Discuss psychological explanations for two or more forms of institutional aggression
Institutional aggression is any form of aggressive behaviour that happens within an institution; this could include a institutions such as the armed forces or prisons.
One psychological explanation for institutional aggression is the importation model. This explanation suggests that aggression within prisons is due to interpersonal factors; hence individuals take their aggressive behaviour into the prison with them. Irwin and Cressey suggested that prisoners for example take their own social history and traits into prison with them and this influences their adaptation to the prison environment. They further argue that prisoners are not blank slates when they enter prison and many normative systems developed on the outside would be imported into the prison
This model has received a range of research support, particularly in terms of individual factors including age, education level and race. Harer et al collected data from 58 US prisons and found that black inmates had significantly higher rates of violent behaviour but lower rates of alcohol-related and drug-related misconduct than white inmates. These patterns are parallel to racial differences in these behaviours in the US society and so support the importation model explanation of aggression.
The deprivation model is also another explanation that for institutional aggression. This model suggests that an individuals aggression is a product of the stressful and oppressive conditions of the institution itself. These include crowing, assumed to increase fear and frustration levels, and the staff experience. For example Hodgkinson et al found that trainee nurses are more likely to suffer violent assault that found in experienced nurses, and in the prison setting, length of service was also a significant factor, with more experience officers being less likely to suffer an assault.
The deprivation model is supported by...