DeMarcus Cousins is a well known professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers. According to an article in the New York Times, he was recently accused of choking and threatening to shoot a woman. The woman is known to be his ex-girlfriend with whom he shares a child with. She has requested a protective order against him due to his frightening actions. He had threatened to shoot her the day before his own wedding. The news website TMZ released an audio recording of a phone call said to be of DeMarcus threatening to shoot the woman if she did not let their child attend his wedding. She had also added in the court filings that he had choked her in the past. She claims that he said he would shoot her in the head “even if he didn’t have to get his hands dirty doing it.”
This situation enhances social aggression from DeMarcus. Social aggression is aggressive behavior that contributes to physical or emotional harm towards a target. People who are social aggressive may be irritable, impulsive, angry and even violet just like DeMarcus. There are reasons behind as to why he showed this type of behavior. Aggression usually occurs when one wants to express anger, assert dominance, express possession, or to simply threaten and scare someone in order to get what they want. He clearly showed this social aggression because he was angry at the woman for not agreeing to allow their son at his wedding. He wanted to be in control and was unable to which is a main reason he went to the extreme of the threat.
Another concept that this story enhances is social trap. Any situation where what looks like a good choice for someone at the moment turns out to be the wrong choice for those around them. At the spur of the moment, DeMarcus probably thought that his threat was good because it would scare her and he would get what he wanted which was for his son to attend his wedding. A father who wants his son there is nothing bad at all! He did it a good intention but he failed to realize that his actions were unjust. This case ended up affecting those around him. A spokeswoman for the Lakers said “We are aware of the allegations involving DeMarcus Cousins and, of course, take this claim seriously. We are in the process of gathering information and will reserve further comment at this time.” This would put bad attention on the team since he is a part of it which shows the concept of social trap.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/sports/basketball/demarcus-cousins-domestic-violence.html?searchResultPosition=2
Yamilex Bello