The facilitation of aggression by aggression

Evidence against the catharsis hypothesis

Bibliographic Data

ID6205700
AuthorsRussell G Geen, Russell G Green (University of Missouri, corresponding author), David Stonner, Gary L Shope
Year1975
Volume31
Issue4
Pages721-726
Publication date1975-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037//0022-3514.31.4.721
PMID1159613
OpenAlexW1992211067
LanguageEN
Citations received43
References cited1

Ninety male subjects were either attacked or treated in a more neutral manner by a male confederate. On a subsequent maze-learning task, one third of the subjects shocked the confederate, one third observed as the experimenter shocked the confederate, and one third waited for a period of time during which the confederate was not shocked. Finally, all subjects shocked the confederate as part of a code-learning task. Subjects who had been attacked and had shocked the confederate during the maze task delivered shocks of greater intensity on the code task than did subjects in the other two conditions, and the former subjects also experienced a greater reduction in diastolic blood pressure than did the latter. The results contradict the hypothesis of aggression catharsis and are discussed in terms of feelings of restraint against aggressing that a subject experiences after committing an aggressive act. The idea of aggression catharsis is popular both in conventional wisdom and in psychological writing. Certainly it seems to make sense that attacking an enemy allows the attacker to purge himself of hostility and anger toward his victim. Furthermore, in both psychoanalytic theory (e.g., Schafer, 1970) and the frustration-aggression hypothesis (Bollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939), the notion is expressed that aggression leads to a release of aggressive drive or instigation, so that further acts of violence are rendered less probable. This point of view stipulates a fairly simple cause-effect model: instigation produces aggressive arousal, which motivates an aggressive response, which in turn reduces arousal. The end result is a declining level of aggression. Largely because of this cause-effect assumption, however, the catharsis hypothesis has encountered troubles on empirical, methodological, and theoretical levels. Although some investigators have reported results that support the notion of catharsis (e.g., Doob, 1970; Feshbach, 19SS; Thibaut & Coules, 1952), many others have made findings that contradict it (e.g., deCharms & Wilkins, 1963; This study was supported by National Science

Aggression · Catharsis · Developmental psychology · Facilitation · Feeling · Medical emergency · Poison control · Psychoanalysis · Social facilitation · Task (project management · Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Human Factors and Ergonomics · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Psychology

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