Content analysis of 122 social psychology textbooks confirmed that displaced aggression received a surge of attention immediately following J. Dollard, L. W. Doob, N. E. Miller, O. H. Mowrer, and R. R. Sears (1939), but subsequent interest sharply declined. Contemporary texts give it little attention. By contrast, meta-analysis of the experimental literature confirms that it is a robust effect (mean effect size = +0.54). Additionally, moderator analyses showed that: (a) The more negative the setting in which the participant and target interacted, the greater the magnitude of displaced aggression; (b) in accord with N. E. Miller's (1948) stimulus generalization principle, the more similar the provocateur and target, the more displaced aggression; and (c) consistent with the contrast effect (L. Berkowitz & D. A. Knurek, 1969), the intensity of initial provocation is inversely related to the magnitude of displaced aggression.

This article studies the impact of explanatory coherence on the evaluation of explanations. Tested were 4 principles of P. Thagard’s (1989) model for evaluating the coherence of explanations. Study 1 showed that Ss preferred explanations that accounted for more data (breadth) and that were simpler (simplicity or parsimony). Study 2 demonstrated that Ss thought an explanation was stronger when it could, in turn, be explained. Study 3 showed that the evaluation of explanations is comparative, affected by the availability of good alternatives. These results were then successfully simulated using Thagard’s connectionist implementation of his model of explanatory coherence. The data and the simulation, taken together, strongly support the model. Two issues are then discussed: (a) the role of explanatory coherence in social explanation and (b) the relevance of parallel constraint satisfaction processes to social reasoning.

Meta-analytic procedures were used to assess the degree to which aggression-related cues present in the environment facilitate aggressive responding among negatively aroused subjects. The first study, which examined the so-called weapons effect, the effect of name-mediated cues, and other cue effects, showed clear evidence that aggression cues augment aggressive responses in negatively aroused subjects. This was true for the overall analysis and for name-mediated cues, but confirmation of the weapons effect was restricted to cases wherein subject sophistication and evaluation apprehension were low. A second study used partial correlation analysis to assess independently the effects of seven potential mediators of aggression cue effects. Of these, target-based facilitation and harm capacity of the aggressive response were found to mediate the magnitude of cue-facilitated aggression. A third study showed that these mediators augmented cue effects among neutral as well as negatively aroused subjects. These outcomes are interpreted as emphasizing the role of cognitive factors in the expression of both impulsive and nonimpulsive aggression.

Three analyses of published research were undertaken to assess whether diverse laboratory response measures that are intended to measure aggression reflect a common underlying construct. It was found that (a) alternative measures of physical aggression directed by the same subjects against the same target tend to intercorrelate positively within studies, (b) across studies, the correlations between effect-size estimates of physical and written aggression emitted by the same subjects are positive, and (c) physical and written aggressive responses are similarly influenced by theoretically relevant antecedent factors (e.g., personal attack and frustration). The consistent overall pattern of results supports the notion that aggression, defined as intent to harm, is a viable construct that possesses some degree of generality.