Aggression is learned through observation because direct experience is too hazardous.

Evidence

People are not born with aggressive skills. They have to learn them. Direct experience can be an unmercifully hazardous teacher in the case of aggression, because mistakes in aggressive transactions are not only injurious but potentially lethal in their more perilous forms. Observational learning, therefore, plays a key role in the development of aggressive styles of behavior. Most people rarely have direct experience with extreme violence. Rather, the mass media continuously provide images of every possible form of inhumanity. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 726 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Aggression is learned through observation rather than inborn — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 726; Aggression is acquired through social learning, not internal pathology — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 923; Aggression toward sanctioned enemies is instilled through graded mastery training — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 166 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Aggression is learned through observation rather than inborn #expands (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 726