A general framework for studying affective aggression, integrating many insights from previous models (e.g., those of Baron, Berkowitz, Geen, and Zillmann), is presented. New research examining effects of extreme temperatures and photos of guns on arousal, cognition, and affect is reported. Hostile cognition was assessed using an automatic priming task (i.e., Stroop interference). Hostile affect was assessed with the State Hostility Scale. Positive and negative affect, hostile attitudes, perceived comfort, and perceived arousal were also assessed. As expected, hot and cold temperatures increased state hostility and hostile attitudes, and viewing guns did not. As expected, viewing guns primed hostile cognitions and extreme temperatures did not. Theoretical implications of these results and societal implications of the general framework are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, C. A. (1989). Temperature and aggression: Ubiquitous effects of heat on occurrence of human violence. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 74-96.
2.
Anderson, C. A. , & DeNeve, K. M. (1992). Temperature, aggression, and the negative affect escape model. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 347-351.
3.
Anderson, C. A. , Deuser, W. E., & DeNeve, K. M. (1995). Hot temperatures, hostile affect, hostile cognition, and arousal: Tests of a general theory of affective aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 434-448.
4.
Anderson, C. A. , Krull, D. S., & Weiner, B. (in press). Explanations: Processes and consequences. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: A handbook of basic principles. New York: Guilford.
5.
Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning theory analysis. Engle-wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
6.
Baron, R. A. (1979). Aggression and heat: The "long hot summer" revisited. In A. Baum, J. E. Singer, & S. Valins (Eds.), Advances in environmental psychology (pp. 57-84). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
7.
Baron, R. A. , & Bell, P. A. (1975). Aggression and heat: Mediating effects of prior provocation and exposure to an aggressive model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 825-832.
8.
Baron, R. A. , & Bell, P. A. (1976). Aggression and heat: The influence of ambient temperature, negative affect, and a cooling drink on physical aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 245-255.
9.
Baron, R. A. , & Richardson, D. R. (1994). Human aggression (2nd ed.). New York: Plenum.
10.
Bell, P. A. , & Baron, R. A. (1974). Environmental influences on attraction: Effects of heat, attitude similarity, and personal evaluations. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 4, 479-481.
11.
Bell, P. A. , Garnand, D. B., & Heath, D. (1984). Effects of ambient temperature and seating arrangement on personal and environ-mental evaluations. Journal of General Psychology, 110, 197-200.
12.
Berkowitz, L. (1984). Some effects of thoughts on anti- and pro social influence of media events: A cognitive neoassociation analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 410-427.
13.
Berkowitz, L. (1990). On the formation and regulation of anger and aggression. American Psychologist45, 494-503.
14.
Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: Its causes, consequences, and controLNew York: McGraw-Hill.
15.
Berkowitz, L. , & LePage, A. (1967). Weapons as aggression-eliciting stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7, 202-207.
16.
Boyanowsky, E. O. , Calvert, J., Young, J., & Brideau, L. (1981-1982). Toward a thermoregulatory model of violence. Journal of Environ-mental Systems, 1, 81-87.
17.
Bushman, B. J. (1995). Moderating role of trait aggressiveness in the effects of violent media on aggressive affect and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 950-960.
18.
Cantor, J. R. , Zillmann, D., & Bryant, J. (1975). Enhancement of experienced sexual arousal in response to erotic stimuli through misattribution of unrelated residual excitation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 69-75.
19.
Caprara, G. V. , Cinanni, V., D'Imperio, G., Passerini, S., Renzi, P., & Travablia, G. (1985). Indicators of impulsive aggression: Present status of research on irritability and emotional susceptibility scales. Personality and Individual Differences, 6, 665-674.
20.
Deuser, W. E. , DeNeve, K. M., Anderson, K. B., Wood, M. D., & Anderson, C. A. (l991,June). Temperature and aggression: Symmetries and asymmetries. Presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Society, Washington, DC.
21.
Dodge, K. A. , & Crick, N. R. (1990). Social information-processing bases of aggressive behavior in children. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 8-22.
22.
Dodge, K. A. , & Tomlin, A. M. (1987). Utilization of self-schemas as a mechanism of interpretational bias in aggressive children. Social Cognition, 5, 280-300.
23.
Dyer, F. N. (1973). The Stroop phenomenon and its use in the study of perceptual, cognitive and response processes. Memory and Cognition, 1, 106-120.
24.
Forgas, J. P. (1992). Affect in social judgments and decisions: A multi-process model. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol 25, pp. 227-275). New York: Academic Press.
25.
Frijda, H. H. , Kuipers, P., & ter Schure, E. (1989). Relations among emotion, appraisal, and emotional action readiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 212-228.
26.
Geen, R. G. (1990). Human aggression. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
27.
Geen, R. G. , & George, R. (1969). Relationship of manifest aggressiveness to aggressive word associations. Psychological Reports, 25, 711-714.
28.
Geen, R. G. , & Stonner, D. (1971). Effects of aggressive habit strength on behavior in the presence of aggression-related stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17, 149-153.
29.
Gilbert, D. T. , Pelham, B. W., & Krull, D. S. (1988). On cognitive busyness: When person perceivers meet persons perceived. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 733-744.
30.
Griffitt, W. (1970). Environmental effects on interpersonal affective behavior: Ambient effective temperature and attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 15, 240-244.
31.
Griffitt, W. , & Veitch, R. (1971). Hot and crowded: Influences of population density and temperature on interpersonal affective behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17, 92-98.
32.
Higgins, T. E. , Van Hook, E., & Dorfman, D. (1988). Do self-attributes form a cognitive structure?Social Cognition, 6, 177-207.
33.
Huesmann, L. R. , Eron, L. D., Lefkowitz, M. M., & Walder, L. O. (1984). Stability of aggression over time and generations. Developmental Psychology, 20, 746-775.
34.
Izard, C. E. (1993). Four systems for emotion activation: Cognitive and noncognitive processes. Psychological Review, 100, 68-90.
35.
Leyens, J. P. , & Parke, R. D. (1975). Aggressive slides can induce a weapons effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 5, 229-236.
36.
Rule, B. G. , & Nesdale, A. R. (1976). Environmental stressors, emotional arousal, and aggression. In I. Sarason & C. Spielberger (Eds.), Stress and anxiety (Vol. 3, pp. 87-104). New York: Halsted.
37.
Rule, B. G. , Taylor, B. R., & Dobbs, A. R. (1987). Priming effects of heat on aggressive thoughts. Social Cognition, 5, 131-143.
38.
Spielberger, C. D. , Jacobs, G., Russell, S., & Crane, R. S. (1983). Assessment of anger: The state-trait anger scale. InJ. Butcher & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.), Advances in personality assessment (Vol. 2, pp. 159-187). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
39.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643-661.
40.
Tukey, J. W. (1977). Exploratory data analysis. Menlo Park, CA-Addison-Wesley.
41.
Turner, C. W. , Simons, L. S., Berkowitz, L., & Frodi, A. (1977). The stimulating and inhibiting effects of weapons on aggressive behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 3, 355-378.
42.
U. S. Department of Justice . (1993). Crime in the United States: Uniform crime reports 1992. Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation.
43.
Velicer, W. F. , Huckel, L. H., & Hansen, C. E. (1989). A measurement model for measuring attitudes toward violence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15, 349-364.
44.
Warren, R. E. (1977). Time and the spread of activation in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 3, 458-466.
45.
Watson, D. , Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.
46.
Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist, 35, 151-175.
47.
Zillmann, D. (1983). Arousal and aggression. In R. Geen & E. Donnerstein (Eds.), Aggression: Theoretical and empirical reviews (Vol. 1, pp. 75-102). New York: Academic Press.
48.
Zillmann, D. (1988). Cognition-excitation interdependencies in aggressive behavior. Aggressive Behazvor, 14, 51-64.
49.
Zuckerman, M. , Lubin, B., Vogel, L., & Valerius, E. (1964). Measurement of experimentally induced affects. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 28, 418-425.
