Question 3:

Nicole Wong

I have witnessed both hostile and instrumental aggression in the past before. Both
aggressions refer to behaviors to harm others, but they are motivated by different values.
Hostile aggression is the behavior driven by feelings of anger or hostility to intentionally
harm others physically or psychologically. On the other hand, instrumental aggression is the
behavior aimed to harm others but is inspired by personal motives other than pure hostility.
One example of a hostile aggression I have witnessed was two students fighting in high
school. Earlier they were taking a test together in history class and one of the students
wanted to cheat off of the other student. The other student dont like letting him cheat, so he
told the teacher and the teacher gave the student who was cheating a zero on the test. The
student was very angry and during changing class time, the student punched the other
student in the face. Then, he fight back and it turned into a huge fight. In this example, the
aggression was direct because the student was angry toward the other student for causing
him to fail the test, so he physically harm him to release his angers. An example of an
instrumental aggression I have witnessed was a group of bullies asking students younger
than him for money. If they dont give them, they would embarrass them and play jokes out
of them until they listen to their wants. This is an example of an indirect aggression since
the bullies didnt physically hurt them to force them to give money, they just harm them
psychologically.

2 days ago

Bridgeen Yap

Hostile aggression is when a person has a goal to cause pain to others because they are
angry with them. An example I have seen in highschool was students getting into fights
because of disagreements and gossip. In the example I have gave it is a direct form of
aggression because of the physical contact of the punches thrown.
I wanted to give you all a visual. In this scene of the movie you see both an example of
hostile aggression and direct contact. The hostile aggression comes from Cady lashing out in
anger because of what Regina was doing. The direct aggression is shown from her jumping
over the table and tackling her.
Instrumental aggression differs from hostile aggression because the end goal is not to harm
someone but it is something else. Aggression is a means to get to the end goal. An example
of this in my life would be when I played softball. There were many times I had to run to
first base and I hurt myself and the person on first base because I would ram into them
trying to make it. The aggression comes from me trying my best to make it to first base to be
safe, rather than purposefully harming the person. Hypothetically, if during the softball
game the other team starts spreading rumors that I purposely hurt their teammate or yells
belittling things towards me during the game, it would be an example of an indirect

aggression. They caused me harm through the rumors and or yelling as well as did not
physically hurt me.
Vida Feng

Hostile aggression refers to the act of aggression stemming from a feeling of anger and
intended to cause harm physically or psychologically. Instrumental aggression is a act of
aggression that intends to hurt someone, but as a means to a goal other than causing pain.
I witnessed an example of hostile aggression on the train last week when a seemingly
homeless man started yelling loudly at another passenger on the train and asking him
"What are you looking at?" He continued to yell and curse for the next few stops. This type
of aggression is hostile because the seemingly homeless man intended to harm the other
man psychologically by yelling and cursing at him (though it almost got physical). This
example is direct because the aggression was specifically toward the source (other passenger
who was staring) of anger/frustration.
Another example of hostile aggression I recall encountering is when I was in high school. I
had an argument with one of my closer friends at the time, and for a while we did not speak.
During the school year, I started hearing that she was spreading false rumors about me.
Long story short, we have not really spoken since, and although we have both moved on
from high school, I never really gotten over the fact that someone I actually trusted could
intentionally want to hurt me. This is an example of hostile, indirect aggression because she
intended to harm me, but she did it indirectly, by spreading rumors to other people about
me.
An example of instrumental aggression I witnessed recently is when I was babysitting my
two younger cousins, and they ended up fighting to play with the same toy. Out of
aggression and wanting to play with the toy, one of them pushed the other, resulting him to
fall to the floor. This is an example of direct, instrumental aggresion because my cousin who
pushed his brother (my other cousin) did it as a motive to gain possession of the toy. It is
direct because it was aggression towards the source of anger or frustration.
Another example of instrumental aggression I've witnessed is in a game of sports - such as
basketball, when defense players get aggressive and attempt to block players from the other
team from scoring. They exhibit this aggressive behavior because they are tryin to win the
game, and prevent the other team from scoring points. This type of instrumental aggression
is direct because they are exhibiting the aggression directly towards the source (other team's
players trying to score).