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Psya3 aggression urgent!

I was reading the mark schemes and found that on the June 2013 question, 'Outline an evolutionary explanation of one example of group display in humans' (4 marks), the scheme states,

'Examples such as lynch mobs are not explanations but may earn marks if used to demonstrate understanding of a particular explanation.'

The only group displays I have notes on are sports events and lynch mobs! The Loopa website suggests that group displays are also likely to come up as an essay question, so I'm a bit worried about this now. Does anyone know if lynch mobs would count as an explanation in a larger essay?!

Reply 1

tweety97

Hi,

To be honest I don't know if you could use that. What my teacher and taught us was:

Sports- xenophobia / territoriality
Warfare- benefits of aggressive displays / costly displays signal commitment

What textbook do you have?

Reply 2

Senses

You need to talk about Deindividuation when talking about Lynch mobs. There's a study about it. This is assuming you have the book I do.

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Reply 3

nk0615

I would look at war.... our school looked at sports and war for group display!

Reply 4

coffeeandcats

Original post by tweety97

I do have the notes on sports events and can kind of apply that to warfare. I wrote an essay earlier using sports events as the key explanation and it came to around 1300 words with everything included so should be fine, I just got a bit panicked reading that on the mark scheme!

I've never heard of xenophobia, but territoriality comes into the sports notes I have as well as things like social identity theory and Konrad Lorenz's instinct theory.

I use the red book with the butterfly on the front, best way to explain is to send a photo! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychology-A2-AQA-Jean-Marc-Lawton/dp/144412336X

Reply 5

coffeeandcats

Original post by Senses

You need to talk about Deindividuation when talking about Lynch mobs. There's a study about it. This is assuming you have the book I do.

Thank you, I just don't really understand how deindividuation applies to evolutionary aggression? Though I could include some studies as I have revised deindividuation as part of the social psychological explanation. :smile: