Don't mess with me
James Davis & Christine Reyna
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Within social hierarchies, low social status is associated with increased vigilance, hostile expectations, and reactive aggression. We propose that societal devaluation is common across many low social status groups and produces a sense of threatened social worth. Threatened social worth may lead those of low status to be more vigilant towards social threats, thereby increasing the likelihood of hostile attributions and endorsement of aggression. Integrating theory on belongingness, social rejection, and stigma compensation, two studies test a sequential process model demonstrating that threatened social worth mediates the relationship between status, hostile attributions, and endorsement of aggression. Employing a relative status manipulation, Study 2 reveals a causal effect of status and highlights the importance of perceptions of low social status on threatened social worth. These data demonstrate the role of social worth in explaining the link between status and hostility and have implications for research in the social, health, and developmental domains.
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Digital poison? Three studies examining the influence of violent video games on youth
Christopher Ferguson et al.
Computers in Human Behavior, September 2015, Pages 399-410
Abstract:
The role of violent video games in the development of aggression and mental health issues in youth continues to be controversial in the scholarly community and general public. Compared to college students, few studies have directly examined the potential impact of violent video games on youth and current evidence is mixed. The current article attempts to address this with three studies examining violent game play in youth aged 12-18. In Study 1, youth were randomized to play closely matched action games with either violent or non-violent content. Youth were given the opportunity to act aggressively using an ice water task. Study 2 was a conceptual replication of Study 1, with slower narrative games rather than action games. Study 3 examined the issue in a correlational study of youth, contrasting exposure to violent video games in youth's personal lives to their exposure to violence in controversial books while controlling for other variables including family, peer and personality variables. None of the studies provided evidence for concerns linking video game violence to aggressive behaviors or reduced empathy in youth.
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The Mainstreaming of Verbally Aggressive Online Political Behaviors
Vincent Cicchirillo, Jay Hmielowski & Myiah Hutchens
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, May 2015, Pages 253-259
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationship between verbal aggression and uncivil media attention on political flaming. More specifically, this paper examines whether the use of uncivil media programming is associated with the perceived acceptability and intention to engage in aggressive online discussions (i.e., online political flaming) and whether this relationship varies by verbal aggression. The results show that individuals less inclined to engage in aggressive communication tactics (i.e., low in verbal aggression) become more accepting of flaming and show greater intention to flame as their attention to uncivil media increases. By contrast, those with comparatively higher levels of verbal aggression show a decrease in acceptance and intention to flame as their attention to these same media increases.
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Not Just Black and White: Peer Victimization and the Intersectionality of School Diversity and Race
Sycarah Fisher et al.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, June 2015, Pages 1241-1250
Abstract:
Although bullying is a prevalent issue in the United States, limited research has explored the impact of school diversity on types of bullying behavior. This study explores the relationship between school diversity, student race, and bullying within the school context. The participants were African American and Caucasian middle school students (n = 4,581; 53.4 % female). Among the participants, 89.4 % were Caucasian and 10.6 % were African American. The research questions examined the relationship between school diversity, student race and bullying behaviors, specifically race-based victimization. The findings suggested that Caucasian middle school students experience more bullying than African American students generally, and specifically when minorities in school settings. Caucasian students also experienced almost three times the amount of race-based victimization than African American students when school diversity was held constant. Interestingly, African American students experienced twice the amount of race-based victimization than Caucasian students when in settings with more students of color. The present study provides insight into bullying behaviors across different contexts for different races and highlights the need to further investigate interactions between personal and environmental factors on the bulling experiences of youth.
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Competition Makes Observers Remember Faces as More Aggressive
Benjamin Balas & Laura Thomas
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
People use facial appearance to predict social behavior, but can social context also influence face perception? Leveraging a link between competition and aggression, we investigated the effects of competitive interactions with confederates on participants' performance in a face reconstruction task. Participants played a game either in competition or cooperation with confederates and were then asked to create facial portraits of these confederates by arranging their component features into their best estimate of an accurate configuration. Across 2 experiments, participants who played in a competitive context reconstructed faces in a more aggressive configuration - with higher width-to-height ratios - than did participants who played cooperatively or alone. This result demonstrates that the social perception of faces is not merely a feed-forward process, but instead that the social contexts in which people interact can shape memory for faces.
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Red clothing increases perceived dominance, aggression and anger
Diana Wiedemann et al.
Biology Letters, May 2015
Abstract:
The presence and intensity of red coloration correlate with male dominance and testosterone in a variety of animal species, and even artificial red stimuli can influence dominance interactions. In humans, red stimuli are perceived as more threatening and dominant than other colours, and wearing red increases the probability of winning sporting contests. We investigated whether red clothing biases the perception of aggression and dominance outside of competitive settings, and whether red influences decoding of emotional expressions. Participants rated digitally manipulated images of men for aggression and dominance and categorized the emotional state of these stimuli. Men were rated as more aggressive and more dominant when presented in red than when presented in either blue or grey. The effect on perceived aggression was found for male and female raters, but only male raters were sensitive to red as a signal of dominance. In a categorization test, images were significantly more often categorized as 'angry' when presented in the red condition, demonstrating that colour stimuli affect perceptions of emotions. This suggests that the colour red may be a cue used to predict propensity for dominance and aggression in human males.
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Physical and Verbal Assaults Behind Bars: Does Military Experience Matter?
Melissa Stacer & Monica Solinas-Saunders
Prison Journal, June 2015, Pages 199-222
Abstract:
Returning military troops have garnered attention, but there is little focus on veterans in the correctional setting. Approximately 11% of U.S. inmates are veterans, and there are striking similarities between military and prison life. Because veterans have experience with institutional settings, one hypothesis is that incarcerated veterans will better adapt to prison compared with non-veterans and will be less likely to engage in misconduct. This article measures prison misconduct, focusing on serious interpersonal violations, specifically verbal and physical assaults. Findings illustrate that there are no differences between veteran and non-veteran inmates in the likelihood of this kind of misconduct.
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Violent Video Games Increase Voice Stress: An Experimental Study
Youssef Hasan
Psychology of Popular Media Culture, forthcoming
Abstract:
In most violent video games, players are put in stressful situations where enemies are trying to kill them. This is reflected by the results of previous research showing that violent video games increase physiological arousal (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin response). In this study, I investigate the effect of playing violent video games on emotional stress detected by a new methodology: voice analysis. Because changes and disturbances in vocal responses can be understood as reactions to emotional stress, I expected that violent videogames would increase voice stress. Participants (N = 87 French university students; 40% female; Mage = 21.2) played either a violent or nonviolent game for 20 min. After game play, participants read a stress-provoking story aloud while their voices were recorded. Voice recordings were analyzed to determine the amount of emotional stress in participants' voices using Automated Voice Stress Analysis. As hypothesized, voice stress was higher among violent video game players than among nonviolent video game players. Voice stress was also higher for men than for women. No interaction between video game content and the gender of participants was observed. This study confirms that violent video games have physiological consequences on players, as predicted by the General Aggression Model and also introduces a promising nonobtrusive physiological measure in media psychology research.