A couple of weeks ago, I was TAing a Social Psychology lecture on the topic of "Aggression". A big topic, a great topic... Something you can really sink your teeth into... Metaphor that works on many levels.
At some point in the class, an interesting question came up (posed by me! yey TA!): "Why do people aggress towards others?"
Two answers really grabbed my attention: Threat (survival) and communication.
Threat, I had expected (it was in the readings). Communication, I had not.
But I loved these answers. Both answers really got me thinking (this is the point in the class where I lost everybody though.) Here's the thing about the "communication" answer though. I, too, have often found that there's nothing like a good fight to really connect with somebody. You bond on a deep level when you're willing to just go to the depths of your soul and pull out all that is most intense (ugly? maybe beautiful?) and show it to somebody else. That's really something. (Granted not all aggression gets this epic, but I think we can all agree that it can. "300" anybody?)
Here's the thing though. I wanted to get the students thinking about how these two motivations to aggress could come together and could grow apart. Here's the reading in a nutshell: "People aggress towards others if they are under threat, because looking down on others makes us feel better about ourselves" (not verbatim, Wills, 1981). But, there's more: "Unless EVERYBODY is under threat. In that case, we just make friends." (also not verbatim, called "shared-fate" in Wills, 1981).
What does that tell you? (Well, who knows what it tells you, this is psychology, ok?) But I think you could make the argument that aggression is communication. Does it stem from the need to communicate or does it EQUAL communication, that is another question. But I think you could pose the same one with threat, couldn't you? Is aggression a response to threat, or is it an expression of threat?
Hm. I don't know that that's known. Would probably depend on how we define aggression and threat and everything else. We could draw lines in the sand to make them distinct but they probably overlap.
I'm getting bogged down in the weeds. The point is, threat can lead to aggression, but it can also lead to affiliation (read: communication). That would put the two on par (aggression = communication).
But you could go deeper. You could say, we have a need to connect with other human beings. And you could say that aggression is one of the ways to do this. There are other ways: conversation, sex, writing, ... But how often have you gotten angry at somebody and lashed out because they just didn't get what you were saying or how you were feeling and you didn't know how else to tell them - but you really needed them to know you?
Very interesting and makes me think that people who don't have verbal skills often need to resort to aggression (which I think you are talking about as just verbal aggression here) because they don't know what else to say or how to say it. I
ReplyDeleteAll I could think about is how this is the most awesome use of a TA I've ever seen! Class is going on, and the TA is there having all these sophisticated thoughts about the topic, but there isn't time to share them all and let students participate. But, if this insightful TA were to blog about them, then interested students could get some in-depth ruminations. Fantastic! This could even be the meat of the assessment- "Show up to class, follow the discussion/presentation, then READ the TA's blog post to take you to the next level of understanding, and write your assignment from that blog post." That way, the student has to be invested in the class, or they won't get the blog post. (And if they can wrap their head around it, then they don't need to waste their time in class if they don't want to...)
ReplyDeleteSorry for the gross digression- I hope it doesn't spur any AG-gression. If I were making up my own character, I'd name here Gression.
I love your writing style, Nadine!
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of comments from Robert Solomon in his book Passions, where he described anger as a close emotion- you want the person there so you can stick it to them. In some way, we feel on the same "level" as the object of our angry emotion. Resentment, we feel below, and so we don't want to be anywhere near them. And contempt, we feel above, and again, don't want them around. But we want someone we're angry with to hang around so we can have it out with them, so we can communicate with them? (Like at the end of Toll Booth Willy, "Come to the hospital! Come to the hospital!" -Unsavory, but hilarious content.)
I'm so excited you're blogging about this stuff- I LOVE your research material!
1) I like this use of a TA too. I think I am going to try to sell the idea to my department. :P
ReplyDelete2) That's awsome. I never read Passions but I'm loving it because this is a mix of Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) with some Wills (1981) thrown in. In essence, we need to compare ourselves to others - to know who we are - but we only like to hang out with others who are like us (Schachter, 1959). Also says something about projection right? Like about how we only get angry at people who are most like us... I love it! You're making me think about this in a new way.