Prominence of Male Aggression
Aggression has also been the primary focus of gender role studies of instinct, again with explanations of men's evolutionary advantage (Cairns,1986). The standard version says that during Human prehistory, while the women were at home caring for the children, the men were out hunting and defending the group against various threats. In both the hunting and the defending, aggressive action could be adaptive and even essential. Thus, women became passive homebodies and men became aggressive conquerors.
This view of human prehistory may be fictionalized and based more on the theorists' personal view than on prehistoric human behavior. There have been questions about both the idea of female passivity and whether men had an adaptive advantage from aggression (Benderly,1981;Hrdy,1981;Weisstein,1982). Women in the hunter-gatherer societies of prehistory probably not only gathered plants for food but participated in small game hunting, thus making them essential contributors to their group' food supply and far from passive. As for aggression, it can offer advantages if directed at the proper targets outside the group, but it can also be disruptive and dangerous within a group. The men in these societies must have needed to became selectively rather than pervasively aggressive; therefore, natural selection would not favor those who were aggressive in all situations.
Despite the widespread acceptance of an instinct for aggression, a definition has been diffcult to formulate. Although most people would agree that aggression is active and behavioral and that the result (or at least the intent) is harm to another, not all people would easily agree on which behaviors should be included and what consequences of these behaviors constitute harm. Actions like hitting, kicking, biting and even yelling seem obviously aggression; but sulking might also be considered aggressive by some (Tavris,1982) Aggression can cause not only physical but also psychological harm. An additional problem in defining aggression arises when determining what counts as aggression; intent as well as action both are important considerations. For instance; would doing harm to someone accidentally count as aggression?
Psychologist Leonard Eron (1987) discussed how he had solved the dilemma of defining aggression after 30 years of aggression research. He decided on a behavioral, objective definition of aggression, which he defined as "an act that injures or irritates another person" (p.435). Eron contended that intentionality is very difficult to measure, especially in children; his definition avoided this problem by ignoring aggressive intent and sticking to harm or irritation at the outcome. He acknowledged that some accidents would be included in his definition, but he argued that assertive acts would largely and in his opinion correctly be excluded, His approach avoided not only the issue of intent but also the complex relationship between anger and aggression.
Anger and aggression
Anger and aggression seem intimately related anger is the internal emotion and aggression is its behavioral reaction (Plutchik,1984). However, the two are not inevitably connected; person can experience anger and take no action , aggressive or otherwise, but a person can also act aggressively without feeling anger, such as the violence shown by a hired killer.
psychological and popular explanation of aggression have accepted that aggression is the outcome of some prior circumstance, either in the emotions or in the environment. psychologist william mcdougall and psychoanalyst sigmund freud believed that aggression was the result of instinctive expressions of frustrated wishes. this contention gave rise to the frustration-aggression hypothesis (dollard, doob, miller, mowrer,& sears, 1939), which holds that aggression is the inevitable result of frustration and and frustration is the inevitable consequence of aggression in this formulation, anger is not an important concept(averill,1982). the volume of research testing the frustration-aggression hypothesis has been conducted primarily laboratory settings with a limited set of frustrating stimuli and measures of aggression. these experiments have yielded information about one facet of aggression but have failed to explore aggression prompted by everyday events in more natural settings.
several investigations have surveyed people about their experiences of anger and subsequent aggression. although these surveys rely on self-reports and do not directly measure either anger or aggression, the survey method provides a way to investigate a wider range of topics than is possible through laboratory experiments. in a survey of university students in eight european countries, klaus scherer and his associates (scherer, wallbott,& summerfield, 1986) found that anger occurred more often than other emotion, with about 75% of participants reporting anger within the four weeks prior to the survey.
what is the relationship among the three factors involved: the angry person's experience of emotion, the consequences of anger, and gender? by surveying community residents and college students in the united states about their experiences of anger and subsequent aggression, james averill (1982) sought to answer these question. he found that anger was very common-85% of those surveyed reported at least one experience of anger within the week however, averill also found that physical aggression was rare during anger and that even the impulse to use physical aggression is not all that common. although aggression may be visible manifestation of anger, averill concluded that anger could be expressed in a great variety of ways.
this survey yielded surprisingly few gender differences in the experience of anger, but gender differences appeared in the targets of anger, with men being somewhat more frequent targets of anger than women. however the relationship between the two people was also an important factor . among people who were not well-known to each other, men were more likely than women to be the targets of anger among loved ones, men and women were equal targets among friends, anger toward same-gender friends was the most common pattern. averill also found that women reported more intense experiences of anger than did men, and women's responses were more varied, especially in their tendency to cry when they were angry.
The tendency for women to cry when they feel angry was a circumstance that June Crawford and her colleagues (Crawford, Kippax, Onxy, Gault, &Benton, 1992) discovered. Crawford and her group conducted their study by exploring their own memories of emotional experiences, including those involving anger. They found a common experience of crying in response to anger. They explained This experience as an acceptable means for girl and women to express anger, whereas physical aggression is less acceptable. However, crying is often misinterpreted as sadness or grief, especially by men. If the situation is one in which anger is appropriate, then women would appear to behave differently from men by exhibiting inappropriate response of sadness.
Few gender difference appear in the experience of anger: Both men and women feel angry in response to the same types of provocations. These include actions that lead to violations of their plans or expectations, person insults, and persons breaking social rules (Tavris,1982). However, what counts as a personal insult may differ for women and men, which produces some apparent differences in the circumstances that prompt anger. In addition, the expression of anger has many negative social consequences and limited effectiveness in bringing about change. Therefore, expression of anger tend be construed as more destructive than constructive.
Gender role not gender may have a consistent relationship to anger and the expression of anger (Kopper& epperson,1991,1996). In one study (Kopper& epperson,1996), masculinity (rathey than being male) was related to the expression of anger and aggression, and femininity (rathey than being female) of men and anger is in correct, although men are more likely than women to respond to anger with physical aggression.