What is Institutional Aggression? Institutional Aggression can be defined as aggressive behaviour that occurs within an institution and is motivated by social forces, rather than anger or frustration. An institution usually refers to an organisation or place of confinement with its own social roles where behaviour is formally restricted and under the control of specific staff; for example, prisons, hospitals, army camps and boarding schools.

Deindividuation refers to the phenomenon of a person losing their inhibitions because they are no longer identifiable. One way that people can become deindividuated is when they are part of a large group or a crowd. Deindividuation has been used to explain why people who are usually well-behaved can become violent during, for example, riots.