DEMAND AWARENESS AND PARTICIPANT WILLINGNESS AS DETERMINANTS OF AGGRESSIVE RESPONSE TO FILM VIOLENCE.

VIOLENCE in mass media; COLLEGE students; MASS media; AGGRESSION (Psychology); ATTITUDE (Psychology); PSYCHOLOGY

Ninety male undergraduates participated in an experiment designed to study the relationship between Ss' awareness of E's hypothesis regarding their reactions to film violence and their subsequent expression of interpersonal aggression. Men informed (via a peer confederate) prior to exposure to an aggressive film that E expected their aggression to increase behaved more aggressively following the film than men told their aggression was expected to decrease or men assigned to an uninformed control condition. The effect was strongest for Ss favorably disposed toward participation in psychology experiments. Results indicated that willing participants are concerned about complying with demand characteristics, but only when they think E's hypothesis is reasonable. There was scant evidence that awareness of participation in an aggression experiment was associated with aggression inhibiting evaluation apprehension. Finally, awareness of an expectancy for heightened aggression was necessary for instructions to identify with the film aggressor while viewing the film to enhance aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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