Additional Topic: Aggression
Cover the complete Aggression option through biological, institutional, learning and media influences.
How to study Higher Psychology
Build each answer from accurate psychological knowledge, named evidence, application to behaviour, analysis and justified evaluation.
Core concepts
Concept 1
neural, hormonal, genetic, evolutionary and ethological influences
Exam cue: Explain mechanisms rather than labelling aggression as simply biological or learned.
Concept 2
social learning theory
Exam cue: Distinguish what institutions create from what individuals bring into them.
Concept 3
Sykes’ deprivation model, dysfunctional institutions and importation model
Exam cue: Separate short-term priming from long-term behavioural conclusions.
Concept 4
computer games, cognitive priming and disinhibition
Concept 5
one biological and one media-influence study
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Treating genetic influence as inevitability.
Guardrail: Avoid deterministic claims, unsupported causation and generic evaluation disconnected from the named evidence.
Confusing deprivation and importation explanations.
Guardrail: Avoid deterministic claims, unsupported causation and generic evaluation disconnected from the named evidence.
Inferring causation from correlational media evidence.
Guardrail: Avoid deterministic claims, unsupported causation and generic evaluation disconnected from the named evidence.
Memory anchors
Biological influence
Neural, hormonal, genetic, evolutionary and ethological accounts propose different mechanisms.
Social learning
Aggression may be learned by observing models and the consequences of their behaviour.
Deprivation model
Features and losses within an institution can generate aggression.
Importation model
People bring prior characteristics and experiences into the institution.
Cognitive priming
Exposure can temporarily make aggression-related thoughts more accessible.
Disinhibition
Repeated or normalised portrayals may weaken restraints on aggressive behaviour.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
What is a neural explanation of aggression?
How can hormones be discussed accurately in aggression?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
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