| Abstract: | To establish an analogue of the “weapons effect,” male university subjects were required to use a distinctive apparatus in delivering noxious sounds to a peer in an adjoining room, and then were either (a) positively reinforced, or (b) negatively reinforced, or (c) not given any reaction by the experimenter, for what they had done. Immediately after this, each person had to administer other noise blasts to someone else in a different manner, but with the previous noise machines (the fist “weapon”) being either present or not present. The initial “weapon's” presence augmented the effects of the prior reinforcement; the second victim was attacked most strongly after the men had been positively reinforced and the earlier “weapon” was nearby, whereas he received the fewest blasts if the subjects had been negatively reinforced and the earlier noise machine was present. Other evidence indicates (1) that the aggressive cue, the “weapon,” had not affected the subjects' aggressive intentions, (2) the results are not due simply to differences in moods or general arousal, and (3) the subjects were not aware of the hypothesis regarding the interaction of reinforcement and cue presence. |
