Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaften

Abstrakt

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceived Hostile Intent, Blameworthiness, Anger and Aggression: Implications for Violent Conflict

Zeynep Benderlioglu

Aggression is an important social problem that has been studied from a variety of perspectives. Decades of research have been devoted to understand its biological and sociocultural bases. Anthropological records show that a distinction between peaceful and violent cultures can be made. The exact mechanisms for such differences remain unspecified, however. Social perception, modeling of aggressive behavior Bandura, and culture-specific traditions endorsing violent acts Staub has been implicated among the factors that contribute to the cross-cultural differences in aggressive behavior. Here, I propose that cross-cultural differences in aggression and violent conflict may be better understood by examining attributional biases regarding hostile intent, blameworthiness, and the resultant angry reaction.