Describe and Evaluate Theories of Aggression

Describe and Evaluate Theories of Aggression.

There are many forms of aggression used in society today, from name calling in the playground to domestic violence which is a man or women being beaten by his or her spouse.   There are several on-going debates regarding aggression development one of the main debates is nature versus nurture with Konrad Lorenz supporting the nature theory by suggesting that aggression is an instinct that we are all born with and Albert Bandura supporting the nurture theory, he believes that a child is influenced by their surroundings and by their upbringing. So could aggression be genetically transferred to us like the colour of our hair or eyes or does it develop as we grow and mature and interact with the world around us.
Freud agreed with the nature theory to aggression development, he believed in the instinct theory. He believed that everyone is born with an instinct to live, Eros, and an instinct to die, Thanatos and that as our aggression builds up and builds up , this process is known as the hydraulic theory, we can turn our death instinct towards others in a movement of self preservation to stop us from destroying ourselves. Freud advised that the only way around this was to find another way to vent our aggression build up with some form of cathartic release such as sport. Lorenz studied animals as he believed we evolved from animals and found that we have inherited a fighting instinct from them. He supports the nature theory but his beliefs differ from Freuds as he finds aggression a beneficial instinct that doesn’t come from an internal struggle between our life and death instincts but from an instinct to protect territory, partners and young from rivals of the same species. Megargee and Mendelsohn agreed Freuds theorys and completed a study on people who had committed brutally aggressive crimes, they found that there aggression was repressed and over controlled until it built up so much that something inconsequential...