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The effect of escape possibility on aversively stimulated aggression
JOURNAL
OF RESEARCH
IN PERSONALITY
21, 405-416 (1987)
The Effect of Escape Possibility on Aversively Stimulated Aggression LEONARD
BERKOWITZ University
AND MARLOWE
C.
EMBREE
of Wisconsin
In order to examine the possibility that the inability to escape from aversive stimulation heightens the instigation to aggression, 68 university men were exposed to a cold stressor situation in which the subjects immersed one hand in water that was either 6 or 18°C. Half of the participants were given permission to take their hand from the water whenever they wanted, so that they could easily escape from the painful situation, whereas pressure was placed on the others not to escape. All of the subjects then had to administer rewards and punishments to a peer, supposedly as they directed that person’s “shots” at a “target.” Questionnaire ratings indicated that the people who could readily escape were not as angry as the others, suggesting that they were less frustrated than their counterparts not given permission to escape. The former were evidently also less bothered by the painfully cold water, apparently because they believed they had some control over this aversive stimulation. Nevertheless, the men in the cold water condition Who were relatively free to escape from this unpleasant situation were most punitive to their partner. The aversive stimulation apparently evoked an inclination to strike at an available target even when it was possible to terminate the painful event. 0 1987 Academic Press, Inc.
It is generally agreed that aversive events often evoke an instigation to aggression (e.g., Baron, 1977; Hutchinson, 1973; Moyer, 1976; Uhich, 1966). There is much less agreement, however, as to what is the goal of the aversively stimulated aggression. Uhich and Azrin (1962) referred to this behavior as a reflex, implying that the action had no particular aim other than the performance of a response. We can also infer that this position holds that aversively stimulated aggression is oriented toward hitting an available target. Raising yet another possibility, Berkowitz, Cochran, and Embree (1981) suggested that under some conditions the suffering organism seeks to hurt the victim. In other words, the aversive event presumably instigates appetitive aggression. Offering still another alternative, other writers have argued that the aggressive behavior is largely defensive in nature. For them, the pain-induced attack is directed 405 0092-6X6/87
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Copyright 8 1987 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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primarily toward the elimination or reduction of the unpleasant occurrence (Blanchard, Blanchard, & Takahashi, 1978; Potegal, 1975; Zihmann, 1979). These different formulations also have a somewhat different view of the inclination to escape arising from the aversive event. The defensive conception of aversively stimulated aggression implies that the pained animal prefers to flee from the noxious stimulus rather than attack (cf. Potegal, 1975), whereas the appetitive formulation suggests that this preference is not invariant and is affected by a variety of internal and external conditions (Berkowitz, 1983). We can even go further. If the primary instigation evoked by the aversive stimulation is to escape, as the defensive notion maintains, the aggressive reaction to pain is conceivably due mainly to the frustration of the desire to flee and might not arise at all if the suffering organism can get away from the source of its torment.’ The present experiment examines this latter possibility. Half of the subjects were exposed to a relatively painful cold stressor situation, but in one condition the participants were told they could take their hand out of the cold water at any time, while the other men were encouraged to endure the painful treatment for the required period. Since escape was less permissible in the latter condition, the subjects’ desire to get away from the aversive stimulation was, in a sense, more strongly thwarted. If the external barrier to flight generates aggressive inclinations, they should exhibit stronger aggression than their less frustrated counterparts in the escape-possible group. This is not to say that the men who were given permission to remove their hand from the water were totally unfrustrated. They were faced with a conflict: Should they withdraw from the experiment and thereby lose face by appearing cowardly or should they continue to participate-and prolong their suffering-in order to gain the experimenter’s approval and esteem? But it was up to them to resolve this conflict; they could escape from the painfully cold water if they wanted. Since this possibility of escape was under their own control to a considerable degree, we can regard them as less frustrated. This matter of the subjects having some control over their course of action brings up another consideration. A number of studies have dem’ Neal Miller’s (1961) analysis of frustration reactions offers yet another account of the influence of escape possibility on aggressive responses. In this revision of the original 1939 frustration-aggression formulation, Miller maintained that a thwarting typically gives rise to a variety of reactions, such as instigations to flee and to attack the perceived barrier to goal attainment. If the frustration continues, Miller suggested, the alternative, nonaggressive responses tend to weaken, thereby increasing the likelihood of overt aggression. From this perspective the inclination to escape could be relatively high in the person’s response hierarchy (i.e., is the preferred response to the aversive event), but if escape is not possible, those reactions lower in the response hierarchy, including aggression, would become more probable. But while this conception is very reasonable and has much to commend it, it is ignored here in order to sharpen the issues confronted by this paper.
AVERSIVELY STIMULATED
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onstrated that pain-producing stimuli are “less painful and disruptive” to individuals who can “control these stimuli” (Lecourt, 1973). From this perspective, the participants in the escape-possible condition, having a greater sense of control over the aversive experience, might actually feel less hurt than the people in the escape-not-possible group. If so, we might again expect the escape-possible subjects to be less aggressive than the other men (see Donnerstein & Wilson, 1976; Geen, 1978). But although these expectations are generally quite plausible, there is some reason to believe that the study would have a different outcome. Even though the people given permission to escape might experience less pain than the other subjects, their sense of control undoubtedly would not be complete enough to keep the men from feeling any hurt; they would still experience some pain, and therefore should have something of an instigation to aggression. Furthermore, in receiving the experimenter’s permission to withdraw from the unpleasant situation, the subjects might also come to regard the experimenter as a relatively permissive person who would tolerate other unusual actions as well, including aggression. Thinking this behavior would not be disapproved, they might, then, actually display a greater level of overt aggression than the other subjects in the escape-not-possible condition. In this case we would not conclude, of course, that the former have a stronger inclination to aggression than the latter; their greater aggression would be due to weaker inhibitions against this behavior. Nevertheless, a high level of aggression by the escape-possible group would still suggest that this behavior did not stem from the thwarting of their desire to get away from the painful stimulation. METHOD Subjects The subjects were 68 male undergraduates recruited from an introductory psychology course who volunteered for the experiment in order to earn additional course credits. Fourteen other men had also served in the study, but their data were discarded because they surreptitiously refused to follow the experimental instructions and withdrew from the aversive stimulation without informing the experimenter. Eleven of these “discards” were in the cold water condition, with 8 of them being in the escape-less-possible group.*
Procedure The experimenter met each subject and another male student. a confederate posing as a participant, escorted them to the laboratory room, and then described the procedure in * Although the summary given here indicates we employed a 2 x 2 factorial design, the experiment actually started out with a third orthogonal variable (nature of subject's response) as well. However, as is noted below, this third variable is disregarded here because it proved not to have any effects. While the condition frequencies were not equal with the original 82 subjects, the discarding of the 14 “disobedient” people resulted in equal group frequencies.
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general terms. Saying that the experiment had to do with the effects of physical discomfort on Performance in a work setting, he explained that one of the two would randomly be chosen to serve as supervisor while the other would function as the worker under the former’s supervision. The supervisor was supposed to do his job under “harsh environmental conditions,” and would have to carry out his role while keeping one of his hands in a bucket of cold water. When asked if he was willing to serve in the study, every subject agreed to go on, and the experimenter “randomly” assigned the two men to separate small cubicles. The subject found that he was to be the supervisor when he entered his room. Each participant then heard the experimenter’s voice over an intercom loudspeaker giving instructions for the first task. This previously tape-recorded statement indicated there would be two parts to the experiment. In the first part, the subject was told, he was to insert his left hand in the tank of water on the table before him and use the other hand to press a telegraph key also on the table whenever the worker in the next room made a mistake on the “simple concept-learning task.” One group of subjects was also informed the button press would cause the worker to lose money as punishment for his error, whereas in the other condition the press ostensibly would deliver a more neutral “feedback signal.” This variation, which was intended to increase the former participants’ set to deliver punishments, proved to have no significant effects on any of the measures, and so nothing further will be said about this manipulation in the following report. The subjects in all of the conditions, even those in which they supposedly only flashed signals to the learner, apparently believed that they were being more negative to the worker the more frequently they pressed the telegraph key. They were hurting that person psychologically if not physically by giving him these negative responses. The first experimental manipulation involved the water temperature used in producing the “harsh environmental condition.” Half of the men found the water was quite cold (6°C) whereas for the remaining participants the temperature was much more bearable although still not pleasant (18”C).j Each person was asked to keep his left hand in the water up to his wrist for the entire period. Unknown to the subject, the experimenter periodically looked through the one-way window in the cubicle door, noting whether the instructions were followed. For the final variation, the experimenter’s instructions placed different degrees of emphasis on the subject’s freedom to escape from the study. Although those in the escape-lesspossible group were reminded that they could withdraw at any time as long as they informed the experimenter, he also pointed out that their data would be lost if they did end their participation. In the escape-possible condition, on the other hand, this implied pressure was not established to the same degree. and the experimenter was much more permissive about the subject’s ability to terminate the session with full credit.’ 3 Some readers might believe “demand characteristics” were so obvious in this study that the subjects caught on to the experimenter’s hypothesis and acted punitively in order to confirm this hypothesis. Contrary to this widespread supposition, however, a number of studies have now demonstrated that subjects are usually unwilling to act in a socially disapproved manner even when they are aware of the research expectation. As only one example, when Turner and Simons (1974) deliberately led some of their subjects to realize the experimenter expected them to be influenced by the guns present in the room, these participants subsequently exhibited the lowest level of aggression in reaction to the weapons. As Turner and Simons also showed, the subjects were greatly affected by their “evaluation apprehension”; they apparently wanted to appear normal and well-adjusted and believed that acting aggressively would make them look bad. All in all, a mounting body of evidence indicates aggression experiments obtain significant results, when they do, in spite of the subjects’ awareness and not because of this awareness. 4 It should be clear that we have here only differences in the degree of constraint placed
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The first phase was concluded 7 min after it had begun. Each subject was asked to take his hand from the water, and he was instructed to complete the questionnaire on his table describing how he experienced the water and his present mood.’ Shortly afterward, the experimenter entered the cubicle, checked the water temperature, and added additional ice to the tank if such was necessary. He then gave each subject new instructions for the second phase. The subject was to play a version of the “Battleship Game” with his previous partner. That person now had to guess the location of a “target” on a numbered grid by calling off the grid coordinates. The partner’s supposed guesses were always off the target but tended to come close to it, with a few diversions, as the sequence progressed. As supervisor, the subject was provided with a chart showing the “target’s” actual location and was to respond to each of his partner’s guesses by pushing one of the three buttons on the box before him, signaling he wished either to “reward,” or “punish,” or “ignore” his partner’s move. Moreover, he could press whatever button he chose from 1 to 10 times. The other person supposedly would receive a nickel for each press of the reward button and a blast of unpleasant noise each time the punish button was pushed. Nothing would happen to the partner if the ignore button was selected. The experimenter also informed the subject that the worker had agreed to receive the noise blasts and he was given a sample so he could hear what the sound was like. Following these instructions the subject was again asked to immerse his left hand in the water, and the second task was begun. The confederate’s previously recorded voice was heard calling off 28 sets of coordinates, with a few seconds pause in between each “move,” giving the subject 28 opportunities to react to his partner. Seven minutes after the start of the phase, the experimenter’s voice over the intercom told the subject to take his hand from the water and fill out the second questionnaire. When this was completed, the experimenter inquired into any suspicions the subject might have had and explained the true purpose of the study. After answering all questions, he then dismissed the man.
Dependent Measures Each of the two questionnaires, given at the end of the first and second parts, required the subject to describe his experience of the water and also his mood at the time. For every item on these forms the man was to indicate the extent to which the given descriptor characterized his experience or his mood (from 1 = not at all to 9 = very much). The punishment measures were based on type of response (reward or punishment) and number of responses, and included such things as the total number of trials in which the participant administered punishments, the total number of punishments delivered over all trials, the number of reward trials, and the total number of rewards given, as well as the arithmetic differences between punishment and rewards. upon the subject to remain in the experiment; all of the participants were under at least some pressure to keep their hand in the water since we assumed too many persons would take their hand out of the cold water if they were entirely free to do so. The result of such a complete freedom obviously would be that we would have a very great variation in how much aversive stimulation was inflicted on the subjects. Our assumptions seems warranted since, as was reported earlier, even with the constraint we employed approximately a quarter of the subjects originally “run” in the cold water condition lifted their hand from the water to an impermissible extent and were therefore eliminated from the study. 5 Since the scores on the mood ratings obtained at this time were found to be uncorrelated with the subjects’ subsequent behavior, it would seem that the administration of the mood questionnaire before the subjects responded to their partner did not affect their later conduct.
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TABLE I PERCEPTIONOF COLD WATER AS A FUNCTION OF WATER TEMPERATURE
Questionnaire I
II
Descriptor
Water temperature ______ 6°C 18°C
Significance
Cold Unpleasant Tolerable Painful Stressful Aversive Comfortable Annoying
8.00 7.50 4.91 5.53 6.03 6.10 1.97 6.78
5.47 4.25 6.85 1.86 2.75
,001
3.75
3.50 4.42
,001 ,001 ,001
Cold Unpleasant Tolerable Painful Stressful Aversive Comfortable
7.81 6.84
5.47 4.25 6.11 2.31 3.64 3.89 3.44 4.81
.OOl ,001 .Ol ,001 ,001 ,001 ,001 .05
5.00
5.41 5.88 5.53 2.00 5.97
.OOl ,001 ,001 ,001
Note. Each of these items was rated on a 9-point scale, with a high score indicating the term was very descriptive of the subject’s experience.
RESULTS
Effectiveness of Manipulations Aversiveness of water temperature. The ratings of how the subjects experienced the water temperature clearly demonstrate that the 6°C water was substantially more unpleasant than the 18°C water. Analyses of variance of the ratings showed that all eight were significantly affected by the water temperature and that these condition differences were not reliably affected by any of the other experimental variations or by the time of the measurement. The mean ratings are reported in Table 1. Escape possibility. As a check on the escape possibility manipulation, both questionnaires included an item asking the men how free they felt to remove their hand from the water. Although the mean ratings on this measure were in the expected direction, with the escape-possible group indicating somewhat greater freedom, the differences were relatively slight and did not attain statistical significance.6 Nonetheless, other findings suggest that we did indeed establish some ’ Postexperimental discussions with the participants indicate that they typically took the item to refer mostly to the legally required statement given them that they were free to withdraw at any time.
AVERSIVELY
STIMULATED
TABLE RATED MOODS AS A FUNCTION OF
WATER
411
AGGRESSION
2 TEMPERATURE
AND
ESCAPE
POSSIBILITY
18°C
6°C Escape possible
Escape less possible
Escape possible
Escape less possible
Questionnaire I Tense Angry* Hurt Distressed* Irritable Relaxed
5.4, 3.6, 2.6, 4.2b 5.5, 3.1,,
6.1, 5.2, 4.0, 6.2, 6.2, 6.8,
3.2, 1.8, 1.6b 2.9, 2.9, 4.lb
4.1, 2.2, 1.7b 3.2, 3.4b 3.7,
Questionnaire Tense Awry Hurt Distressed Irritable Annoyed
5.3, 4.1, 3.1,b 4.6,b 5.1& 4.8,b
5.5, 3.9, 3.3, 5.8, 5.9, 6.1,
3.6, 2.1b 1.8, 3.4, 4.1b 4.4,
3.4, 2.1, 2.1, 3.4, 3.8b 4.1,
Mood item
II
Note. Each of the measures listed in the table yielded significant main effects for water temperature (p < .05). Those items indicated by * also produced a significant effect for escape possibility. Otherwise, no other effects were obtained in the preliminary analyses of variance. Cells not having a subscript in common are significantly different by Duncan multiple range tests (p < .05). For each item the higher the score on the 9-step scale (max. = 9), the more the given label applied to the subject’s mood.
differences in the subjects’ perceived ability to withdraw from the unpleasant situation. We had thought that the people given permission to terminate the aversive stimulation would have a lower level of these negative moods than the other men with less felt freedom to withdraw from the study. In keeping with this expectation, the analyses of variance summarized in Table 2 revealed two significant main effects for the escape possibility variation in the first questionnaire; those who were led to believe they could easily take their hand from the water rated themselves as less angry and less distressed than their counterparts who did not have as much freedom to escape from the unpleasant situation. Whatever else these differences might indicate, they suggest that the people in the escape-possible condition were less thwarted than their counterparts in the escape-less-possible group. Effects on Mood Ratings Analyses of variance were carried out with each of the seven mood ratings, keeping the two questionnaires separate. All seven yielded sig-
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nificant effects for water temperature after the first exposure to the water. As Table 2 indicates, and as we had anticipated, the men reported that they felt worse, the colder was the water. Of particular interest in this regard, the subjects exposed to the aversive 6°C temperature rated themselves as angrier and more irritable and annoyed than their counterparts in the 18°C group. The former subjects’ feelings apparently stemmed from the painful stimulation fairly directly rather than from any belief that they were being treated in an improper fashion. Six of these mood items also led to significant effects for water temperature on the second questionnaire (with the exception of the item “relaxes”), and again, the 6°C men reported themselves as feeling reliably angrier and more irritated and annoyed than those in the 18°C condition, as well as more tense, hurt, and distressed. Because of our clearcut, a priori expectations, a series of condition comparisons was also carried out for the mood items that had produced significant water temperature effects. Table 2 shows the item means on these ratings for the four experimental conditions and also the results of these comparisons. As can readily be seen in the table, the escape possibility variation had little effect on the reported feelings in the less aversive 18°C condition. The ability to escape did not matter unless the men were undergoing a decidedly unpleasant experience. This perceived ability to withdraw from the aversive stimulation reliably affected three of the ratings made by the 6°C group on the initial questionnaire. As can be seen in the table, those given permission to escape reported themselves as significantly less angry, hurt, and distressed than the escape-lesspossible subjects also exposed to the highly unpleasant water temperature. The other comparisons shown in the table also testify to the ameliorating effects of the felt freedom to escape. For every item in the first questionnaire the men in the 6°C escape-possible condition reported weaker negative feelings than their 6°C counterparts who could not easily escape. As a consequence, the former subjects receiving the aversive 6°C water treatment did not differ reliably from the men in the 18°C group on the ratings of how hurt or relaxed they were, although such a difference did exist for the 6°C escape-less-possible condition. Much the same pattern can be seen in the second questionnaire ratings (with the exception of felt anger), although there now were no significant differences between the two escape possibility groups. Nevertheless, for three of the six measures the 6°C escape-possible subjects did not differ from both 18°C conditions, although such a significant difference did exist in the case of the escape-less-possible men exposed to the highly aversive water temperature: for the ratings of feeling distressed, irritable and annoyed. All in all, then, the findings suggest that the subjects’
AVERSIVELY
STIMULATED
TABLE CORRELATIONS
BETWEEN REWARDS
THE TOTAL AND EACH
413
AGGRESSION
3
NUMBER OF PUNISHMENTS OF THE EIGHT AGGRESSION
AND THE TOTAL MEASURES
NUMBER
OF
Total number of Measure Number of reward trials Number of punishment trials Number of P trials - R trials Total number of rewards given Total number of punishments given Total number P responses - R responses Number responses per R trial Number responses per P trial
Punishments
Rewards
- .22 .54** .55** .29* -
.32** .07 -.04 -
.42** .40** .7tP
.29* - .@I** .94** .24*
Note. N = 68. * p = .05. ** p = .Ol.
perceived ability to escape from the aversive experience tended to lessen their negative feelings. Aggression Measures
The subjects’ responses during the “Battleship Game” provide essentially two kinds of measures that could serve as indicators of their aggressive inclinations: those based on the rewards they administered and others involving the delivery of punishments. These two types of indices are not completely independent, however. On examining the intercorreleations among the scores on our eight measures over all 68 subjects, we found that the number of trials in which rewards were given was slightly negatively related to the number of punishment trials (r = - .23, p = n.s.) but that the total number of rewards given had a small but significant positive correlation with the total number of punishments administered (r = .29, p = .05). Nonetheless, other correlations indicate that these latter two measures are sufficiently independent so that they can be said to reflect quite different inclinations. When we compare the relationships that the total number of punishments and the total number of rewards have with each of the six other scores, we found, as is shown in Table 3, that the punishments and rewards seem to be governed by somewhat different determinants. The delivery of punishments and the administration of rewards are not simply products of the participant’s general activity level. Because of the interrelationships among the various measures, the eight sets of scores listed in Table 3 were subjected to a multivariate
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MEASURES
AS A FUNCTION
AND
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TABLE 4 OF WATER TEMPERATURE
AND ESCAPE POSSIBILITY
6°C
Measure No. punish trials No. P trials - No. R trials Total punishment Total P - Total R
18°C
Escape possible
less possible
Escape possible
15.0, 5.8, 42.6, 0.2,
12.7,, 1.9,, 29.2,, - 23.4,
10.1b 0.4, 24.0, - 29.0,
Escape less possible ---.~ 9.2, -O.Sh 20.3, -25.1,
Note. A multivariate analysis of variance of the aggression measures employed in this study yielded a significant multivariate F (only for temperature variable, (F = 2.28, p < .0.5). The four measures indicated in this table all produced significant main effects for water temperature (p < .05), but no other significant effects. Cells not having a subscript in common are significantly different, at the .05 level, by Duncan multiple range test.
analysis of variance. A significant multivariate F ratio was obtained for water temperature (F = 2.28, p < .05). Four of the measures also gave rise to significant main effects for water temperature: the number of trials in which punishment was administered (p < .Ol), the number of punishment trials minus the number of reward trials (p < .Ol), the total number of punishment responses (p = .Ol), and the number of punishments minus the number of rewards (p = .04). These four measures were then used in the post hoc comparisons summarized in Table 4, showing the effects of water temperature and escape possibility. The results reported in the table might appear surprising at first glance. Although the subjects in the 6°C Escape Possible group were less angry than the other men exposed to the aversive water, the people with the highest aggression scores were the ones who could easily escape from the unpleasant stimulation. Thus, rather than lessening their attacks on their partner, the ability to withdraw freely from the water evidently led the 6°C subjects to exhibit the strongest aggression toward their target. As a consequence, on all four of the punishment measures reported in Table 4, only those in the 6°C escape-possible group differed significantly from their counterparts exposed to the less painful 18°C treatment. DISCUSSION At first glance, the findings obtained in this study seem to be inconsistent with Berkowitz’s conception of aversively stimulated agression. The men who felt they could readily terminate their painful experience tended to be less bothered by the highly aversive stimulation than the other subjects not given permission to withdraw, especially during their first contact
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with the cold water. Nevertheless, the escape-possible group generally delivered the strongest punishment to their partner. If the negative affect created by an aversive stimulus evokes an instigation to aggression, why was the less distressed escape-possible condition more punitive than the other group also inflicted with the cold water? We make two points in answer to this question. First of all, saying that the 6°C escape-possible subjects were less bothered than the others exposed to the cold water obviously does not mean that the former were not experiencing any negative affect. Looking at Table 2, we can see that these men still reported feeling reliably more tense, angrier, more distressed, and more annoyed in Questionnaire I than the 18°C escapepossible subjects. This negative affect apparently was intense enough to elicit aggressive inclinations. Second, it appears that the experimenter’s permission to take their hand from the water had affected more than one set of restraints. The participants given this permission evidently felt free both to punish their partner and to withdraw from the study. They might have thought that the experimenter was not a severely censorious person since he clearly understood that they might want to escape from the painful treatment. If he would permit this behavior, perhaps he would not disapprove if they were harsh to the other person. This possibility, we might note, seems to fit the findings better than an alternative hypothesis maintaining that the subjects in the 6°C escape-possible condition were highly aggressive because of intense internal conflict. There is no evidence in the participants’ mood ratings that they were actually torn by opposing desires to escape and to remain in the study. As we saw, they reported feeling less angry and less bothered than the other cold water subjects pressured to keep their hand in the water. It is simpler to conclude that the 6°C escapepossible men were less restrained than the subjects not permitted to escape rather than that they were more highly frustrated. But whether this supposition is correct or not, the present findings generally counter the idea that the aggressive reactions arising from exposure to aversive stimulation are generated only by the inability to escape from this stimulation. It is true that the men who could not freely remove their hand from the water were somewhat angrier than the other subjects in the 6°C escape-possible group, as if their desire to withdraw from the painful condition was thwarted. However, they were not reliably more punitive to their partner than the subjects exposed to the milder water temperature. And more important, those permitted to escape from the cold water were significantly more aggressive than the people in the 18°C water temperature condition. Their painful experience had apparently evoked a fairly strong instigation to aggression in them.
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REFERENCES Baron, R. A. (1977). Human aggression. New York: Plenum. Berkowitz, L. (1983). Aversive conditions as stimuli to aggression. In R. J. Blanchard (Ed.), Advances in the Study of Aggression (Vol. 1). New York: Academic Press. Berkowitz, L., Cochran, S., & Embree, M. (1981). Physical pain and the goal of aversively stimulated aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 687-700. Blanchard, J. R., Blanchard, D. C.. & Takahashi. L. K. (1978). Pain and aggression in the rat. Behavioral Biology, 23, 291-305. Donnerstein, E., & Wilson, D. W. (1976). Effects of noise and perceived control on ongoing and subsequent aggressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 774-78
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Geen, R. G. (1978). Effects of attack and uncontrollable Research
in Personality,
noise on aggression. Journal
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Hutchinson, R. R. (1973). the environmental causes of aggression. In J. K. Cole & D. D. Jensen (Eds.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lefcourt, H. M. (1973). The function of the illusions of control and freedom. American Psychologist,
28, 417-425.
Miller, N. E. (1941). The frustration-aggression
hypothesis. Psychological
Review,
48, 337-
342.
Moyer, K. E. (1976). The psychobiology of aggression. New York: Harper & Row. Potegal, M. (1979). The reinforcing value of several types of aggressive behavior: A review. Aggressive
Behavior,
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Turner, C. W., & Simons, L. S. (1974). Effects of subject sophistication and evaluation apprehension on aggressive responses to weapons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 341-348. Uhich, R. E. (1966). Pain as a cause of aggression. American Zoologist, 6, 643-662. Uhich, R. E., & Azrin, N. H. (1962). Reflexive fighting in response to aversive stimulation. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 5, 51 l-520. Zillmann, D. (1979). Hostility and aggression. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
OF RESEARCH
IN PERSONALITY
21, 405-416 (1987)
The Effect of Escape Possibility on Aversively Stimulated Aggression LEONARD
BERKOWITZ University
AND MARLOWE
C.
EMBREE
of Wisconsin
In order to examine the possibility that the inability to escape from aversive stimulation heightens the instigation to aggression, 68 university men were exposed to a cold stressor situation in which the subjects immersed one hand in water that was either 6 or 18°C. Half of the participants were given permission to take their hand from the water whenever they wanted, so that they could easily escape from the painful situation, whereas pressure was placed on the others not to escape. All of the subjects then had to administer rewards and punishments to a peer, supposedly as they directed that person’s “shots” at a “target.” Questionnaire ratings indicated that the people who could readily escape were not as angry as the others, suggesting that they were less frustrated than their counterparts not given permission to escape. The former were evidently also less bothered by the painfully cold water, apparently because they believed they had some control over this aversive stimulation. Nevertheless, the men in the cold water condition Who were relatively free to escape from this unpleasant situation were most punitive to their partner. The aversive stimulation apparently evoked an inclination to strike at an available target even when it was possible to terminate the painful event. 0 1987 Academic Press, Inc.
It is generally agreed that aversive events often evoke an instigation to aggression (e.g., Baron, 1977; Hutchinson, 1973; Moyer, 1976; Uhich, 1966). There is much less agreement, however, as to what is the goal of the aversively stimulated aggression. Uhich and Azrin (1962) referred to this behavior as a reflex, implying that the action had no particular aim other than the performance of a response. We can also infer that this position holds that aversively stimulated aggression is oriented toward hitting an available target. Raising yet another possibility, Berkowitz, Cochran, and Embree (1981) suggested that under some conditions the suffering organism seeks to hurt the victim. In other words, the aversive event presumably instigates appetitive aggression. Offering still another alternative, other writers have argued that the aggressive behavior is largely defensive in nature. For them, the pain-induced attack is directed 405 0092-6X6/87
$3.00
Copyright 8 1987 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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primarily toward the elimination or reduction of the unpleasant occurrence (Blanchard, Blanchard, & Takahashi, 1978; Potegal, 1975; Zihmann, 1979). These different formulations also have a somewhat different view of the inclination to escape arising from the aversive event. The defensive conception of aversively stimulated aggression implies that the pained animal prefers to flee from the noxious stimulus rather than attack (cf. Potegal, 1975), whereas the appetitive formulation suggests that this preference is not invariant and is affected by a variety of internal and external conditions (Berkowitz, 1983). We can even go further. If the primary instigation evoked by the aversive stimulation is to escape, as the defensive notion maintains, the aggressive reaction to pain is conceivably due mainly to the frustration of the desire to flee and might not arise at all if the suffering organism can get away from the source of its torment.’ The present experiment examines this latter possibility. Half of the subjects were exposed to a relatively painful cold stressor situation, but in one condition the participants were told they could take their hand out of the cold water at any time, while the other men were encouraged to endure the painful treatment for the required period. Since escape was less permissible in the latter condition, the subjects’ desire to get away from the aversive stimulation was, in a sense, more strongly thwarted. If the external barrier to flight generates aggressive inclinations, they should exhibit stronger aggression than their less frustrated counterparts in the escape-possible group. This is not to say that the men who were given permission to remove their hand from the water were totally unfrustrated. They were faced with a conflict: Should they withdraw from the experiment and thereby lose face by appearing cowardly or should they continue to participate-and prolong their suffering-in order to gain the experimenter’s approval and esteem? But it was up to them to resolve this conflict; they could escape from the painfully cold water if they wanted. Since this possibility of escape was under their own control to a considerable degree, we can regard them as less frustrated. This matter of the subjects having some control over their course of action brings up another consideration. A number of studies have dem’ Neal Miller’s (1961) analysis of frustration reactions offers yet another account of the influence of escape possibility on aggressive responses. In this revision of the original 1939 frustration-aggression formulation, Miller maintained that a thwarting typically gives rise to a variety of reactions, such as instigations to flee and to attack the perceived barrier to goal attainment. If the frustration continues, Miller suggested, the alternative, nonaggressive responses tend to weaken, thereby increasing the likelihood of overt aggression. From this perspective the inclination to escape could be relatively high in the person’s response hierarchy (i.e., is the preferred response to the aversive event), but if escape is not possible, those reactions lower in the response hierarchy, including aggression, would become more probable. But while this conception is very reasonable and has much to commend it, it is ignored here in order to sharpen the issues confronted by this paper.
AVERSIVELY STIMULATED
AGGRESSION
407
onstrated that pain-producing stimuli are “less painful and disruptive” to individuals who can “control these stimuli” (Lecourt, 1973). From this perspective, the participants in the escape-possible condition, having a greater sense of control over the aversive experience, might actually feel less hurt than the people in the escape-not-possible group. If so, we might again expect the escape-possible subjects to be less aggressive than the other men (see Donnerstein & Wilson, 1976; Geen, 1978). But although these expectations are generally quite plausible, there is some reason to believe that the study would have a different outcome. Even though the people given permission to escape might experience less pain than the other subjects, their sense of control undoubtedly would not be complete enough to keep the men from feeling any hurt; they would still experience some pain, and therefore should have something of an instigation to aggression. Furthermore, in receiving the experimenter’s permission to withdraw from the unpleasant situation, the subjects might also come to regard the experimenter as a relatively permissive person who would tolerate other unusual actions as well, including aggression. Thinking this behavior would not be disapproved, they might, then, actually display a greater level of overt aggression than the other subjects in the escape-not-possible condition. In this case we would not conclude, of course, that the former have a stronger inclination to aggression than the latter; their greater aggression would be due to weaker inhibitions against this behavior. Nevertheless, a high level of aggression by the escape-possible group would still suggest that this behavior did not stem from the thwarting of their desire to get away from the painful stimulation. METHOD Subjects The subjects were 68 male undergraduates recruited from an introductory psychology course who volunteered for the experiment in order to earn additional course credits. Fourteen other men had also served in the study, but their data were discarded because they surreptitiously refused to follow the experimental instructions and withdrew from the aversive stimulation without informing the experimenter. Eleven of these “discards” were in the cold water condition, with 8 of them being in the escape-less-possible group.*
Procedure The experimenter met each subject and another male student. a confederate posing as a participant, escorted them to the laboratory room, and then described the procedure in * Although the summary given here indicates we employed a 2 x 2 factorial design, the experiment actually started out with a third orthogonal variable (nature of subject's response) as well. However, as is noted below, this third variable is disregarded here because it proved not to have any effects. While the condition frequencies were not equal with the original 82 subjects, the discarding of the 14 “disobedient” people resulted in equal group frequencies.
408
BERKOWITZ
AND
EMBREE
general terms. Saying that the experiment had to do with the effects of physical discomfort on Performance in a work setting, he explained that one of the two would randomly be chosen to serve as supervisor while the other would function as the worker under the former’s supervision. The supervisor was supposed to do his job under “harsh environmental conditions,” and would have to carry out his role while keeping one of his hands in a bucket of cold water. When asked if he was willing to serve in the study, every subject agreed to go on, and the experimenter “randomly” assigned the two men to separate small cubicles. The subject found that he was to be the supervisor when he entered his room. Each participant then heard the experimenter’s voice over an intercom loudspeaker giving instructions for the first task. This previously tape-recorded statement indicated there would be two parts to the experiment. In the first part, the subject was told, he was to insert his left hand in the tank of water on the table before him and use the other hand to press a telegraph key also on the table whenever the worker in the next room made a mistake on the “simple concept-learning task.” One group of subjects was also informed the button press would cause the worker to lose money as punishment for his error, whereas in the other condition the press ostensibly would deliver a more neutral “feedback signal.” This variation, which was intended to increase the former participants’ set to deliver punishments, proved to have no significant effects on any of the measures, and so nothing further will be said about this manipulation in the following report. The subjects in all of the conditions, even those in which they supposedly only flashed signals to the learner, apparently believed that they were being more negative to the worker the more frequently they pressed the telegraph key. They were hurting that person psychologically if not physically by giving him these negative responses. The first experimental manipulation involved the water temperature used in producing the “harsh environmental condition.” Half of the men found the water was quite cold (6°C) whereas for the remaining participants the temperature was much more bearable although still not pleasant (18”C).j Each person was asked to keep his left hand in the water up to his wrist for the entire period. Unknown to the subject, the experimenter periodically looked through the one-way window in the cubicle door, noting whether the instructions were followed. For the final variation, the experimenter’s instructions placed different degrees of emphasis on the subject’s freedom to escape from the study. Although those in the escape-lesspossible group were reminded that they could withdraw at any time as long as they informed the experimenter, he also pointed out that their data would be lost if they did end their participation. In the escape-possible condition, on the other hand, this implied pressure was not established to the same degree. and the experimenter was much more permissive about the subject’s ability to terminate the session with full credit.’ 3 Some readers might believe “demand characteristics” were so obvious in this study that the subjects caught on to the experimenter’s hypothesis and acted punitively in order to confirm this hypothesis. Contrary to this widespread supposition, however, a number of studies have now demonstrated that subjects are usually unwilling to act in a socially disapproved manner even when they are aware of the research expectation. As only one example, when Turner and Simons (1974) deliberately led some of their subjects to realize the experimenter expected them to be influenced by the guns present in the room, these participants subsequently exhibited the lowest level of aggression in reaction to the weapons. As Turner and Simons also showed, the subjects were greatly affected by their “evaluation apprehension”; they apparently wanted to appear normal and well-adjusted and believed that acting aggressively would make them look bad. All in all, a mounting body of evidence indicates aggression experiments obtain significant results, when they do, in spite of the subjects’ awareness and not because of this awareness. 4 It should be clear that we have here only differences in the degree of constraint placed
AVERSIVELY
STIMULATED
AGGRESSION
409
The first phase was concluded 7 min after it had begun. Each subject was asked to take his hand from the water, and he was instructed to complete the questionnaire on his table describing how he experienced the water and his present mood.’ Shortly afterward, the experimenter entered the cubicle, checked the water temperature, and added additional ice to the tank if such was necessary. He then gave each subject new instructions for the second phase. The subject was to play a version of the “Battleship Game” with his previous partner. That person now had to guess the location of a “target” on a numbered grid by calling off the grid coordinates. The partner’s supposed guesses were always off the target but tended to come close to it, with a few diversions, as the sequence progressed. As supervisor, the subject was provided with a chart showing the “target’s” actual location and was to respond to each of his partner’s guesses by pushing one of the three buttons on the box before him, signaling he wished either to “reward,” or “punish,” or “ignore” his partner’s move. Moreover, he could press whatever button he chose from 1 to 10 times. The other person supposedly would receive a nickel for each press of the reward button and a blast of unpleasant noise each time the punish button was pushed. Nothing would happen to the partner if the ignore button was selected. The experimenter also informed the subject that the worker had agreed to receive the noise blasts and he was given a sample so he could hear what the sound was like. Following these instructions the subject was again asked to immerse his left hand in the water, and the second task was begun. The confederate’s previously recorded voice was heard calling off 28 sets of coordinates, with a few seconds pause in between each “move,” giving the subject 28 opportunities to react to his partner. Seven minutes after the start of the phase, the experimenter’s voice over the intercom told the subject to take his hand from the water and fill out the second questionnaire. When this was completed, the experimenter inquired into any suspicions the subject might have had and explained the true purpose of the study. After answering all questions, he then dismissed the man.
Dependent Measures Each of the two questionnaires, given at the end of the first and second parts, required the subject to describe his experience of the water and also his mood at the time. For every item on these forms the man was to indicate the extent to which the given descriptor characterized his experience or his mood (from 1 = not at all to 9 = very much). The punishment measures were based on type of response (reward or punishment) and number of responses, and included such things as the total number of trials in which the participant administered punishments, the total number of punishments delivered over all trials, the number of reward trials, and the total number of rewards given, as well as the arithmetic differences between punishment and rewards. upon the subject to remain in the experiment; all of the participants were under at least some pressure to keep their hand in the water since we assumed too many persons would take their hand out of the cold water if they were entirely free to do so. The result of such a complete freedom obviously would be that we would have a very great variation in how much aversive stimulation was inflicted on the subjects. Our assumptions seems warranted since, as was reported earlier, even with the constraint we employed approximately a quarter of the subjects originally “run” in the cold water condition lifted their hand from the water to an impermissible extent and were therefore eliminated from the study. 5 Since the scores on the mood ratings obtained at this time were found to be uncorrelated with the subjects’ subsequent behavior, it would seem that the administration of the mood questionnaire before the subjects responded to their partner did not affect their later conduct.
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BERKOWITZ
AND
EMBREE
TABLE I PERCEPTIONOF COLD WATER AS A FUNCTION OF WATER TEMPERATURE
Questionnaire I
II
Descriptor
Water temperature ______ 6°C 18°C
Significance
Cold Unpleasant Tolerable Painful Stressful Aversive Comfortable Annoying
8.00 7.50 4.91 5.53 6.03 6.10 1.97 6.78
5.47 4.25 6.85 1.86 2.75
,001
3.75
3.50 4.42
,001 ,001 ,001
Cold Unpleasant Tolerable Painful Stressful Aversive Comfortable
7.81 6.84
5.47 4.25 6.11 2.31 3.64 3.89 3.44 4.81
.OOl ,001 .Ol ,001 ,001 ,001 ,001 .05
5.00
5.41 5.88 5.53 2.00 5.97
.OOl ,001 ,001 ,001
Note. Each of these items was rated on a 9-point scale, with a high score indicating the term was very descriptive of the subject’s experience.
RESULTS
Effectiveness of Manipulations Aversiveness of water temperature. The ratings of how the subjects experienced the water temperature clearly demonstrate that the 6°C water was substantially more unpleasant than the 18°C water. Analyses of variance of the ratings showed that all eight were significantly affected by the water temperature and that these condition differences were not reliably affected by any of the other experimental variations or by the time of the measurement. The mean ratings are reported in Table 1. Escape possibility. As a check on the escape possibility manipulation, both questionnaires included an item asking the men how free they felt to remove their hand from the water. Although the mean ratings on this measure were in the expected direction, with the escape-possible group indicating somewhat greater freedom, the differences were relatively slight and did not attain statistical significance.6 Nonetheless, other findings suggest that we did indeed establish some ’ Postexperimental discussions with the participants indicate that they typically took the item to refer mostly to the legally required statement given them that they were free to withdraw at any time.
AVERSIVELY
STIMULATED
TABLE RATED MOODS AS A FUNCTION OF
WATER
411
AGGRESSION
2 TEMPERATURE
AND
ESCAPE
POSSIBILITY
18°C
6°C Escape possible
Escape less possible
Escape possible
Escape less possible
Questionnaire I Tense Angry* Hurt Distressed* Irritable Relaxed
5.4, 3.6, 2.6, 4.2b 5.5, 3.1,,
6.1, 5.2, 4.0, 6.2, 6.2, 6.8,
3.2, 1.8, 1.6b 2.9, 2.9, 4.lb
4.1, 2.2, 1.7b 3.2, 3.4b 3.7,
Questionnaire Tense Awry Hurt Distressed Irritable Annoyed
5.3, 4.1, 3.1,b 4.6,b 5.1& 4.8,b
5.5, 3.9, 3.3, 5.8, 5.9, 6.1,
3.6, 2.1b 1.8, 3.4, 4.1b 4.4,
3.4, 2.1, 2.1, 3.4, 3.8b 4.1,
Mood item
II
Note. Each of the measures listed in the table yielded significant main effects for water temperature (p < .05). Those items indicated by * also produced a significant effect for escape possibility. Otherwise, no other effects were obtained in the preliminary analyses of variance. Cells not having a subscript in common are significantly different by Duncan multiple range tests (p < .05). For each item the higher the score on the 9-step scale (max. = 9), the more the given label applied to the subject’s mood.
differences in the subjects’ perceived ability to withdraw from the unpleasant situation. We had thought that the people given permission to terminate the aversive stimulation would have a lower level of these negative moods than the other men with less felt freedom to withdraw from the study. In keeping with this expectation, the analyses of variance summarized in Table 2 revealed two significant main effects for the escape possibility variation in the first questionnaire; those who were led to believe they could easily take their hand from the water rated themselves as less angry and less distressed than their counterparts who did not have as much freedom to escape from the unpleasant situation. Whatever else these differences might indicate, they suggest that the people in the escape-possible condition were less thwarted than their counterparts in the escape-less-possible group. Effects on Mood Ratings Analyses of variance were carried out with each of the seven mood ratings, keeping the two questionnaires separate. All seven yielded sig-
412
BERKOWITZ
AND
EMBREE
nificant effects for water temperature after the first exposure to the water. As Table 2 indicates, and as we had anticipated, the men reported that they felt worse, the colder was the water. Of particular interest in this regard, the subjects exposed to the aversive 6°C temperature rated themselves as angrier and more irritable and annoyed than their counterparts in the 18°C group. The former subjects’ feelings apparently stemmed from the painful stimulation fairly directly rather than from any belief that they were being treated in an improper fashion. Six of these mood items also led to significant effects for water temperature on the second questionnaire (with the exception of the item “relaxes”), and again, the 6°C men reported themselves as feeling reliably angrier and more irritated and annoyed than those in the 18°C condition, as well as more tense, hurt, and distressed. Because of our clearcut, a priori expectations, a series of condition comparisons was also carried out for the mood items that had produced significant water temperature effects. Table 2 shows the item means on these ratings for the four experimental conditions and also the results of these comparisons. As can readily be seen in the table, the escape possibility variation had little effect on the reported feelings in the less aversive 18°C condition. The ability to escape did not matter unless the men were undergoing a decidedly unpleasant experience. This perceived ability to withdraw from the aversive stimulation reliably affected three of the ratings made by the 6°C group on the initial questionnaire. As can be seen in the table, those given permission to escape reported themselves as significantly less angry, hurt, and distressed than the escape-lesspossible subjects also exposed to the highly unpleasant water temperature. The other comparisons shown in the table also testify to the ameliorating effects of the felt freedom to escape. For every item in the first questionnaire the men in the 6°C escape-possible condition reported weaker negative feelings than their 6°C counterparts who could not easily escape. As a consequence, the former subjects receiving the aversive 6°C water treatment did not differ reliably from the men in the 18°C group on the ratings of how hurt or relaxed they were, although such a difference did exist for the 6°C escape-less-possible condition. Much the same pattern can be seen in the second questionnaire ratings (with the exception of felt anger), although there now were no significant differences between the two escape possibility groups. Nevertheless, for three of the six measures the 6°C escape-possible subjects did not differ from both 18°C conditions, although such a significant difference did exist in the case of the escape-less-possible men exposed to the highly aversive water temperature: for the ratings of feeling distressed, irritable and annoyed. All in all, then, the findings suggest that the subjects’
AVERSIVELY
STIMULATED
TABLE CORRELATIONS
BETWEEN REWARDS
THE TOTAL AND EACH
413
AGGRESSION
3
NUMBER OF PUNISHMENTS OF THE EIGHT AGGRESSION
AND THE TOTAL MEASURES
NUMBER
OF
Total number of Measure Number of reward trials Number of punishment trials Number of P trials - R trials Total number of rewards given Total number of punishments given Total number P responses - R responses Number responses per R trial Number responses per P trial
Punishments
Rewards
- .22 .54** .55** .29* -
.32** .07 -.04 -
.42** .40** .7tP
.29* - .@I** .94** .24*
Note. N = 68. * p = .05. ** p = .Ol.
perceived ability to escape from the aversive experience tended to lessen their negative feelings. Aggression Measures
The subjects’ responses during the “Battleship Game” provide essentially two kinds of measures that could serve as indicators of their aggressive inclinations: those based on the rewards they administered and others involving the delivery of punishments. These two types of indices are not completely independent, however. On examining the intercorreleations among the scores on our eight measures over all 68 subjects, we found that the number of trials in which rewards were given was slightly negatively related to the number of punishment trials (r = - .23, p = n.s.) but that the total number of rewards given had a small but significant positive correlation with the total number of punishments administered (r = .29, p = .05). Nonetheless, other correlations indicate that these latter two measures are sufficiently independent so that they can be said to reflect quite different inclinations. When we compare the relationships that the total number of punishments and the total number of rewards have with each of the six other scores, we found, as is shown in Table 3, that the punishments and rewards seem to be governed by somewhat different determinants. The delivery of punishments and the administration of rewards are not simply products of the participant’s general activity level. Because of the interrelationships among the various measures, the eight sets of scores listed in Table 3 were subjected to a multivariate
414 AGGRESSION
BERKOWITZ
MEASURES
AS A FUNCTION
AND
EMBREE
TABLE 4 OF WATER TEMPERATURE
AND ESCAPE POSSIBILITY
6°C
Measure No. punish trials No. P trials - No. R trials Total punishment Total P - Total R
18°C
Escape possible
less possible
Escape possible
15.0, 5.8, 42.6, 0.2,
12.7,, 1.9,, 29.2,, - 23.4,
10.1b 0.4, 24.0, - 29.0,
Escape less possible ---.~ 9.2, -O.Sh 20.3, -25.1,
Note. A multivariate analysis of variance of the aggression measures employed in this study yielded a significant multivariate F (only for temperature variable, (F = 2.28, p < .0.5). The four measures indicated in this table all produced significant main effects for water temperature (p < .05), but no other significant effects. Cells not having a subscript in common are significantly different, at the .05 level, by Duncan multiple range test.
analysis of variance. A significant multivariate F ratio was obtained for water temperature (F = 2.28, p < .05). Four of the measures also gave rise to significant main effects for water temperature: the number of trials in which punishment was administered (p < .Ol), the number of punishment trials minus the number of reward trials (p < .Ol), the total number of punishment responses (p = .Ol), and the number of punishments minus the number of rewards (p = .04). These four measures were then used in the post hoc comparisons summarized in Table 4, showing the effects of water temperature and escape possibility. The results reported in the table might appear surprising at first glance. Although the subjects in the 6°C Escape Possible group were less angry than the other men exposed to the aversive water, the people with the highest aggression scores were the ones who could easily escape from the unpleasant stimulation. Thus, rather than lessening their attacks on their partner, the ability to withdraw freely from the water evidently led the 6°C subjects to exhibit the strongest aggression toward their target. As a consequence, on all four of the punishment measures reported in Table 4, only those in the 6°C escape-possible group differed significantly from their counterparts exposed to the less painful 18°C treatment. DISCUSSION At first glance, the findings obtained in this study seem to be inconsistent with Berkowitz’s conception of aversively stimulated agression. The men who felt they could readily terminate their painful experience tended to be less bothered by the highly aversive stimulation than the other subjects not given permission to withdraw, especially during their first contact
AVERSIVELY
STIMULATED
AGGRESSION
415
with the cold water. Nevertheless, the escape-possible group generally delivered the strongest punishment to their partner. If the negative affect created by an aversive stimulus evokes an instigation to aggression, why was the less distressed escape-possible condition more punitive than the other group also inflicted with the cold water? We make two points in answer to this question. First of all, saying that the 6°C escape-possible subjects were less bothered than the others exposed to the cold water obviously does not mean that the former were not experiencing any negative affect. Looking at Table 2, we can see that these men still reported feeling reliably more tense, angrier, more distressed, and more annoyed in Questionnaire I than the 18°C escapepossible subjects. This negative affect apparently was intense enough to elicit aggressive inclinations. Second, it appears that the experimenter’s permission to take their hand from the water had affected more than one set of restraints. The participants given this permission evidently felt free both to punish their partner and to withdraw from the study. They might have thought that the experimenter was not a severely censorious person since he clearly understood that they might want to escape from the painful treatment. If he would permit this behavior, perhaps he would not disapprove if they were harsh to the other person. This possibility, we might note, seems to fit the findings better than an alternative hypothesis maintaining that the subjects in the 6°C escape-possible condition were highly aggressive because of intense internal conflict. There is no evidence in the participants’ mood ratings that they were actually torn by opposing desires to escape and to remain in the study. As we saw, they reported feeling less angry and less bothered than the other cold water subjects pressured to keep their hand in the water. It is simpler to conclude that the 6°C escapepossible men were less restrained than the subjects not permitted to escape rather than that they were more highly frustrated. But whether this supposition is correct or not, the present findings generally counter the idea that the aggressive reactions arising from exposure to aversive stimulation are generated only by the inability to escape from this stimulation. It is true that the men who could not freely remove their hand from the water were somewhat angrier than the other subjects in the 6°C escape-possible group, as if their desire to withdraw from the painful condition was thwarted. However, they were not reliably more punitive to their partner than the subjects exposed to the milder water temperature. And more important, those permitted to escape from the cold water were significantly more aggressive than the people in the 18°C water temperature condition. Their painful experience had apparently evoked a fairly strong instigation to aggression in them.
416
BERKOWITZ
AND
EMBREE
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Turner, C. W., & Simons, L. S. (1974). Effects of subject sophistication and evaluation apprehension on aggressive responses to weapons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 341-348. Uhich, R. E. (1966). Pain as a cause of aggression. American Zoologist, 6, 643-662. Uhich, R. E., & Azrin, N. H. (1962). Reflexive fighting in response to aversive stimulation. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 5, 51 l-520. Zillmann, D. (1979). Hostility and aggression. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.