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Escalation of irritable aggression: Control by consequences and antecedents
Author(s) -
Knutson John F.,
Fordyce David J.,
Anderson Dorothy J.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
aggressive behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.223
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1098-2337
pISSN - 0096-140X
DOI - 10.1002/1098-2337(1980)6:4<347::aid-ab2480060403>3.0.co;2-j
Subject(s) - aggression , reinforcement , antecedent (behavioral psychology) , psychology , shock (circulatory) , punishment (psychology) , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , medicine
Two experiments demonstrated that rats could be trained in a negative reinforcement paradigm to display a shock‐induced aggressive response on the first shock presented. Later, rats that had been submitted to the negative reinforcement training procedure displayed more shock‐induced aggression than did control groups during a test session that was situationally different from the one used during training. A third experiment demonstrated that noxious antecedent events, if presented with sufficient rapidity, can combine to increase the probability of aggressive behavior. The three experiments together suggest that aversive antecedents and reinforcement contingencies could be involved in the escalation of irritable aggression.