WHAT DO THEORIES AND RESEARCH FROM BOTH SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND PERSONALITY APPORACHES CONTRIBUTE TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR?

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On April 20th, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire in Columbine Highschool in Littleton Colorado After having killed 12 of their fellow students and one teacher they committed suicide one hour into the massacre. This school shooting was the beginning of a chain reaction (now known as the Columbine-effect) of events that immensely influences the lives of many and inspire students all over the world to commit similar copycat crimes, with the latest happening on January 25th, 2020, in Poland. What were the reasons that lead to their outburst? They were part of a small friend group that consisted of outsiders, all of them experienced bullying and all of them had a distaste towards those who wandered the schools without facing the same problems as they did. As they all joked around about killing their bullies, taking revenge on the school and the system that failed them, two of them would mean it. How can it be that a group of friends all live through the same struggles every day, but two of them turn to rebelling, stealing, and later killing? In this essay I will take a closer look at anti-social behaviour in order to get a deeper understanding of what leads to it and what happens if it remains untreated. The Cambridge dictionary describes anti-social behaviour as “harmful to society” as well as “not wanting to spend time with or be friendly with other people” (Cambridge Dictionary, n.a.). The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 described it as “behaviour by a person which causes, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to persons not of the same household as the person” (Anti-social behaviour Act , 2003) and the Metropolitan Police went on to describe the three main categories for anti-social behaviour. “Personal antisocial behaviour is when a person targets a specific individual or group, nuisance antisocial behaviour is when a person cause trouble, annoyance or suffering to a community and environmental antisocial behaviour is when a person’s actions affect the wider environment, such a public spaces or buildings. (Metropolitan Police, n.a) It is important to mention that everyone shows signs of negative behaviours at some point, and that especially children show signs of both pro- and anti- social behaviour while they develop. In the following I will explain what Social Identity as well as Social Learning Theory and the 5 Factor Model contribute to our understanding of anti-social behaviour. Social Identity theory was contributed by Henri Tajfel in 1971. He proposed that groups people belong to take an important part in their source of pride and self-esteem which then gives them a sense of belonging in the social world. Putting people into different social groups, („them “and „us “) is a normal cognitive process. We view groups that we belong to (in-group) and groups which are different from others (out-group). Simply by being there, and others being aware of it, the out-group is more likely to face prejudice, and seen as “lesser”. (MCLeod, 2007) Later in 1979 Tajfel and Turner state that there are three mental processes involved when categorizing others into in- and out-groups. It starts with social categorization. We use social categories in order to understand our social environment. On a big scheme this could be Black, White, Christian, Jewish, etc. because it supports us to paint a picture of the person inside said group. After that comes the social identification, here we insert ourselves into the group. Finally, comes the social comparison stage, where we actively compare ourselves to other groups. Being in the out-group can be scarring for your mental health as your pride and self-esteem can get hurt in the process of being the outsider. Not being part of an in-group, or a majority can lead to a mistrust in said group, and that mistrust can turn into dislike and feelings of hostility which can manifest itself into anti-social behaviour that could actively harm the community. Whereas some people take pride in being different others would do anything to be part of the in-group. (McLeod, 2019). Social Learning Theory was established in 1977 by Albert Bandura and talks about how behaviour is learned by observing those around you. He proposes that we mirror those around us, and with that their attitudes, emotional reactions, and overall behaviour. (McLeod S. , 2016) In 1961 he tested that theory by letting children watch adults behave aggressively towards Bobo-the-doll. The children were more likely to mirror the adults when it was shown that the latter got rewarded. (McLeod S. A., 2014) If we combine the ideas of the social identity theory with those of the social learning theory, we could come to the conclusion that people will copy those around them, especially if they share a social group with them. Being surrounded by people that share the same mistrust in society could lead more to anti-social behaviour than being part of an in-group that is widely accepted by the general population. In Conclusion, if we combine these two theories from social psychology, we get a better understanding in how anti-social thoughts gets formed and how they manifest themself into actual behaviour. In 2011 the BBC started a Prison Study in which they explored the consequences of putting people in groups of unequal power. With their experiment and theory, they proposed that group identity can take over our individual identity. (A. Haslam, 2011) The study had to be stopped early as it would have become unethical after one group tried to impose harsher systems of inequality on other members of the group. (Social Psychology Reicher and Haslam , 2006) Where social learning theories mainly talked about the role nurture plays in forming our personality, trait theory plays focus on nature (biologically) based factors. One way to explain our personality through traits is the Big 5. Our personality can be explained with Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to experience and it then shows where we lie on each spectrum that goes from 0 to 100. Someone with high Openness, is more open to new experiences and situations, than someone with low Openness. Conscientiousness relates to organization. Someone with low Conscientiousness would be messier than someone with high Conscientiousness. Furthermore, Extroversion deals with the need for stimuli and how sociable someone is. A high Agreeableness would mean that you are very trusting and helpful whereas a low agreeableness would mean that you find it very hard to criticise others. Lastly, Neuroticism measures the emotional stability one has, the higher the score, the more likely they are to be nervous or anxious. Someone with low Agreeableness, low Openness and high Neuroticism would be more prone to display anti-social behaviour than somebody with different scores. A study from 2003 shows that these three traits are the most consistent ones within the research of anti-social behaviour as they made more significant contributions to the personality. The most consistent traits were “low straightforwardness, low compliance, and low deliberation” (J. D. Miller, 2003). In conclusion, the Big 5 show how different factors influence our personality and with that our personality. It is of course possible to score the same as somebody with anti-social behaviour without displaying said behaviour yourself. In order to truly understand anti-social behaviour, it is important to realise that these 3 theories are in no way enough to explain the complexity of the issue it only gives us a small understanding. However, the theories are forming a good base to work off of when wanting to explain anti-social behaviour. The combination of social learning and social identity theory gives us a good insight on how anti-social behaviour can be learned. By being a part of a potentially rejected out-group the individual copies the behaviour his other group members show, especially when they don’t face any consequences. If that comes together with the right level of Agreeableness, Openness and Neuroticism it is likely that One could portray anti-social behaviour. Bringing this back to the real-world issue; Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold weren’t afraid to look different. They dressed different from their peers, listened to different music, and had other hobbies than their classmates. With that they were the perfect target. The more they got bullied by the in-group the more grew their hostility. From the outside it looked like they took pride in being different, but as teenagers, they wanted nothing more than to be accepted. They started showing signs of anti-social behaviour when they started breaking school property, stealing, threatening classmates online, or building pipe-bombs and bringing them to work. They handed in a great number of school work that talked about hurting or killing others prior to the attack. It is questionable whether something could have been prevented if a caretaker, teacher, police officer or psychologist had seen the warning signs before it was too late however, we can now learn from the tragedy. “Any events that cause stress humiliation, frustration, depression, or rage add fuel to the fires that are already burning inside” (Peter Langman, 2009). Identifying anti-social behaviour is important, nevertheless only a small amount of ‘troubles teens’ truly turn to mass destruction, for the most part anti-social behaviour dies down once the person grows up or is facing consequences for their actions, which doesn’t mean it should be dismissed and seen as a phase. 1549 words BIBLIOGRAPHY MCLeod, D. (2007). Simplypsychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-psychology.html McLeod, D. S. (2019, October 24). Social Identity Theory. Retrieved from SimplyPsychology: https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html Cambridge Dictionary. (n.a.). Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/antisocial McLeod, S. (2016, february 05). Simply Psychology. Retrieved from Bandura - social learnign theory: www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html A. Haslam, S. R. (2011). The BBC Prison Study. Retrieved from Prison Study: http://bbcprisonstudy.org/bbc-prison-study.php?p=13 Social Psychology Reicher and Haslam . (2006). Retrieved from The BBC Prison Experiment: http://www.loreto.herts.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/Reicher-Haslam2.pdf Anti-social behaviour Act . (2003). Retrieved from https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/38/contents Metropolitan Police. (n.a). Retrieved from What is antisocial behaviour?: https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/asb/asb/antisocial-behaviour/what-is-antisocial-behaviour/?__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=DSE0DW4_x4I8OjAn2HH6BapSf3rUcfM9K2Zmu..0fwQ-1636729067-0-gaNycGzNB9E J. D. Miller, D. R. (2003). Examining Antisocial Behavior Through the lens of the FIve Factor Model of Personality. In Aggressive Behaviour (pp. 497 - 514). McLeod, S. A. (2014, February 05). Bobo doll experiment. Retrieved from SImply Psychology: https://www.simplypsychology.org/bobo-doll.html Peter Langman, P. (2009). What can be done to prevent school shooters. In P. Peter Langman, Why Kids Kill - Inside the mind of school shooter (pp. 176-193). New York: St. Martin's Griffin. this is from first year. dont expect it to be great,,,