We learn both aggressiveness and how to express aggression through direct reinforcement, indirect enforcement, identification and imitation. Bandura et al. (1961, 1963) showed that if children saw an adult behave aggressively towards a doll called Bobo by kicking, punching and shouting at it, they were more likely to imitate these actions, and even more likely to imitate the adults if they were rewarded. Bandura claimed that if aggression were identified early in children they would refrain from becoming criminals in later life. However, biological theorist argue that the children used in the Bobo experiment were manipulated into responding to an aggressive movie, also teased and frustrated because they could not touch the other toys on display in the room. Biological theorists claim that this experiment was unethical and morally wrong as Bandu

Another argument Bandura uses in favour of the social learning theory is that environmental experience such as the influences from the media may lead to increased aggression. He claims that if an individual watches a programme and the hero commits acts of violence and is rewarded instead of being punished this can form behaviour modelling, giving the watcher the idea that it is acceptable to be aggressive. However critics of this theory have argued that violence on the television allows the watcher to relate with the characters involved in the violent act, so therefore they are able to release all aggressive thoughts and feelings through relation. This would then cause them to refrain from being aggressive; the terminology for the decrease in aggression is the 'catharsis effect'. Although in spite of many studies of television and violence, it is still not clear how far, and in what ways, the portrayal of violence on TV encourages aggressive behaviour in real life. Most of the research has underestimated how far the viewers selectively interpret what they see, and the complex ways in which the 'fictional' and the 'real' interrelate.

Although another theory is that arousal leads to aggression not frustration. It states that when individuals have overwhelming physiological excitement such as happiness, pain, loud music, exercise, drugs and even overcrowding can lead to aggressive behaviour. Calhoun (1962) demonstrated that overcrowding of rats produced aggressive behaviour, although there was plenty of food, some of the rats still eat their babies because the lack of space led to stress.

The biological approach claims that certain biological factors such as genetic or social factors are linked to aggression. Mednick and Hutchings (1978) discovered that some children that were adopted also became criminals if their biological fathers were criminals, even though there was no contact between the two in most cases this leads to the concept that there is a genetic link with aggression. Also there is said to be a link with aggression in the form of

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