Effects of varying intensity of attack and fear arousal on the intensity of counter aggression 1

Abstract

A provocative but little studied hypothesis in research on aggression is the notion that Assummg equal hahit strength for both fli^t and fight, and assummg that tiie attacker and the victim are of equal status, the tendency to coimter-attack should vary curvihnearly with the mtensity of attack Tins relationship is especially apparent when the attack consists of physical aggression. (Buss, 1961, P 29) Buss explains that if physical attack is very mild, it serves as a weak stimulus for counter aggression. Fighting back, however, becomes more probable and mtense as the attack stimulus increases in mtensity until the "upper levels of intensity" are reached, at which pomt flight responses should begm to predommate over agonistic counter responses.The above notion, however, must be classified as a common sense idea rather than as a prmciple of behavior, for as Buss (1961) has pomted out, there are few systematically acquired data that bear on the proposition. Taylor and colleagues (e.g., Epstem & Taylor, 1967;) had a confederate gradually mcrease shock levels m his exchanges with subjects and found that subjects' counter shock responses tended to mcrease m mtensity. A linear rather than a curvilinear relationship m mtensity of attack and counterattack was thus observed. In diese studies, however, the subject had to shock, i.e., on each trial he had to set a TOunter shock for the "otiier subject" at one of Bve mtensity

Threatened retaliation as an inhibitor of human aggression: Mediating effects of the instrumental value of aggression

“…Indeed, only a small number of experiments have sought to examine the aggression-inhibiting influence of threatened punishment, and even the fmdings of these studies have been somewhat inconclusive. Thus, while several recent investigations have reported that threatened punishment is indeed effective in inhibiting human aggression (e.g., Baron, 1971;Shortell , Epstein , & Taylor, 1970), other experiments have failed to substantiate the occurrence of such effects (Baron, 1973;Knott & Drost, 1972) . The inconsistent findings of these studies, coupled with the informal observation that threatened punishment sometimes succeeds, and sometimes fails in inhibiting overt aggression in various situations outside the laboratory, suggest very strongly that the influence of this variable is mediated by several additional factors .…”