| Abstract: | In a pretest, subjects' proficiency to recover from sympathetic arousal induced by strenuous exercise was assessed. The results were used to determine conditions of high, intermediate, and low recovery proficiency (fitness). After an assessment of subjects' unprovoked aggressiveness, subjects were aggressively provoked. Within proficiency blocks, they were then given one of two treatments, (a) sitting followed by exercising (no decay) or (b) exercising followed by sitting (partial decay), and were there-after provided with an opportunity to retaliate against their tormentor. Under conditions of no decay, in which the high levels of arousal experienced were attributable to exertion, the provocation treatment failed to increase aggressiveness significantly, and there were no differences in aggressiveness in the various proficiency conditions in spite of differentiations in the magnitude of prevailing excitatory residues. Under partial decay, in the absence of cues linking arousal to exertion, the magnitude of residual arousal did affect aggressive behavior: In the conditions of intermediate and low recovery proficiency, aggressiveness increased significantly with provocation and was more pronounced than in the condition of high proficiency (best fitness); in the condition of low proficiency (least fitness) aggressiveness was higher than in the condition of intermediate proficiency, but not reliably so. |
