On the High-Magnitude Theory of Aggression

Discussions with my colleagues and students have made me aware that the high-magnitude theory of aggression, proposed by Bandura and Walters (i, 2), may be misinterpreted as implying that high intensity is a sufficient, if not a necessary, condition for regarding a response as aggressive. The categorization of an action as an instance of aggression, according to this theory, involves both a value judgment and the identification of a response as possessing certain specifiable characteristics. Following a pattern of analysis suggested by Stevenson (4), I would suggest that the statement, Response A is an instance of aggressive (or an equivalent proposition), may be paraphrased thus: Response A has the characteristics of components, ri, r2, . . r,,, that are capable of producing pain, distress, or discomfort, and I, within this cultural context, disapprove of A. 1 The highmagnitude theory of aggression asserts that one criterion that is frequently employed in categorizing a response as aggressive is its possessing the characteristic of being of high magnitude or intensity. The high-magnitude theory of aggression may be regarded as only one aspect of a social-judgment approach to motivational phenomena. This approach implies that persons do not learn aggression, dependency, or other classes of socially significant behavior; rather, what they learn are classes of responses, sometimes possessing certain identifiable common characteristics or components, that are subject to social evaluations. It is possible, of course, that multiple criteria are utilized in subsuming behavior into the