Provocation to anger and opportunity for retaliation as determinants of alcohol consumption in social drinkers.

Assigned 30 male and 30 female college students identified as heavy social drinkers to 1 of 6 groups in a 3 * 2 factorial design. In addition to the S sex factor, the 3 main treatment groups were provocation to anger with no opportunity to retaliate, provocation with opportunity for retaliation, and a no-provocation, no-retaliation control group. Provoked Ss were angered by an insulting confederate, whereas controls experienced a neutral interaction with the confederate. In the retaliation condition, Ss were given the opportunity to deliver a fixed number of shocks to the confederate who had provoked them. Drinking rates in all Ss were then determined by their participation in a standardized taste-rating task, which permitted an unobtrusive measure of alcohol consumption. Results show that group members who were provoked and expressed their anger by retaliating against the confederate consumed significantly less alcohol than provoked Ss in the no-retaliation condition. Controls drank an intermediate amount of alcohol but did not differ significantly from the other 2 groups. Sex was not a significant determinant of alcohol consumption. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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

37 male undergraduates, who were classified on the student version of the Jenkins Activity Survey as showing the Type A (coronary prone) or Type B (noncoronary prone) behavior pattern, were first either angered or not angered in a problem-solving task by a confederate who posed as another S. In a subsequent bogus learning experiment, Ss had the opportunity to punish or reward the confederate. The effectiveness of the anger manipulation was attested to by the fact that angered Ss had reliably higher pulse rates and blood pressure. In the learning experiment, Type As who had not been angered gave the confederate reliably higher levels of punishment than did Type Bs, but there was no difference in the levels of punishment given by Type A and Type B Ss who had been angered. There was also no difference between Type A and Type B Ss in the levels of reward they gave the confederate. Results provide behavioral evidence for aggression in persons with the Type A behavior pattern. The fact that the difference in aggression was limited to nonangered Ss is interpreted in terms of differences in attributions of responsibility. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Oral imagery and autonomic arousal in social isolation.

Electrodermal activity of 120 male Ss high and low on Rorschach oral-dependent responses was monitored in 1 of 3 conditions while the S was in a soundproof chamber for 40 min: alone with no task, alone working on a clerical task, and together with a male confederate, both working independently on the clerical task. Oral-dependent Ss placed in the chamber with the confederate showed fewer electrodermal increases over time than orals sitting alone or nonorals either alone or with the confederate. On the clerical task there was a strong main effect of orality, with nonorals showing more accuracy than orals. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facilitation of social interaction through deindividuation of the target.

Hypothesized that actors want their perception of a target to be consistent with the type of interaction they expect. It was predicted that Ss expecting to aggress would deindividuate their target through the selective recall of deindividuating information. Conversely, Ss expecting a prosocial interaction should individuate the target. Further, angry Ss should deindividuate the individual who angered them. 124 male undergraduates were either angered or not angered by an experimental confederate and then given the opportunity to either shock, reward, or have no interaction with him. Ss recalled information about the confederate either prior to or after the learning task. Ss expecting to aggress deindividuated the target, whereas Ss expecting a prosocial interaction individuated him. Angry Ss deindividuated the target; nonangry Ss did not. Since the selective recall of information occurred prior to the interaction, the deindividuation (individuation) was aimed at facilitating future behavior rather than justifying it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and perceived causation in social success and failure experiences: Disconfirmation of an attribution hypothesis in two experiments.

Two experiments were designed to test hypotheses derived from an attribution model of psychopathology as applied to social anxiety. In the 2 studies with 64 male undergraduates each, Ss first interacted with a female confederate who behaved either warmly (success) or coldly (failure) toward them. All Ss then interacted with a 2nd confederate who behaved warmly. It was predicted that high social anxiety (Social Avoidance and Distress Scale) would be associated with the internal attribution of social failure and the external attribution of social success (Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale). By contrast, it was predicted that low social anxiety would be associated with the internal attribution of social success and the external attribution of social failure. In Exp I, patterns of attribution were manipulated in normal Ss, and the effects of the manipulations were examined with respect to their subsequent social anxiety. In Exp II, the attributional patterns of high and low socially anxious men were examined in success and failure situations. Neither study provided any support for the hypothesis relating attibutional patterns to social anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Defensiveness and self-acceptance in the management of hostility.

It was predicted that degree of self-acceptance (SA) and defensiveness (D) interact to influence the expression of hostility. It was hypothesized that Ss with low D and high SA (the adjustive) would express strongest feelings of anger with little anxiety associated with feelings of anger, while the high D/high SA person (the repressive) would express least anger, and the low D/low SA person (the anxious) would reveal high aggression-anxiety. Degree of SA was predicted to be inversely related to displacement of hostility. Ss (college students) were exposed to a frustrating situation (failure in a test situation with concomitant insult). The results generally supported the hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instigation to aggression as a function of self-disclosure and threat to self-esteem.

Examined whether self-disclosure would make a person more vulnerable to personal threat and thus increase instigation to angry aggression. 72 female undergraduates exchanged communications with 4 female confederates showing low or high self-disclosure or a control communication. Ss then commented on the communications, the confederates giving commentaries of neutral, critical, or derogatory tone. Subsequently, Ss had the opportunity to punish the confederate with what they thought were varying degrees of shock. As predicted, after high self-disclosure, Ss used significantly greater levels of shock than Ss in the control and low-self-disclosure groups. Criticism was more clearly effective than derogation in producing aggression. Findings indicate that high self-disclosure, followed by personal threat, is a potent antecedent of angry aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral and cardiovascular responses to interpersonal challenges among male offspring of essential hypertensives.

Behavioral, cardiovascular, and self-report measures of cognitive and affective responses to 2 interpersonal challenges were examined among 20 men with a positive (FH+) and 20 with a negative (FH–) family history of hypertension. Heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP) were measured throughout the laboratory session; Ss were requested to self-report positive and negative conditions, state anger, and state anxiety that occurred during interactions with a male and female confederate. Behavioral responses to interpersonal tasks were videotaped, coded, and categorized into 4 major groupings (positive verbal, positive nonverbal, negative verbal, and negative nonverbal). FH+ individuals exhibited significantly higher resting HR and systolic BP reactivity to both interactions than FH– counterparts. Analyses of behavioral responses for both interactions revealed significantly more negative verbal and nonverbal behavior and less positive nonverbal behavior among FH+ as compared with FH– Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Humour appreciation as a function of canned laughter, a mirthful companion, and field dependence: Facilitation and inhibitory effects.

187 undergraduate females who had been administered the portable rod-and-frame test were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions defined by the presence or absence of canned laughter and presence or absence of a mirthful confederate. As Ss rated the funniness of single-frame cartoons characterized by aggressive/humor content, their behavior was videotaped and subsequently scored for frequency and duration of laughter and smiling. Results support the prediction that the mirthful confederate would enhance measures of humor appreciation. However, no support was obtained for a similar prediction concerning canned laughter. Rather, the canned laughter and confederate manipulations interacted significantly: Ss accompanied by the confederate, but not Ss alone, laughed less frequently when canned laughter was present than when it was absent. Of 3 predictions involving cognitive style, only 1 received partial support: The enhancement of laughter by the confederate was greater for field-dependent than for field-independent Ss. Results are interpreted in terms of social facilitation and psychological reactance. (French abstract) (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Morale and productivity consequences of group leadership style, stress, and type of task.

Assigned 60 male undergraduates to work on structured and unstructured tasks (including classification of 18 sentences from bales' standard human relations problem) under stressful or nonstressful conditions in groups of 4. A confederate of e, who was 1 of the members of each group, adopted either a democratic or authoritarian leadership style. Measures of performance, time to completion, and satisfaction were used in separate analyses employing a linquist type vi analysis of variance. Ss under stress performed best under authoritarian leadership, whereas, those not under stress performed best under democratic leadership. Ss under authoritarian leadership conditions took significantly longer to complete their tasks. In addition, ss performed better, worked faster, and most enjoyed the structured task. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-directed aggression and similarity between frustrator and aggressor.

Under the guise of a learning experiment, 33 male undergraduates were arbitrarily given a number of electric shocks by an experimental confederate for incorrect answers. Similarity between s and the confederate was manipulated. Ss then punished themselves for wrong answers with electric shock. The s who was moderately similar to his attacker tended to display greater intensities of self-punitive behavior. Greater conflict prior to self-punitive behavior was evident when s and his attacker were highly similar. The instigation to self-aggression is apparently greatest when high similarity is perceived between the self and attacker, but overt aggression is inhibited by as yet unconfirmed factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consequences of responsiveness in dyadic interaction: Effects of probability of response and proportion of content-related responses on interpersonal attraction.

"Responsiveness" is defined in terms of 2 sequential response contingencies: (a) the probability with which each person in an interaction responds to the communicative behaviors of the other and (b) the proportion of responses that are related in content to the preceding behaviors of the other. Two experiments examined the effects of responsiveness in a verbal exchange on attraction. Under the guise of a study of the "acquaintanceship process," 176 male and female undergraduates exchanged information about themselves with another S (actually a same-sex confederate) by taking turns choosing and answering 1 of either 2 or 3 questions about themselves on each trial. For Exp I, Ss were required to answer on all trials, whereas the probability and frequency with which the confederate responded to the S were orthogonally manipulated. For Exp II, the proportion of content-related responses was varied. The confederate answered the same question as the S on either 80 or 20% of the trials. Both the probability of response and the proportion of content-related responses were positively related to (a) attraction to the confederate, (b) Ss' perceptions of the confederate's attraction to themselves, and (c) the degree to which Ss felt that they and the confederate had become acquainted with one another. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autonomic arousal, interpersonal climate, and orality.

Electrodermal responses in 34 male undergraduates who gave at least 4 oral-dependent Rorschach responses or no more than 2 such responses were assessed both before and after Ss had either a warm, friendly interaction or a cold, unfriendly interaction with a confederate. Following a 10-min interaction, there was a significant 3-way interaction (Period?×?Condition?×?Orality) in tonic conductance. Analysis produced one simple effect: Highly oral Ss responded differentially to warm or cold treatment by the confederate. Three groups—nonorals in either condition and orals in the cold condition—increased in physiological arousal over time. Only the highly oral Ss interacting with the warm confederate showed no such increase in arousal, presumably because the presence of a friendly other person inhibits physiological activation. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of control, causal attributions, and affects in achievement-related contexts.

114 male and 94 female undergraduates completed the Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scales, the Profile of Mood States, and a scale of commonly experienced feelings. On the basis of the theory outlined by B. Weiner et al (see record 1980-32563-001), it was hypothesized that particular affect clusters (pride, gratitude, guilt, and anger) would characterize Ss differing with respect to attributional style. Pride and its cognates were more common affective responses among Ss who attributed achievement successes to internal causes, whereas anger and surprise were more common among Ss who attributed achievement failures to external causes. Pride was more strongly related to success attributions for females than for males. Results provide moderate support for the linkage between causal attributions and affects. (French abstract) (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A microgenetic approach to word association.

3 experiments were conducted to test certain general hypotheses derived from a microgenetic approach to word association. Association responses given under time pressure were compared with those given without time pressure in groups of college students. Word associations of schizophrenics and a group of hospital aides were similarly compared without time pressure. The results in part supported the hypothesis that word associations of the college students performing under time pressure would differ from those of the Ss without time pressure in the same way that responses of the schizophrenics would differ from those of the aides. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of disconfirmed expectancies in the instigation of attributional processing.

Tested the hypothesis that individuals engage in more thorough attributional processing for unexpected events than they do for expected events. 51 undergraduates observed the experimenter asking a confederate either a small or large favor. The small request led to an expectancy of compliance; the large request led to expectancy of refusal. The confederate then either did or did not comply with the request, thus either confirming or disconfirming Ss' expectancies. Ss were than allowed to look at any 5 of the confederates' responses to a 10-item questionnaire that the confederate had supposedly filled out earlier. Five of the items on the questionnaire were relevant to helping, and 5 were of general interest. As predicted, Ss chose more helping-relevant items when their expectancies had been disconfirmed. Implications for attributions for the behavior of stereotyped out-group members are discussed. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physical pain and the goal of aversively stimulated aggression.

Two experiments were designed to demonstrate that painful environmental conditions evoke aggressive inclinations directed toward doing harm even when the available target is not responsible for the suffering. In both studies, 94 female undergraduates kept one hand in a tank of water that was either painfully cold or much warmer while they delivered rewards and punishments to another woman supposedly supervising their work. Half of the Ss in each condition were informed that their punishments might hurt their partner, whereas the others were told that these punishments probably would be helpful. In Exp I, the 2 variables interacted to affect Ss' behavior only during the 1st work period, whereas Exp II yielded interaction in both periods for the reward measure. In general, Ss exposed to the warmer water tended to deliver the greatest number of rewards when they had been told punishment would hurt, whereas those in the cold-water condition were least rewarding if they had been informed punishment would injure their partner. Results show that the aversive stimulation evokes an instigation to do harm and that the information about the possibility of hurting the partner serves as a goal cue facilitating the overt expression of the instigation. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective and cognitive characteristics of depression in 10- and 11-year-old children.

Used an index of childhood depression to regress indices of emotion experiences, attribution style, and intellectual performance of 82 male and 64 female 5th graders from a rural public school. All Ss completed a children's depression inventory, a differential emotion scale, and an attributional style questionnaire. Teachers rated Ss on their frequency of expression of 3 categories of emotion. 45 Ss whose scores were high, low, or intermediate on the depression inventory also completed the PPVT and the Block Design subscale of the WISC. Results indicate that the depressed Ss were like depressed adults in that they reported experiencing a pattern of emotions including sadness, anger, self-directed hostility, and shame, and they tended to explain negative events in terms of internal, stable, and global causes. The similarity between depressed children and depressed adults on these measures was greater for girls than for boys. Depression was not related to performance on a verbal task, but depressed girls performed worse than nondepressed girls on the Block Design task. The measures of emotion experiences accounted for 78.1 and 46.1% of the variance in girls' and boys' depression scores, respectively, after the variance accounted for by attribution style was partialed out. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aerobic fitness and psychophysiological reactivity.

Examined the pattern of psychophysiological response to a demanding cognitive task in 10 males and 9 females (aged 35–45 yrs) of different aerobic fitness levels. Following baseline measures of heart rate and skin conductance, Ss performed a task with cognitive, motor, visual, and auditory components that caused an information processing system overload argued to be psychologically stressful. Aerobic fitness level was correlated with psychophysiological reactivity during and following exposure to the task. Fitness level was unrelated to heart rate and skin conductance level during the task but was positively correlated with speed of recovery to baseline once the task terminated. Within individual Ss, the 2 psychophysiological indices followed different time courses during recovery, but the rates of recovery were positively correlated. The quicker psychophysiological recovery of the aerobically fitter Ss may mediate certain psychological adaptations associated with improved physical fitness. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vicarious instigation and conditioning of facial expressive and autonomic responses to a model's expressive display of pain.

In 2 experiments, 35 undergraduates participated in the application of a long-interstimulus-interval differential conditioning paradigm with a confederate's videotaped expression of pain serving as the UCS. Facial EMG signals and skin conductance were recorded. Clear evidence of vicarious autonomic instigation and some evidence of facial excitation were obtained in Exp I, but vicarious autonomic and facial muscle conditioning were obtained only for the 50% of the Ss who were aware of the contingency between the CS+ and the model's pain. In Exp II, steps were taken to increase awareness of the contingency, and significant autonomic and facial muscle instigation and conditioning occurred. Both the vicariously instigated and conditioned autonomic responses involved skin conductance increases, but facial responses to the model's pain were different from conditioned facial responses. Autonomic and facial muscle data suggest that Ss were behaving as though they were anticipating shock when the CS+ was displayed to the model, and as though they were in pain when the model was being shocked. Vicariously aroused emotional reactions thus appear to be similar to those that would be elicited if the S were directly anticipating and receiving shock. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)