The intrusive commercial: Influence of aggressive TV commercials on aggression

Two experiments have been conducted to investigate the aggression-eliciting properties of an aggressive commercial. The first experiment investigated the influence of an aggressive commercial on subsequent delivery of shocks to a confederate by male or female subjects, in presence and in absence of previous instigation to aggress. The second experiment examined the heart rate modifications before, during and after exposure to the aggressive commercial. Twenty males and 20 females participated to each experiment. Findings justify the concern for the aggression-eliciting properties of aggressive commercials.     

Effects of timing and justification of witnessed aggression on the observers' punitiveness

Sixty university men who had been treated harshly by the experimenter's accomplice were distributed evenly among four conditions comprising a 2 × 2 factorial design and a “control” group. All of the men watched a moderately aggressive segment from a TV program but in the former case they were given a story summary which depicted the witnessed aggression as either justified or less justified and this summary was provided either immediately before or just after the scene was shown. The fifth group did not have any story synopsis. When the men had an opportunity to punish the confederate at the conclusion of the film, they were nost punitive if they had heard the justified aggression summary after the movie just before they shocked the confederate, and were least punitive if they had been given the nonjustified aggression version before they watched the aggressive incident. These results extend the generality of the findings obtained by other research in this area and also suggest that the violent scene had elicited as well as disinhibited aggression-facilitating reactions in the viewers.     

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.     

Emotional catharsis and aggression revisited: heart rate reduction following aggressive responding

The authors tested two components of the catharsis theory of aggression: physiological tension reduction and aggressive drive reduction. On the basis of work in the stress-aggression literature, they also examined the moderating effect of impersonal stress exposure on cathartic reductions in heart rate following aggressive responding. Participants were instructed to administer nonaggressive (correct button) or aggressive (shock button) responses to a frustrating confederate in a laboratory aggression paradigm, and half the participants were exposed to an impersonal stressor (aversive air blasts) during the procedure. Heart rate was recorded before and after the participants administered the aggressive or nonaggressive response. Analyses revealed that participants exhibited reductions in heart rate following aggressive but not nonaggressive responding, but this was the case only for those not exposed to the impersonal stressor. Heart rate reductions during the experimental blocks actually predicted the most intense aggression in a subsequent block of trials. The results are considered in light of different theories of aggression by J. E. Hokanson (1974) and L. Berkowitz (1990) and have implications for interventions with anger-prone individuals.     

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.     

The use of strategies and messages to alter aggressive interactions

Male and female college students were instigated to aggression by a confederate's shocks during a preliminary task. The confederate informed half of the treatment subjects of the response strategy which he intended to adopt. The other half received an irrelevant message. All subjects then competed against the confederate, who employed one of the following five response consequence strategies: a) set a maximum shock on all trials; b) set a minimum shock on all trials; c) set shocks identical to the subject's response on the preceding trial; d) set shocks two settings below the subject's response; or e) set shocks two settings above the subject's. The subject's latency to setting a shock, the intensities of the shocks set, the durations of the shock settings, and the subject's reaction times were recorded. When an irrelevant message was delivered, passive responses, well below those of the opponent, resulted in the lowest level of retaliation. In the presence of a relevant message, the match-same strategy emerged as an effective deterrent to aggressive behavior. The results were found to be consistent with predictions derived from an application of the norm of reciprocity and research demonstrating the enhancing effects achieved through the communication of existing contingencies.     

Some personality factors in reaction to aggressive stimuli

A word association test which included aggressive stimuli (weapon names) was given to college students. Those whose responses were relatively high or low in emotionality were asked to participate in a “study of stress reactions to electric shock” When the subject arrived at the laboratory, he and a partner were given tasks to perform The partner, a confederate of the experimenter, gave the subject an unfairly high number of shocks in judging the subject's performance The subject then judged the partner's work, using shock Half the subjects were in the apparently accidental presence of guns when given the chance to retaliate Among low-emotionality subjects, the presence of guns increased the number of shocks given the partner, as Berkowitz and LePage found High-emotionality subjects tended to give the partner longer shocks than low subjects, whether guns were present or not. In contrast to the low subjects, when guns were present, highs tended to give shocks of shorter duration and to report lowered anger, as if the aggressive stimuli had dampened the intensity of their reaction. The results as a whole indicate that the perceptual set for aggressive stimuli and the presence of such stimuli have an interactive effect on aggressive tendencies     

The effects on arousal of frustration and aggressive films

In two two-by-two factorial experiments, subjects were either frustrated or not, and then were shown either a film depicting aggression or a neutral film. In the first experiment, performance on a digit-symbol test was measured before and immediately after the manipulations. Subjects who had either been frustrated or who had watched the aggressive movie performed better on the second digit-symbol test than did subjects who had experienced neither or both of these manipulations. In the second experiment, blood pressure was measured before and immediately after the manipulations. On various indices of arousal, the most arousal was shown for subjects who had been frustrated and who had watched the aggressive film. Subjects who had not been frustrated and who had not watched the aggressive film showed the least arousal, and subjects who had experienced one or the other of these manipulations were in between. Given that performance on the digit-symbol test has been shown to be an inverted U function of arousal, both of these experiments support the notion that the effects on arousal of frustration and aggressive movies are additive. This is directly counter to the idea that movies involving aggression are tension reducing for either frustrated or nonfrustrated subjects.     

Effects of attack and uncontrollable noise on aggression

After being either attacked or treated in a more neutral manner by an experimental confederate, male subjects shocked the confederate while being stimulated by loud noise. Among previously attacked subjects, possession of control over offset of the noise led to the delivery of shocks significantly shorter in duration than those given by subjects who did not have control. Mere predictability of noise offset did not have the same effect. Subjects who could control the noise did not differ from those who heard no noise with respect to the duration of shocks given. Noise had no effect on shock duration among nonattacked subjects. In a follow-up study subjects who were given bogus information that they were aroused by noise were less punitive toward an attacking confederate than subjects given no such information. The overall conclusion is that noise facilitates aggression in subjects who have been instigated to aggress to the degree that noise-produced arousal is misattributed to the instigating stimulus.     

Aggressor's response to the victim's facial expression of emotion

Male college students (N = 96) were met by an experimental confederate who either agreed or disagreed with their opinion. The subjects were then given an opportunity to deliver electric shock to the confederate (victim), who responded to the shock with a facial expression of anger, fear, joy, or neutrality. The opinion condition had no effect, but the victim's facial expressions were clearly perceived by the subjects and two of them significantly influenced the amount of shock delivered to the victim by the subjects. The expression of enjoyment (smile) increased aggression while that of anger decreased aggression. The effects of the fear and neutral expressions did not differ from each other, and neither had a consistent significant effect on the amount of shock administered by the subjects.     

The mediation of aggressive behavior: arousal level versus anger and cognitive labeling.

The principal goal of the present research was to contrast the arousal-level and cognitive-labeling (anger) interpretations of aggressive behavior. In a 2 X 5 factorial between-subjects design, subjects were first either insulated or treated neutrally by a confederate. Four fifths of the subjects then received on each of 50 trials a 10-sec tone sequence while deciding whether or not to give an "electric shock" to the confederate. The stimulation was either simple (4.00 bits/tone) or complex (9.17 bits/tone) and was presented at either a comfortable (73-d.) or an aversively loud (97-db.) level. A group was assigned to each of the four stimulation treatments. The remaining subjects received no stimulation. In terms of the total number of shocks administered by subjects in different groups, the cognitive-labeling hypothesis was strongly supported. Both complexity and loudness had an effect, but only on insulted subjects. Other implications of the results were discussed.     

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.     

Verbal imagery and connotation as memory-induced mediators of aggressive behavior.

Three studies investigated the effects of an information-processing variable (imagery-concreteness) on susceptibility to aggressive stimulation. Study 1 (n=83) results indicated that subjects' rating of imagery level and aggressive connotation for words can be manipulated independently. In study 2 (n=64), manipulations of verbal connotation and verbal imagery indicated that imagery level but not aggressive connotation significantly influenced the delayed recall of the verbal material. In Study 3 (n=60), males in a 2 X 2 between-subjects factorial design first learned lists of words varying in imagery (high or low) and verbal connotation (aggressive or neutral). Next, subjects were given the opportunity to shock their partners as part of a sham learning task. To induce arousal, all subjects learning high-imagery-aggressive word lists delivered significantly more intense shock to their partners. The results were interpreted as supporting an information-processing (memory) analysis of the effects of exposure to aggressive material.     

Third party instigated aggression as a function of attack pattern and a nonaggressive response option

In the present study, subjects suggested what shock intensity a confederate should set for her opponent in a reaction time competition. Opponents displayed one of three attack patterns: increasing, decreasing, or minimal provocation. Also, for half the subjects a “no shock” option was available. A control group who had the nonaggressive option and for whom the opponent was nonaggressive (always chose “no shock”) was included. Results revealed that subjects' responses were governed by the norm of reciprocity; also the option reduced instigative aggression for subjects encountering increasing and decreasing provocation, while elevating aggressive response when the opponent was minimally provocative. Results are discussed in terms of attribution and locus of control.     

Gender differences in emotional and overt/covert aggressive responses to stress

We examined the role of stress exposure on gender differences in hostile (emotional and behavioral) reactions within the context of a laboratory paradigm. Aggressive behavior was indexed via the intensity (overt) and the duration (covert) of putative shocks delivered to a confederate. Half of the participants were exposed to a chronic stressor (high stress) and half were not (low stress). Participants' emotional responses were measured via self-report mood ratings before and after the experiment. Men displayed higher aggression in both stress conditions, which corresponded to their ratings of state hostility. On the other hand, women in high stress delivered lower intensity shocks, and this decreased overt aggression was positively correlated with sadness ratings. However, women did not decrease their levels of shock duration (covert aggression) under high stress and showed equivalent shock duration compared with men in high stress. These findings are discussed in terms of differential overt manifestations of distress between men and women.     

Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: a meta-analytic review of the scientific literature

Research on exposure to television and movie violence suggests that playing violent video games will increase aggressive behavior. A meta-analytic review of the video-game research literature reveals that violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children and young adults. Experimental and nonexperimental studies with males and females in laboratory and field settings support this conclusion. Analyses also reveal that exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal and aggression-related thoughts and feelings. Playing violent video games also decreases prosocial behavior.     

The facilitation of aggression by aggression: evidence against the catharsis hypothesis.

Nnety male subjects were either attacked or treated in a more neutral manner by a male confederate. On a subsequent maze-learning task, one third of the subjects shocked the confederate, one third observed as the experimenter shocked the confederate, and one third waited for a period of time during which the confederate was not shocked. Finally, all subjects shocked the confederate as part of a code-learning task. Subjects who had been attacked and had shocked the confederate during the maze task delivered shocks of greater intensity on the code task did subjects in the other two conditions, and the former subjects also experienced a greater reduction in diastolic blood pressure than did the latter. The results contradict the hypothesis of aggression catharsis and are discussed in terms of feelings of restraint against aggressing that a subject experiences after committing an aggressive act.     

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.     

The eliciting cue value of aggressive slides reconsidered in a personological perspective: The weapons effect and irritability

A study was conducted, according to a 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 design and using the Buss aggression machine paradigm, to investigate the aggression-eliciting properties of slides of firearms. One hundred and twenty highly irritable and 120 low irritable subjects, equally divided between males and females, were given the opportunity to deliver electric shocks to an experimental confederate after having been randomly assigned to one of the six different conditions resulting from presence versus absence of previous instigation to aggress and from exposure to aggressive slides versus exposure to non-aggressive slides versus non-exposure to slides. It was found that aggressive cues, were sufficient per se to increase subsequent aggressive behaviours in observers, whether or not previously instigated to aggress. While sex differences did not seem to play any relevant role, the importance of irritability was stressed, especially where exposure to aggressive slides followed a previous instigation to aggress.     

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.