Social Psychology: Reaction Paper Essay

Reaction Paper: Chapter 10
            This chapter deals with aggression, and to many, this is not only a serious topic, but it is also a very fascinating topic. Aggression is a behavior, which as I learned from this chapter, is different than anger. Apparently, anger is only an emotion but is often directly linked to aggression. According to the chapter there are about 4 types of aggressions: direct, indirect, emotional, and instrumental. The one which was new to me was instrumental aggression, which is hurting a person in order to accomplish some other goal…harsh huh?
            Aggression a lot of the time can be linked to not only the situation one is in, or the anxiety one is experiencing, but temperature as well. For instance, according to this chapter people in general are more likely to make hostile nonverbal gestures when affected by a higher degree of temperature, as opposed to those in a colder scenario. This in mind, unsurprisingly, crime is much lower in areas where the temperature is generally lower and colder, as opposed to areas which are under constant heat and dryness. However, if the temperature becomes too hot, criminals tend to stay indoors near their air conditioning, where as if it becomes too cold, they tend to stay indoors near a fireplace; as much of commonsense as this is, I found it to be very interesting.
            Temperature however, is not the only reason why crime happens. Although there are some people who are labeled as "cold-blooded," people who would do anything to achieve what they desire, even murder, there is one thing which keeps the majority of us in place. This emotion is called empathy. From what I learned, empathy is an emotion which allows us to share the emotions of others; making aggressive behavior unrewarding. Have you ever put yourself in someone else's shoes before laughing at them for a misfortune? Well my dear friend, you have empathy to thank for this.
            As parents have been saying for the...