Expression of feeling and cognitive reinterpretation in the reduction of hostile aggression.

90 male college students were first angered by a confederate's critical evaluation of their autobiographical letters. They were then given 1 of 3 procedures designed to reduce hostile aggression: an expression of their feelings to the confederate; a reinterpretation of the criticism by the confederate; and a combination of expression and reinterpretation. In comparison to a hostility induction, no-reduction control group, and a no-hostility-induction control group, the combination of expression and reinterpretation produced a significant reduction in hostile aggression as measured by A. H. Buss's aggression machine and changes in verbal hostility ratings. Neither expression alone nor reinterpretation alone produced significant reductions in aggression. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal inferences in motivation research: A reinterpretation of results from panel studies.

Presents a secondary analysis of the data reported in 3 previous studies (E. E. Lawler, 1968; E. E. Lawler and J. L. Suttle, 1973; J. Sheridan et al, 1975) on the causal relationships between an expectancy construct of motivation and job performance. Corrected cross-lagged correlations indicate that the previous statistical inferences of causality may have been artifact of varying measurement reliability and that the observed relationships were spurious. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cognitive reinterpretation of Stanley Milgram's observations on obedience to authority.

Comments on S. Milgram's (1974) observations on obedience to authority. It is suggested that the underlying cause for Milgram's Ss' striking conduct could be conceptual and not the alleged "capacity of man to abandon his humanity…as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual Experiences Survey: A research instrument investigating sexual aggression and victimization.

Developed a survey capable of reflecting hidden cases of rape and of documenting a dimensional view of sexual aggression/sexual victimization. This survey examines degrees of coercion used or experienced in sexual activity. Results obtained from 3,862 university students support a dimensional view. The viability of a survey approach to sample selection for future rape research is discussed. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychology of curiosity: A review and reinterpretation.

Research on curiosity has undergone 2 waves of intense activity. The 1st, in the 1960s, focused mainly on curiosity's psychological underpinnings. The 2nd, in the 1970s and 1980s, was characterized by attempts to measure curiosity and assess its dimensionality. This article reviews these contributions with a concentration on the 1st wave. It is argued that theoretical accounts of curiosity proposed during the 1st period fell short in 2 areas: They did not offer an adequate explanation for why people voluntarily seek out curiosity, and they failed to delineate situational determinants of curiosity. Furthermore, these accounts did not draw attention to, and thus did not explain, certain salient characteristics of curiosity: its intensity, transience, association with impulsivity, and tendency to disappoint when satisfied. A new account of curiosity is offered that attempts to address these shortcomings. The new account interprets curiosity as a form of cognitively induced deprivation that arises from the perception of a gap in knowledge or understanding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A reinterpretation of some pathological disturbances in conceptual breadth.

"The present study was designed to investigate the possibility that both overinclusion and overexclusion errors on conceptual sorting tasks by schizophrenics are attributable, at least in part, to a tendency to use concepts of a specific preferred breadth regardless of their appropriateness. This suggestion was investigated by means of a task in which names of objects were sorted on the basis of conceptual categories of varying breadth. The hypothesis was that as the instructed conceptual category becomes broader, schizophrenics increase their errors of overexclusion but decrease their errors of overinclusion. The hypothesis was confirmed. In addition… brain damaged… [Ss] showed the opposite error preference." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4JQ14C. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditioned taste aversions and drugs of abuse: A reinterpretation.

A new hypothesis (and supporting data) provides a solution to the 25-yr-old paradox whereby positively reinforcing drugs of abuse also support a conditioned taste aversion (CTA). The results show that unlike LiCl-induced CTAs, morphine- and cocaine-induced suppression of conditioned stimulus (CS) intake depends on the rewarding properties of the gustatory CS. This finding argues against the long-standing CTA interpretation in favor of a new reward comparison account. That is, rats decrease intake of a gustatory CS following taste–drug pairings because the value of the CS is outweighed by that of a highly reinforcing psychoactive drug. Suppression of CS intake, then, is a consequence of the well-documented positive reinforcing, rather than the hypothetical aversive, properties of drugs of abuse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of parental firm control: A reinterpretation of findings.

Examines evidence that firm parental control promotes effective socialization of children (i.e., promotes self-control and social responsibility). There is an apparent conflict between this research and attribution theory and research, which concludes that salient external control is negatively associated with internalization of standards. A reinterpretation of existing measures of firm control that is consistent with attribution theory is offered. Components of the reinterpretation are as follows: The variable "firm control" may measure the child's willingness to obey rather than the parent's tendency to exercise control; the behavior of well-socialized children may be due to the variables that accompany firm control rather than to firm control per se; deleting firm control from the authoritative parenting package is not associated with less well-socialized behavior. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Analysis of Likert-scale data: A reinterpretation of Gregoire and Driver.

Most studies that have investigated the use of coarsely grained scales have indicated that the accuracy of statistics calculated on such scales is not compromised as long as the scales have about 5 or more points. Gregoire and Driver (1987), however, found serious perturbances of the Type I and Type II error rates using a 5-point scale. They carried out three computer simulation experiments in which continuous data were transformed to Likert-scale values. Two of the three experiments are shown to be flawed because the authors incorrectly specified the population mean in their simulation. This article corrects the flaw and demonstrates that the Type I and Type II error rates are not seriously compromised by the use of ordinal-scale data. Furthermore, Gregoire and Driver's results are reinterpreted to show that in most cases, the parametric test of location equality shows a power superiority to the nonparametric tests. Only in their most nonnormal simulation does a nonparametric test show a power superiority. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Television and aggression: A counterargument.

Cites limitations to the L. D. Eron et al (see record 1973-09034-001) study that suggests that TV violence causes aggression. The Eron et al study dealt with Ss' favorite TV programs and the amount of aggression in them rather than with their actual total amount of exposure to TV violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting workplace aggression: A meta-analysis.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 57 empirical studies (59 samples) concerning enacted workplace aggression to answer 3 research questions. First, what are the individual and situational predictors of interpersonal and organizational aggression? Second, within interpersonal aggression, are there different predictors of supervisor- and coworker-targeted aggression? Third, what are the relative contributions of individual (i.e., trait anger, negative affectivity, and biological sex) and situational (i.e., injustice, job dissatisfaction, interpersonal conflict, situational constraints, and poor leadership) factors in explaining interpersonal and organizational aggression? Results show that both individual and situational factors predict aggression and that the pattern of predictors is target specific. Implications for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol's effect on aggression identification: A two-channel theory.

Identification of ambiguous behaviors may be affected by alcohol first by the activation of associated mental representations and second by an increase in the imbiber's motivation of need for closure (NFC; A. Kruglanski, 1989), because cognitive effort is increased for epistemic activities. Combined, these effects should increase correspondence between mental representations of alcohol and the identification of others' behaviors. Three studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. The results were consistent with this hypothesis: Participants who associated alcohol with amiable concepts perceived less aggressive intent when blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) were high versus low. Alternatively, those who associated alcohol with aggressive concepts perceived the same or more aggressive intent when BACs were high versus low. Priming alcohol concepts and trait-level NFC were also sufficient to replicate these effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child and parent effects in boys' conduct disorder: A reinterpretation.

The importance of parent and child influences on the development of conduct disorder (CD) in boys is evaluated. The research approaches reviewed include studies of interactions between unrelated mothers and children, reaction to punishment, autonomic reactivity, biochemical factors, and drug treatment and longitudinal studies of delinquency. Evidence from this research and from research on parental influences, reviewed in detail elsewhere, is interpreted as demonstrating the primacy of the child's own contribution to CD within a reciprocal parent–child interactive system, thus corroborating control systems theory (R. Q. Bell, 1977). Demonstrated parental influences are interpreted as actions that are elicited by or that exacerbate the child's tendencies and that may represent genetic continuities. The heuristic utility and consequences of this model are outlined. It is emphasized that child effects do not imply immutability of behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Current directions in research on understanding and preventing intoxicated aggression

The present paper describes promising research directions that emerged from a recent international conference on intoxication and aggression and from the scientific literature generally. In this overview, intoxicated aggression is seen as arising from an interactional process involving multiple contributing factors or causes. This model helps to define research directions that can further understanding and prevention. First, the societal/cultural framing of intoxication and aggression exerts a powerful influence on drinking behaviour and needs to be better understood. Another important area for research is the moderating role on alcohol-related aggression of personal factors such as predisposition to aggression and individual differences in expectations about alcohol and aggression. Research on the role of basic pharmacological effects of alcohol in increasing the likelihood of aggressive behaviour is also a critical aspect of understanding intoxicated aggression. Drinking contexts and environments play a considerable role in the relationship between intoxication and aggressive behaviour and need to be better understood. Another critical direction for future research is the study of intoxicated aggression as a process involving the interaction of the person, the situation and the effects of alcohol in natural and experimental settings. Finally, the paper highlights promising directions for research on interventions to prevent intoxicated aggression and violence.     

Television violence and aggression: A rejoinder.

Replies to the criticisms by L. Friedrich-Cofer and A. C. Huston (see record 1987-09776-001) of the author's literature review (see record 1984-30860-001) on the effect of TV violence on aggression. The present author argues that there are sound reasons for exercising caution in generalizing from laboratory results and that research outside the laboratory provides only weak and inconsistent support for the causal hypothesis. Moreover, it is asserted that the bidirectional model suggested by Friedrich-Cofer and Huston is not supported by the available evidence. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Agreement set and anticontent attitudes in the F scale: A reinterpretation.

The results of Peabody's (1961) study of attitude content and agreement set, presumably finding 2 kinds of Ss, one prone to agree irrespective of item content, the other likely to take an antiauthoritarian position irrespective of item direction, were reanalyzed. An alternative hypothesis was proposed, which explained the asymmetric results as mainly due to asymmetric reversals of F Scale items and consequent displacement of the neutral points of the reversed items. This displacement made the Ss scoring low on the original scale appear consistent, and the high scorers appear inconsistent in their attitudes at the phenotypic level. Yet while there is some evidence of possible response set, the majority of responses by most Ss seem perfectly consistent if the variation in item location is taken into account. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Operational utility and psychometric characteristics of Behavioral Expectation Scales: A cognitive reinterpretation.

Cognitive complexity, defined as the degree to which a person possesses the ability to perceive behavior in a multidimensional manner, is argued to distinguish between raters for whom Behavioral Expectation Scales (BES) would be effective and for whom they would not. With a sample of 60 manufacturing workers, it was found that cognitively complex raters (CRs) (a) were more confident (p?p?     

The neuropharmacology of aggression: A critical review.

A review of the literature on aggression from a multidisciplinary standpoint reveals evidence for differentiating several kinds of aggression. This differentiation can be seen in the psychopharmacological literature, where some compounds have been effective in altering some forms of aggressive behaviors but ineffective in altering others. Differences in endogenous levels of neurotransmitters have also been reported, but there was little correlation between changes in neurotransmitter systems and effectiveness of compounds supposedly altering these systems. A tentative hypothesis is offered which attempts to explain the behavioral effects of these drugs in terms of their action on several neurotransmitter systems. (4 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)