Denial of suffering in the victim as a stimulus to violence in aggressive boys.

Abstract

128 elementary school boys participated in an experiment designed to investigate the effects of the magnitude of victim's pain cues, the subject's characteristic level of aggressiveness, and level of prior anger arousal on aggressive behavior. It was hypothesized that an important characteristic of the aggressive child, when angered, is that he is motivated to perceive signs of suffering in his victim as an indication of the success of his aggression. When his victim denies the experience of pain, the aggressive child will consequently escalate the intensity of an attack he is directing toward him. A significant interaction between magnitude of pain cues and subject aggressiveness supported this prediction. Low pain cues produced greater aggression than high pain cues in highly aggressive boys but not in less aggressive boys. Previous anger arousal was not necessary for the effect.