Social Psychology 2019

*This is a sensitive topic* *If discussing rape and the repercussions of it causes you stress, don't read this post* Rape is something we all know about, but don't want to think about. It is a common occurrence on college campuses to have cases of rape. Many people just brush it off as, oh it wasn't someone I know or they probably were drinking. It's this state of mind that makes the occurrence of rapes become a more normal thing. Over the past few years the number of sexual assault reported has gone up by over 4,000 cases. "T hese results seem to portray a dramatic upswing in sexual violence."-(Project Know) There are tons of sayings like "She should have worn different clothes, she shouldn't have gotten so drunk, she was probably asking for it." It's been my opinion that hearing these statements kind of makes things "ok" in the eyes of some people. These rationalizations make people feel better about hearing these thin...

Most often when people talk about aggression they are talking about how bad or wrong it is. In general aggression is defined as “behavior that is intended to harm another individual.” (kassin) While this definition definitely makes aggression sound bad or even evil, it doesn't have to be that way. Everybody has aggressors in their lives and everybody will experience aggression. It stems from emotions, and those emotions can tell us important things about ourselves if we can notice when we are feeling aggressive and respond appropriately. The struggle really lies in people learning how to rid themselves of these feelings in a non-destructive way. Types of Aggression There exists many different ways with which to classify aggression but the two that I will discuss are proactive and reactive aggression. Proactive aggression is “aggression in which harm is inflicted as a means to a desired end … aimed at harming someone for personal gain, attention, or even self-defense” (Kas...

With the constant growth of violence in the world each and every day, mass media only continues to enable subliminal and unconscious messages that can be linked with violence and sexual crimes towards women. It is important to note that these correlational findings are specific to violence laced content in particular. This is to say that non violent pornogrpahy will not replicate the same negative effect, and is far less likely to induce aggressive behaviors. However with exposure to heavily violent materials, multiple factors are working at once to produce dangerous results. The combination of high arousal, destructive thoughts, and dense negative emotional responses creates a perfect storm for harmful behaviors to develop. (Kassin, et. al, 2014 p.494) But why is the subject of cruelty, and force so appealing in the world of pornography? It is a structured, coordinated, and consensual fantasy made for the purpose of satisfying a target audience and to generate revenue. While it is...

We all have experienced the effects of bullying in our lives one way or another, whether or not they happened to us directly or we heard the horror stories from friends and family. You could even have just experienced it in the media where, in any fictional depiction of school one of the most prominent aspects is the bully. Bullying is a consistent aspect of school for children of all generations, just as consistent are the stark differences between the ways boys and girls bully one another. The differences are so clear in fact, that they easily fall into and make great examples of different types of aggression. It would make sense to start with the ways boys harass one another as studies suggest that they experience more frequently than the opposite gender. Boys tend to be the victims of physical violence far more often than girls and the actions don’t tend to be premeditated in any way. They are fueled by emotional turmoil and things such as establishing d...