Previous efforts to manage aggressive behavior have generally focused on the emotion of anger, as opposed to aggressive behaviors. Several small-N studies have explored the promising approach of contingency-based interventions (e.g., the effort required to respond aggressively; Zhou et al., 2000), but have produced mixed results. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine whether experimentally-manipulated response effort effectively attenuates provoked aggressive responding using a modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP; Berman et al., 2009). Participants included 123 (40 men; Mean age = 20.9, SD = 4.6) randomly assigned to either a low- or high-effort condition, crossed with a repeated measures provocation condition. Aggressive behavior was defined by the level of shock participants selected for their increasingly provocative "opponent" on a competitive reaction-time task. Results indicated that increased response effort attenuated both the overall average shock selected, as well as the use of "extreme" shocks in response to provocation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MSSTATE/oai:scholarsjunction.msstate.edu:td-6251 |
| Date | 06 August 2021 |
| Creators | Patoilo, Michaela |
| Publisher | Scholars Junction |
| Source Sets | Mississippi State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
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