The Road to Aggressive Behavior

So, it’s no news to anyone that we’ve all, at some point in our lives, felt aggression towards a certain individual or group. We’ve all had those days when our frustration gets to us and we behave in such a way that causes harm to another, whether that be physical or psychological. But do we always look back and question the surrounding factors that may have heightened our sensibility to lash out? 

Surely, it’s hard to reflect and make thoughtful attributions. Especially when anger is high, it is easy to completely blame the victim for our aggressive behaviors. In reality, however, there are many different factors that can facilitate our ability to intentionally hurt someone. 

Thinking about aggression, a specific day comes to mind. It was only a few months ago, a hot summer day, that my friend drove us to the mall to pick up some last minute things we needed for our dorms. Merely 48 hours from move-in day, we knew we didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the errand, but two miles away from our exit we hit insane traffic. Stuck bumper-to-bumper, my friend decided to take an early exit because he could not stand the wait. As soon as he tried getting into the exit lane, he was cut off by a huge pickup truck. In response, my friend became dramatically hostile and sped up to cut the same truck off further up, in addition to yelling and honking at him, putting both of our lives at risk.

Looking back at it, the aggression my friend exerted this day could be attributed to a variety of elements. For one, he had been having a very stressful week due to our soon departure for school. We both had a lot to get done, all while feeling a lot of different emotions towards moving away from home and leaving people behind. Additionally, the fact that we were only two miles away from our destination made him feel even more frustrated about getting stuck in traffic. According to the Frustration-Aggression Theory, which states that people’s perceptions that they are prevented from attaining a goal will increase the probability of an aggressive response, if we had not been as close, he would not have reacted to the extent that he did towards the truck driver. 

Many studies aim towards proving this hypothesis. In a study done by Harris (1974), confederates, either male or female, saying “excuse me” or not, and with a high or low status appearance, had to cut off a participant who was in the back of the line or towards the front. Aggressive behavior by the participant was measured by verbal or nonverbal cues aimed at confederates. Results show that while less aggression was aimed at female confederates than at males, those who were cut off closer to the front of the line by someone of “low status” reacted more aggressive than those who were in the back by someone of “high status.” There was stronger tendency of aggression towards confederates of the same sex, and less towards those who said “excuse me.” This study is important in explaining the different factors that play into our aggressive behaviors, especially when one is more frustrated. In this case, frustration produced more readiness to aggressive behavior.

Overall, it is uncommon to make different attributions for each of our aggressive behaviors. My reflection of my personal experience with road rage and this study, however, aim at detecting all of the factors that contribute to intentional aggressiveness. One can benefit from taking a situation and all of its facets because then it is easier to find reason behind our actions. If prior to what might become an intense situation we establish and take control of factors that may make it worse, we can prevent high degrees of aggressive behaviors. 

-Andrea Peraza

Harris, Mary B. "Mediators between Frustration and Aggression in a Field Experiment." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 10.6 (1974): 561-71. Web.