So why many people sometimes will act in this way? Have they been cursed? Many psychologists use different approach to explain this behaviour. The most common ones are Biological, Behavioural, Cognitive, and Psychoanalytic approaches.
Biological Approach is an approach to psychology that tries to explain behavior in terms of electrical and chemical events taking place inside the body, particularly within the brain and nervous system. This approach seeks to specify the neurobiological processes that underlie behaviour and mental processes. One biological factor that may be related to aggression in human males is testosterone level. Testosterone is a male sex hormone that is responsible for many male bodily characteristics and that have been linked to aggression in monkeys. One large-scale study involved more than 4,400 male U.S. veterans. The men were given various psychological tests, some of which tapped aggressiveness, they also had blood samples taken from them so that their testosterone level could be determined. Men who had higher levels of testosterone were more likely to have a history of aggression. Since aggressive behavior in males can sometimes lead to antisocial behavior, we might expect that high testosterone levels were more likely to have low-status than high- status positions.
Psychoanalytic Approach is an approach to psychology that tries to explain it in terms of its relation to environmental events. The view that behavior should be the sole subject matter of psychology was first advanced by the American psychologist John B. Watson in the early 1900s. His position came to be called behaviorism. He stated that the proper subject of psychological research is behavior----that is what the organism does, not what it thinks or imagines or feels. There is an offshoot of behaviorism -----stimulus-response psychology (S-R psychology) which studies the relevant stimuli in the environment, the responses that are elicited by these stimuli and the rewards or punishments that follow these responses. With regard to aggression, children are more likely to express aggressive responses, such as hitting another child, when such responses are rewarded---- the other child withdraws---- than when their response are punished---- the other child counterattacks.
Cognitive Approach is an approach to psychology that focuses on mental processes such as perceiving, remembering, reasoning, deciding, and problem solving, and tries to explain behavior in terms of these mental processes. When you grow older and older, you will learn more things from your own experiences or from other resources which will affect your behavior. With regard to aggression, children are more likely to express aggressive responses while adults won't. For example there are a group of men and children watching a film in which a cartoon character violently attacked an inflated doll. After watching the film, they are left in a room with an inflated doll. The children will attack the doll vigorously; using many of the same movements they had just seen in the film while the adults will act normally.
Psychoanalytic Approach is an approach to psychology that tries to explain certain kinds of behaviors in terms of unconscious beliefs, fears and desires. This theory was developed by Sigmund Freud. The basic assumption of this theory is that much of our behavior stems from unconscious process. That is a person is unaware of but that nevertheless influences behavior. He believed that many of the impulses that are forbidden or punished by parents and society during childhood are derived from innate instincts. Because each of us is born with these impulses, they exert a pervasive influence that must be dealt with in some manner. Forbidding them merely forces them out of awareness into the unconscious, where they remain to affect dreams, slips of speech, or mannerisms, and to manifest themselves as emotional problems. According this theory of Freud, many of our actions are determined by instincts, particularly the sexual instinct. When expression of these instincts is frustrated, an aggressive drive is induced. Freud also claimed that aggression is an instinct, which means that people aggress to express an inborn need.
These are the four approaches
to explain "aggression". Apart from these approaches, there are other ways
of interpreting this behavior. You can see that there are a lot of ways
to explain one's behavior. Which approach that you accept or believe most?
Cognitive, Behavioral, Biological or Psychoanalytic Approach?