Kanttekeningen

De controle over woede en agressief gedrag: de rol van cognitieve factoren

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Abstract

The control of anger and aggressive behaviour. The role of cognitive factors - One of the main assumptions of cognitive psychology is that man is not a passive recipient of life events but, on the contrary, actively constructs his environment. An active organism intervenes between stimulus-input and response-output. This even goes further : which stimuli are attended to and which stimuli are ignored is under the selective control of the organism as well. To answer questions such as why one individual behaves aggressively or becomes angry while the other does not, in seemingly similar situations, we have to look at the way the situation, the stimuli, and the variables controlling the responses are represented in the mind of the individual. Starting with Novaco’s anger model, we found further explanations in the literature on cognitive psychology and information processing, and in the work of clinical researchers such as Meichenbaum, Ellis, Beck. Humans develop internal cognitive structures, called schemas, scripts, theories, etc., which determine what information will be perceived and how it will be categorized and stored. Besides that, cognitive processes like attention, focusing, labelling, appraisal expectations, mediate between external events and behavioural and emotional reactions. The existence of those mediating cognitive processes and structures makes it possible to understand why emotional and behavioural reactions such as anger and aggression, do sometimes deviate, in strenght or frequency, from rational, normally expected types of behaviour.

How to Cite:

Ryckaert, M., (1987) “De controle over woede en agressief gedrag: de rol van cognitieve factoren”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 32(3), 282–301. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.94957