Aggression-inhibiting influence of sexual humor

Forty-eight undergraduate males participated in an experiment designed to investigate the hypothesis that prior exposure to sexual humor would reduce the level of aggression directed by angry individuals against the person who had previously provoked them. In order to examine this suggestion, subjects were first angered or not angered by a male confederate; next, exposed to either neutral, nonhumorous pictures or to one of two types of sexual humor (nonexploitative, exploitative); and finally, provided with an opportunity to aggress against this individual by means of electric shock. Results indicated that exposure to exploitative sexual humor, but not exposure to nonexploitative sexual humor, significantly reduced the strength of subjects' later attacks against the victim. These findings are discussed in terms of the results of a follow-up study suggesting that individuals are more likely to think or fantasize about exploitative than nonexploitative sexual humor following the removal of such stimuli.     

The aggression-inhibiting influence of nonhostile humor

Forty undergraduate students participated in an experiment designed to investigate the hypothesis that prior exposure to nonhostile humor would markedly reduce the level of aggression directed by angry individuals against the person who had previously provoked them. In order to examine this suggestion, subjects were first angered or not angered by a confederate of the experimenter, then exposed to either humorous cartoons or nonhumorous pictures, and finally provided with an opportunity to aggress against this individual by means of electric shock. Results indicated that exposure to the nonhostile cartoons significantly reduced the duration of the shocks delivered to the confederate by subjects in the angry condition, but failed to influence the level of aggression demonstrated by subjects in the nonangry group. These findings were discussed in terms of the elicitation, by the cartoons, of responses and emotional states incompatible with anger or overt aggression. Possible implications of the aggression-inhibiting influence of humor for the prevention and control of human violence were also considered.     

The effects of humor-induced arousal upon aggressive behavior

The present experiment attempted to reconcile previous results in the area of humor and aggression. It was hypothesized that humor serves two functions, arousal and attentional shift, with regard to its influence on the relation of prior anger arousal and aggression. As a test of this assumption, subjects in the present experiment were subjected to three forms of humor (high arousing, low arousing, nonhumor) after being angered or treated in a neutral manner by a confederate. In an analysis on subsequent aggression toward the confederate, it was found that female subjects reduced their aggression after exposure to low arousing humor while maintaining aggression at a high level for high arousing stimuli. Male subjects were not influenced by humor exposure. Possible reasons for this sex difference are examined in light of the arousal and attentional shift properties of humorous stimuli.     

Facilitating sexual arousal via anger,aggression, or dominance

The hypothesis that either an angry emotional state or the expression of aggressive behavior facilitates sexual arousal has been the subject of considerable speculation but relatively little research. In a series of studies, Barclay found that anger increased sexual arousal as measured by the amount of sexual imagery produced in response to TAT-like stimuli that depicted males and females in dominant and submissive roles. In the present research, a series of experiments was conducted to determine whether such facilitation can be generalized beyond the specific procedures used by Barclay. Subjects (151 males and 136 females) in three experiments were angered by being negatively evaluated by a confederate identified as a fellow subject. Some subjects were subsequently given an opportunity to aggress; additionally, some subjects were exposed to male- and female-dominant pictorial stimuli. Results indicated that neither anger instigation nor the opportunity to engage in aggressive acts influenced self-reported sexual arousal. There was consistent evidence, however, that portrayals of dominance influenced perceptions of the stimulus person's sexuality. Though anger and aggression do not seem to facilitate sexual arousal, dominance cues (which can be confounded with anger manipulation) clearly elicit perceptions of sexuality.     

Erotic stimuli and aggression: facilitation or inhibition.

The present experiment attempted to reconcile previous results on the relationship of erotic stimuli and aggression. Subjects were either insulted or not insulted prior or subsequent to observing erotic stimuli of varying levels of arousal inducements. It was found, in support of prior research, that mildly erotic stimuli had an inhibiting effect on aggression when viewed subsequent to anger arousal, whereas highly erotic stimuli tended to maintain aggression at a level similar to nonerotic exposure. Prior viewing of erotic stimuli, however, had a facilitative effect on aggressive behavior. It was proposed that erotic stimuli have two components (arousal and attentional shift) that interact with anger arousal to either inhibit or facilitate aggressive behavior. The article considers the implications of this two-component system for future research on erotic and aggressive stimuli.     

Expression of interpersonal aggression by angered and nonangered persons with the type A and type B behavior patterns

Thirty-seven subjects with the Type A or the Type B behavior pattern were first either angered or not angered in a problem-solving task by a confederate who posed as another subject. In a subsequent bogus learning experiment, the Type A and Type B subjects had the opportunity to punish or reward the confederate. The effectiveness of the anger manipulation was attested to by the fact that angered subjects had reliably higher pulse rates, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure. In the learning experiment, Type A subjects who had not been angered gave the confederate reliably higher levels of punishment than did Type B subjects, but there was not a difference in the levels of punishment given by Type A and Type B subjects who had been angered. There was not a difference between Type A and Type B subjects in the levels of reward they gave the confederate. The results provided behavioral evidence for aggression in persons with the Type A behavior pattern. The fact that the difference in aggression was limited to nonangered subjects was interpreted in terms of differences in attributions of responsibility.     

Effects of observing competitive and violent versions of a sport

Males were randomly assigned to view either (1) a film clip featuring hockey fights or (2) a film of nonaggressive hockey action or (3) a no-film control condition after having first been angered or treated politely by an experimental confederate. The dependent variable was represented by a measure of aggressive mood and a behavioral measure of retaliatory aggression. Analyses revealed that both angered and nonangered subjects exhibited an increase in aggressive mood following exposure to the fight film. However, the analysis involving retaliatory aggression against the confederate yielded an anger x film interaction. While angered subjects were more aggressive than nonangered, only angered subjects retaliated against the confederate after viewing the fight film. The results were discussed in terms of Berkowitz’s (1974) aggressive cue theory. A version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, Edmonton, Canada, November 1987.     

Effects of observing competitive and violent versions of a sport

Males were randomly assigned to view either (1) a film clip featuring hockey fights or (2) a film of nonaggressive hockey action or (3) a no-film control condition after having first been angered or treated politely by an experimental confederate. The dependent variable was represented by a measure of aggressive mood and a behavioral measure of retaliatory aggression. Analyses revealed that both angered and nonangered subjects exhibited an increase in aggressive mood following exposure to the fight film. However, the analysis involving retaliatory aggression against the confederate yielded an anger x film interaction. While angered subjects were more aggressive than nonangered, only angered subjects retaliated against the confederate after viewing the fight film. The results were discussed in terms of Berkowitz’s (1974) aggressive cue theory. A version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, Edmonton, Canada, November 1987.     

A renewed look at Miller's conflict theory of aggression displacement.

The present study is the first to examine Miller's theoretical assumptions of displaced aggression using human subjects. Subjects in the present study either served as nonangered controls, were angered by the experimenter's confederate, or were both angered by and led to fear the confederate. All subjects were then able to three targets: the confederate, a person described as a friend of the confederate, and a person having no association with the confederate. Targets received the most intense aggression from angered subjects. The difference between the aggression gradients for high-anger-low-fear and control subject. Frightened subjects gave their most intense aggression to the displaced targets. Results also support the suggestion that direct aggression is most likely if the aggressor can first extinguish some of his fear by attacking more indirect targets.     

Olfaction and Human Social Behavior: Effects of Pleasant Scents on Physical Aggression

Forty-eight male undergraduates participated in an experiment designed to investigate the effects of pleasant scents on physical aggression. Subjects were first angered or not angered by a male or female confederate, and then provided with an opportunity to aggress against this person. One third aggressed in the presence of a very pleasant scent (perfume), a second third aggressed in the presence of a mildly pleasant scent (pine-scented aerosol). The remaining subjects aggressed in the absence of any pleasant aroma. Results indicated that when the victim was male, aggression was enhanced by the presence of perfume if subjects had been angered, but reduced by this scent d they had not been provoked, in contrast, when the victim was female, aggression was enhanced by the presence of perfume regardless of whether subjects had previously been angered. The pine-scented aerosol failed to exert any significant effects upon subjects' behavior. These findings were interpreted as consistent with the suggestion that the impact of pleasant scents on social behavior may stem from several different mediating mechanisms, including heightened arousal and shifts in social perception.     

Anger arousal,deindividuation, and aggression

We tested the notion that angered persons' aggression would be increased through a process of excitation transfer when they are deindividuated, but that individuated subjects would be most aggressive in circumstances under which they could use the information that they had ingested an arousing drug as a pretext for their aggression. Sixty-two male undergraduates participated under either deindividuated or individuated conditions, ingested either 350 mg of caffeine or a placebo, were informed that they had either taken a stimulant or a nonarousing drug, and were all angered by a confederate. According to prediction, when deindividuated and aroused by caffeine the amount of noxious stimulation subjects delivered to the provocateur was greater if they believed that the drug they had taken was nonarousing than if they thought it was a stimulant; in contrast, individuated subjects' aggression was greater when aroused subjects believed the drug was a stimulant. The results are discussed in terms of excitation transfer and the effect of aggression inhibition on the use of information about one's arousal.     

Sex differences in instigative aggression

The instigative aggression paradigm, in which male and female subjects instructed a female confederate which shock to set for an opponent in a competitive reaction time task, was employed. It was observed that males instigated more aggression than females and that both passive and assertive noncooperation effectively reduced instigative aggression, the assertive form of noncooperation being only slightly less effective. Questionnaire data suggested that females found the passive noncooperator most desirable while males found her least so. Results were discussed in terms of violation of task role and sex role expectations.     

A note on erotic arousal value of moving and stationary human forms

For subhuman vertebrates there already exists a huge body of information on male and female courtship behaviour and in many instances the impact of movement patterns on the prospective partner has been assessed. However, little information is available on the erotic impact of human movement patterns.In analysing erotic preferences by means of the phallometric method, moving vs. still pictures has been a factor in a variety of studies. Kolá?ský and Madlafousek (1973) compared the erotic responses of normal and sexually deviant males to filmed courtship behaviour, non-erotic activities and stills of the same female. They found that dynamically presented filmed courtship patterns were more arousing for normal heterosexual males than stills on which no particular activity was shown, and that these stills were more arousing than movie pictures of nonerotic activities.In a study of classical conditioning, McConaghy (1970) found he could not condition positive penile responses to geometric figures when using still pictures of nude females as unconditioned stimuli, but that this was possible when using movies. He concluded that the movie pictures had a greater impact on his Ss than the stills and supported this impression with another study in which he compared responses to movies and stills of nude females (McConaghy, 1973). However, the persons on the movies were not identical with those on the stills and the depicted behavioural configurations varied widely. In the following study, results are reported on the erotic value of a relatively simple movement pattern, namely walking towards the viewer and smiling, vs. a still picture of the same person smiling.     

Sexual arousal,situational restrictiveness,and aggressive behavior

Eighty male college freshmen participated in an experiment designed to investigate the hypotheses that enhanced arousal will facilitate subsequent aggressive behavior and that an increase in aggressive behavior will be more likely to occur in a setting of situational permissiveness rather than situational restrictiveness. Subjects were either angered or not angered by a same-sex confederate, then told to imagine either a sexually arousing or a nonarousing situation during relaxation, and finally provided with an opportunity to aggress against this person by means of electric shocks. For half of the subjects, a setting of permissiveness was created, while for the other half the setting was one of situational restrictiveness. The results indicated that, even in a permissive setting, sexual arousal may inhibit aggressive behavior mediated by self-consciousness or anxiety. For nonaroused men, however, situational permissiveness tended to facilitate subsequent aggression. The investigation was considered a replication and an extension of the Baron (1974) study on the aggression-inhibiting influence of heightened sexual arousal.     

Threatened retaliation from the victim as an inhibitor of physical aggression

Sixty male undergraduates participated in an experiment designed to investigate the effects of apparent probability of retaliation from the victim and level of prior anger arousal upon adult aggressive behavior. It was hypothesized that threatened retaliation would be highly effective in inhibiting subsequent aggression under conditions where subjects had not previously been angered by the victim, but would generally fail to inhibit such behavior under conditions where they had previously suffered strong provocation at the hands of this person. Support was obtained for both of these predictions. Findings were discussed in terms of their implications for the prevention and control of human violence in naturalistic social situations.     

Where is the facilitation of media violence: The effects of nonexposure and placement of anger arousal

The present study examined the conditions under which media violence would “facilitate” aggression in angered individuals. It was noted that previous research has lacked support for facilitation due to improper control groups. It was predicted, based upon evidence that aggressive and neutral films are capable of both arousing a subject and shifting his attention away from previous anger instigation (attentional shift), that only under a condition where an aggressive film is viewed prior to anger arousal will increased aggression occur if compared to a no-film control. It was found that when subjects were angered prior to film exposure, netural films reduced aggression, with aggressive films not differing from a no-film control. Under subsequent anger arousal, however, there was a facilitation for aggressive film exposure. The implication of this, and other recent media violence studies, for past and future research in the area of media violence and aggression is discussed.     

Exposure to pornography,permissive and nonpermissive cues,and male aggression toward females

The present study examined the role of permissive and nonpermissive cues in mediating the relationship between exposure to erotica and aggression. Male subjects viewed either neutral slides with a silent female or erotic slides with a female who made permissive, nonpermissive, or no comments about the slides. The males rated the slides and subsequently rated the female confederate. Male subjects were then given an opportunity to administer their choice of several intensities of shock to the female in a competitive reaction-time task. Subjects in the permissive cues condition rated the erotic slides as more arousing, saw the female as more reasonable and accepting, and selected more intense shocks for the female than did subjects in the other conditions. One explanation of these results is that permissive cues in the presence of erotica led the male to believe that other normally inappropriate behaviors would be tolerated.     

Identification with film characters, covert aggressive verbalization, and reactions to film violence

To determine some conditions governing the aggressive aftereffects of identification with aggressive film characters, men were first angered by a confederate and then exposed to a film clip of a violent boxing match. Subjects instructed to identify with the winner of the prize-fight were subsequently more aggressive toward the confederate than subjects instructed to identify with the loser or subjects not asked to identify with a film aggressor. Apparently, viewers must perceive their identificand incur reinforcement for his aggression before they become more aggressive themselves. However, requiring subjects to make implicit aggressive verbalizations during the film completely eliminated any aggressive aftereffects of identification. This finding was opposite to prediction and suggested that covert verbalization interfered with subjects' ability to make the vicarious aggressive responses which mediate increased subsequent aggression.     

Dynamics of hostile aggression: Influence of anger,hurt instructions,and victim pain feedback

The research basically examined some of the dynamics of hostile aggression by looking at the effects of different Buss procedure instructions and levels of victim pain feedback on the aggressive behavior of angered and nonangered men. In a 2 × 2 × 2 completely crossed factorial experiment, male undergraduates were initially either angered or not by an experimental accomplice. When later given the ostensible opportunity to administer shocks to the same accomplice in a typical Buss procedure, the subjects were either told that longer and more intense shocks would probably interfere with the person's learning as well as causing him more pain (hurt instructions) or given no information about the effects of shocks on learning (standard instructions). Finally, after each shock they administered, the subjects were provided with either high or low victim pain feedback. The angered men were significantly more aggressive than their nonangered counterparts, and a significant interaction between anger and instructions indicated this was especially true for the men given hurt instructions. Significant interactions between the other independent variables and trial blocks revealed that the angered men, particularly those receiving hurt instructions and high victim pain feedback, displayed the greates increases in aggression. The results provide qualified support for the derived proposition about hostile aggression that signs and/or knowledge of victim injury and pain can stimulate more intense aggression from angry individuals.     

PERCEPTIONS OF RELATIONAL AND PHYSICAL AGGRESSION AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS: EFFECTS OF GENDER OF PERPETRATOR, TARGET, AND PERCEIVER

This study examined gendered perceptions of relational and physical aggressive behaviors and personal experiences with both types of aggression. Prior research suggested that physical aggression by males and relational aggression by females would be perceived most negatively. College students (186 female, 128 male) rated the acceptability and harmfulness of aggression in scenarios in which type of aggression and perpetrator and target gender were varied. As predicted, relational aggression by female characters and physical aggression by male characters were rated as less acceptable and more aggressive/harmful than the same behavior by the other gender. Thus, expectations regarding the gender-appropriateness of aggression appear to affect perceptions of such acts. Despite popular conceptions that females use and are harmed by relational aggression more than males, there was no gender difference in experience with relational aggression, nor were female targets viewed as more harmed by such aggression than their male counterparts.