Physical Education · Ch 9 — Psychology and Sports
Types of Aggression
Types of Aggression
Types of Aggression
Building on Husman and Silva's (1984) framework, the CBSE Class 12 Physical Education textbook identifies two main types of aggression in sport — hostile aggression and instrumental aggression. They differ chiefly in their motive: whether the aim is to harm or to gain an advantage.
1. Hostile Aggression
The term hostile means "opposed". Hostile aggression is violent and angry behaviour whose intent and primary goal is to harm the other person. A boxer who deliberately punches an opponent below the belt to injure him because he is losing, or an athlete who hurls abusive words to mentally harm a rival who has out-skilled him, is displaying hostile aggression.
Hostile aggression is committed in response to a perceived threat or insult. It is:
- Unplanned, reactionary and impulsive, fuelled by intense emotion rather than by a desire to achieve a goal;
- Marked by a sense of loss of control during the outburst, along with physiological hyperarousal (a racing heart, tensed muscles, surging adrenaline).
For this reason it is also called reactive aggression. Here the aim is purely to physically or mentally harm the other person out of dislike, enmity or rivalry, so non-legitimate (illegal, rule-breaking) methods are used to do the harm.
"Prospect of Losing Makes Me Aggressive" — the world chess champion Viswanathan Anand once explained that the insecurity of losing made him aggressive; he channelled that feeling into a willingness to play long, motivated games. This shows how the emotion behind aggression can, if redirected, be turned into constructive drive.
2. Instrumental Aggression
The term instrumental means "to serve as a means". Instrumental aggression uses aggression simply as an instrument to gain an advantage or win — not out of anger or enmity. It is aggressive behaviour used to attain some non-aggressive goal such as winning, money, prestige or any other advantage. …