Anger arousal, deindividuation, and aggression

✍ Scribed by S. Levi Taylor; Edgar C. O'Neal; Travis Langley; Ann Houston Butcher

• Book ID: 102676227
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 998 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0096-140X
• DOI: 10.1002/1098-2337(1991)17:4<193::aid-ab2480170402>3.0.co;2-b

✦ Synopsis

We tested the notion that angered persons' aggression would be increased through a process of excitation transfer when they are deindividuated, but that individuated subjects would be most aggressive in circumstances under which they could use the information that they had ingested an arousing drug as a pretext for their aggression. Sixty-two male undergraduates participated under either deindividuated or individuated conditions, ingested either 350 mg of caffeine or a placebo, were informed that they had either taken a stimulant or a nonarousing drug, and were all angered by a confederate. According to prediction, when deindividuated and aroused by caffeine the amount of noxious stimulation subjects delivered to the provocateur was greater if they believed that the drug they had taken was nonarousing than if they thought it was a stimulant; in contrast, individuated subjects' aggression was greater when aroused subjects believed the drug was a stimulant. The results are discussed in terms of excitation transfer and the effect of aggression inhibition on the use of information about one's arousal.