Some Ways Through Which Culture Affects Aggressive Behavior (Essay Sample)

Social Psychology Responses
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The ways in which culture influences aggressive behavior
According to Anderson 2002, he defines that aggressive behavior is the intention to harm another person. It is further defined as a sequence of behavior with the final goal being injurious to the other party or person to who the intention is directed at. There are two controversies to be looked at when conducting a research on aggressive behavior. The nature vs nurture controversies provides the origin of aggression in human beings. This leads to different theories that emanate and they are: aggression is a learned behavior and aggression is innate. The two approaches to be used in discussing and understanding aggression are; cognitive approach and psychoanalytic approach (Archer, 2013).
The cognitive approaches of understanding aggressive behavior in human beings indicate that aggression is learned rather than being innate. The theory indicates that aggression is taken up through the mental process in which the thoughts and perceptions of aggression are learned. From the theory and approach, we get to understand that when an individual views aggression acts and scenes they have a very high likelihood to develop an aggressive behavior when they grow up (Archer, 2013). This leads to an argument that the cognitive schemata that develop the mind experience have a great effect on the possibility of aggression.
The psychoanalytic approach which is also referred to as psychodynamic approach founded by Sigmund Freud states that aggression is an instinctive drive that has a great relationship with the person and not the situation. The human Thanatos which is the human drive for aggression which is the destructive energy leads individuals to develop an aggressive behavior (Archer, 2013). The prime primitive forces death and life instincts tend to bring about a constant origin for aggression.
The concept of social identity and describe its components
Social identity relates to how people identify themselves in regard to others who are said to share a common goal. People can be identified with regard to political affiliation, race, and vocation, religion etc. The advantage that is related to social identity is that it makes people proud and have a high sense of esteem. It also gives people a framework of socialization and sense of belonging. The disadvantage of social identity is that it can lead to rivalry, superiority, and inferiority complex among people of different social groups.
Ethnocentrism is the view that one’s culture is superior to the cultures of other people. It involves the evaluation of other peoples’ own perspective about culture. The advantage of ethnocentrism is that it can make someone have extraordinary faith in a culture, individual ethnic group or country. The disadvantageous part of it is that it can make individuals feel that they are superior to others or at the same time their cultural values are better than the others.
In-group bias is the basic concept, which has strong effects on societies and in life generally. The advantage of in-group bias is that it makes individuals in the same group meet often and bond. The dark side of the in-group bias is that it can lead to atrocities from one group to another; the different groups will be working on eliminating one another.
Outgroup bias is a simple tendency to have negative views about people that aren’t part of one’s group. The advantage of out-group tendency is that it can make people distance themselves from the people they think and feel having negative motives. The disadvantage of out-group bias is that it can lead to violence to the people who have total animosity to other people in the society.
Aspects of Prejudice
Prejudice is an intolerant, unfavorable or unfair attitude directed towards a certain group of people. There exists a prejudicial belief that has virtually negative stereotypes among people. It is the negative acquiring and possession of negative attitudes directed towards members of some structured groups. The attitudes can propagate negative and unfavorable evaluations to the individuals in a certain group. On the extreme level, it can lead to violence or even worse enough genocide (Berzonsky & Papini, 2015).
The three categories of prejudice are; effective prejudice, conative prejudice, or cognitive prejudice. In the first type of prejudice is conative prejudice: it refers to the way that people have been inclined to behave. It is basically an attitude as people never have to act their feelings. A perfect example of conative prejudice is what an individual is capable of doing hypothetically if the opportunity presented itself. The second type of prejudice is effective prejudice; which is basically what a person likes or tends to unlike. For one to find effective prejudice they have to look at the attitudes towards members of specific classes like ethnicity, creed, race or national origin. The third and final type of prejudice is cognitive prejudice; this is what the people have a belief on to be true (Berzonsky & Papini, 2015). The best example for cognitive prejudice is difficult to find; this is hard such as the adherence to a specific methodological or metaphysical philosophy without having to include other philosophies that give an explanation to a complete theoretical explanation.
Components of prejudice
Individuals who possess a prejudice against a particular group of people or society tend to have bad and negative feelings when they directly or indirectly associate in any form with people of these groups. The prejudicial attitude with effective component plays the center stage having profound feelings that show a tendency of accompanying the cognitive reactions to objects of prejudice (Akrami, Ekehammar & Bergh, 2010).
Most research has been directed towards the behavioral component of prejudice....