Limitations of the Ethological Approach:
 Most research has been conducted on lower order animals-
animals with lower intelligence relying on instinct to survive.
 The approach does not take into account the many forms that
aggression can take