Elsevier

Current Opinion in Psychology

Volume 19, February 2018, Pages 75-80
Current Opinion in Psychology

The General Aggression Model

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.03.034Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Person and situation factors affect feelings, thoughts, and arousal.

  • Feelings, thoughts, and arousal influence appraisal and decision-making processes.

  • Appraisal and decision-making processes affect aggressive or nonaggressive behavior.

  • Biological and environmental factors influence aggression as well.

  • The General Aggression Model has been applied to many domains.

The General Aggression Model (GAM) is a comprehensive, integrative, framework for understanding aggression. It considers the role of social, cognitive, personality, developmental, and biological factors on aggression. Proximate processes of GAM detail how person and situation factors influence cognitions, feelings, and arousal, which in turn affect appraisal and decision processes, which in turn influence aggressive or nonaggressive behavioral outcomes. Each cycle of the proximate processes serves as a learning trial that affects the development and accessibility of aggressive knowledge structures. Distal processes of GAM detail how biological and persistent environmental factors can influence personality through changes in knowledge structures. GAM has been applied to understand aggression in many contexts including media violence effects, domestic violence, intergroup violence, temperature effects, pain effects, and the effects of global climate change.

Introduction

Many theories have been proposed to explain human aggression—defined as any behavior intended to harm a target who is motivated to avoid that harm [1]. The General Aggression Model (GAM) is one of the most comprehensive and widely used theories for understanding aggression. The present review describes the current state of knowledge of GAM, and briefly outlines recent applications of GAM and possibilities for future directions.

Section snippets

The  General  Aggression Model

GAM is a comprehensive, integrative framework for understanding human aggression. It considers the role of social, cognitive, developmental, and biological factors on aggression [1•, 2••, 3, 4, 5••]. GAM includes elements from many domain-specific theories of aggression, including: cognitive neoassociation theory [6, 7], social learning theory [8, 9], script theory [10, 11], excitation transfer theory [12], and social interaction theory [13]. By unifying these theories into one coherent whole,

Proximate processes

GAM is separated into two major aspects: proximate and distal processes (see Figure 1). The proximate processes explain individual episodes of aggression using three stages: inputs, routes, and outcomes. Inputs influence a person’s present internal state, which in turn affects appraisal and decision processes, which in turn influence aggressive and nonaggressive outcomes. Importantly, each episode of aggression (or non-aggression) serves as a learning trial that can influence the development of

Distal processes

The second aspect of GAM focuses on distal processes (see Figure 1), which operate in the background of each episode of proximate processes. This aspect of GAM outlines how biological and persistent environmental factors work together to influence personality, which in turn change person (and situation) factors [3].

Biological modifiers that increase the likelihood of developing an aggressive personality include (but are not limited to): ADHD, impaired executive functioning, hormone imbalances,

Applications of the General Aggression Model

GAM has been applied to a wide variety of aggressive contexts including: temperature effects [33, 48], violence associated with global climate change [5••, 49, 50], media violence effects [51, 52], pain [31, 32], intergroup violence [5••], intimate partner violence [5••], sexual aggression [53], domestic violence [54], suicide [5••], and personality disorders with an aggression component [20]. By increasing the understanding of aggression and violence, GAM has guided research and informed

Summary and conclusions

GAM has effectively organized theoretical insights gleaned from several key theoretical perspectives. Proximate processes of GAM detail how person and situation factors influence aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and arousal levels, which in turn affect appraisal and decision processes, which in turn influence aggressive or nonaggressive behavior. Each cycle of the proximate processes serves as a learning trial that can create aggressive knowledge structures after many repetitions,

Conflict of interest statement

Nothing declared.

References and recommended reading

Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:

  • • of special interest

  • •• of outstanding interest

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