Examines the Dollard et al. (1939) frustration-aggression hypothesis. The original formulation's main proposition is limited to interference with an expected attainment of a desired goal on hostile (emotional) aggression. Although some studies have yielded negative results, others support the core proposition. Frustrations can create aggressive inclinations even when they are not arbitrary or aimed at the subject personally. Interpretations and attributions can be understood partly in terms of the original analysis but they can also influence the unpleasantness of the thwarting. A proposed revision of the 1939 model holds that frustrations generate aggressive inclinations to the degree that they arouse negative affect. Evidence regarding the aggressive consequences of aversive events is reviewed, and Berkowitz's cognitive-neoassociationistic model is summarized.

Noting that a wide variety of unpleasant feelings, including sadness and depression, apparently can give rise to anger and aggression, I propose a cognitive-neoassociationistic model to account for the effects of negative affect on the development of angry feelings and the display of emotional aggression. Negative affect tends to activate ideas, memories, and expressive-motor reactions associated with anger and aggression as well as rudimentary angry feelings. Subsequent thought involving attributions, appraisals, and schematic conceptions can then intensify, suppress, enrich, or differentiate the initial reactions. Bodily reactions as well as emotion-relevant thoughts can activate the other components of the particular emotion network to which they are linked. Research findings consistent with the model are summarized. Experimental findings are also reported indicating that attention to one's negative feelings can lead to a regulation of the overt effects of the negative affect, I argue that the model can integrate the core aspect of the James-Lange theory with the newer cognitive theories of emotion.

Research on violent television and films, video games, and music reveals unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and long-term contexts. The effects appear larger for milder than for more severe forms of aggression, but the effects on severe forms of violence are also substantial (r = .13 to .32) when compared with effects of other violence risk factors or medical effects deemed important by the medical community (e.g., effect of aspirin on heart attacks). The research base is large; diverse in methods, samples, and media genres; and consistent in overall findings. The evidence is clearest within the most extensively researched domain, television and film violence. The growing body of video-game research yields essentially the same conclusions. Short-term exposure increases the likelihood of physically and verbally aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions. Recent large-scale longitudinal studies provide converging evidence linking frequent exposure to violent media in childhood with aggression later in life, including physical assaults and spouse abuse. Because extremely violent criminal behaviors (e.g., forcible rape, aggravated assault, homicide) are rare, new longitudinal studies with larger samples are needed to estimate accurately how much habitual childhood exposure to media violence increases the risk for extreme violence. Well-supported theory delineates why and when exposure to media violence increases aggression and violence. Media violence produces short-term increases by priming existing aggressive scripts and cognitions, increasing physiological arousal, and triggering an automatic tendency to imitate observed behaviors. Media violence produces long-term effects via several types of learning processes leading to the acquisition of lasting (and automatically accessible) aggressive scripts, interpretational schemas, and aggression-supporting beliefs about social behavior, and by reducing individuals' normal negative emotional responses to violence (i.e., desensitization). Certain characteristics of viewers (e.g., identification with aggressive characters), social environments (e.g., parental influences), and media content (e.g., attractiveness of the perpetrator) can influence the degree to which media violence affects aggression, but there are some inconsistencies in research results. This research also suggests some avenues for preventive intervention (e.g., parental supervision, interpretation, and control of children's media use). However, extant research on moderators suggests that no one is wholly immune to the effects of media violence. Recent surveys reveal an extensive presence of violence in modern media. Furthermore, many children and youth spend an inordinate amount of time consuming violent media. Although it is clear that reducing exposure to media violence will reduce aggression and violence, it is less clear what sorts of interventions will produce a reduction in exposure. The sparse ...

Research bearing on several popular conceptions of the major determinants of anger arousal indicates that the particular appraisals often identified as causes of anger frequently only serve to affect the intensity of the anger that is generated. Research into effects of physical pain or other physically unpleasant conditions or involving social stresses suggests that decidedly aversive conditions are a major spur to anger. Experiments are also reviewed showing that anger-related muscular movements can also lead to anger-related feelings, memories, cognitions, and autonomic responses. Alternative explanations for the findings are discussed. The authors urge emotion theorists to widen their methodology and analyses so that they give careful, detailed attention to the many different factors that can influence anger.A great many people are angry at one time or another. After surveying studies dating back to World War I, Averill (1982) concluded that "Depending upon how records are kept, most people report becoming mildly to moderately angry anywhere from several times a day to several times a week" (p. 1146). Perhaps because this emotion is so common, 1 specific definitions of this term often vary in detail (see Averill, 1982;Kassinove, 1995, for reviews of the many different usages of this word), and there are many different, and even opposing, cultural beliefs prescribing how and when this affective state should be managed.Although there certainly is no shortage of research articles dealing with anger, investigators inquiring into the development and functioning of emotions would do well to devote more of their effort and ingenuity to the study of this particular affective state. It obviously is a socially very important emotion, one that has attracted a great deal of attention in the mass media as well as in the various health fields, but it also presents emotion theorists with a number of intriguing conceptual questions. As just one example, there is the often-assumed relationship between hedonic valence and approach-avoidance inclinations. According to Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, and Tellegen (1999), positive affect is typically associated with approach tendencies, whereas negative arousal is usually linked to an urge to avoid the instigating stimulus. Anger seems to be relatively unique in this regard and is often associated with approach rather than with avoidance inclinations (see Harmon-Jones & Allen, 1998;Harmon-Jones & Sigelman, 2001). Then too, research into the conditions under which anger is aroused can also touch on the metatheoretical controversy as to whether emotions can be evoked independently of cognitions. Although we do not want to revive the now well-worn argument as to just what is involved in the concept cognition, if one adopts the relatively restricted definition favored by Izard (1993) and Zajonc Leonard Berkowitz and Eddie Harmon-Jones, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.We thank the individuals who provided valuable comments on previous versions of this article: Jack B...

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We discuss some criticisms of laboratory experiments in psychology, giving special attention to the claim that these experiments lack external validity (since it is -widely assumed that ecological validity makes for external validity). We suggest that representative designs are inadequate for testing causal hypotheses, that ecological validity may facilitate the formulation of population estimates but is not necessary for causal hypothesis testing, and that experiments are not conducted to establish population estimates. Moreover, the meaning that subjects assign to the laboratory setting and their actions, rather than the laboratory setting's mundane realism, affects the generalizability of the laboratory results. We emphasize, as other writers have, that whether laboratory results are generalizable to other situations is an empirical question. Research on aggression, especially in regard to the "weapons ef-. feet," is employed to illustrate the possible extension of laboratory findings to other, more natural, situations.Most criticisms of laboratory experiments in psychology fault them for their "artificiality" or, in more sophisticated terms, for their lack of external validity. As everyone knows, the great majority of psychology's experiments employ a very limited sample of participants (typically, college students) placed in a fairly unique setting (a university laboratory) and usually working on tasks bearing little resemblance to their everyday activities. Given the unrepresentativeness of these subjects and situations, the critics ask, how can the findings be generalized to the "real world" of ordinary people engaged in their daily lives? In one form or another, this question has been raised by professionals and outsiders, by trained social scientists, and by persons having only a slight acquaintance with the field. There can be no easy answer. Anyone fa-

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that stimuli commonly associated with aggression can elicit aggressive responses from people ready to act aggressively. 100 male university students received either 1 or 7 shocks, supposedly from a peer, and were then given an opportunity to shock this person. In some cases a rifle and revolver were on the table near the shock key. These weapons were said to belong, or not to belong, to the available target person. In other instances there was nothing on the table near the shock key, while for a control group 2 badminton racquets were on the table near the key. The greatest number of shocks was given by the strongly aroused Ss (who had received 7 shocks) when they were in the presence of the weapons. The guns had evidently elicited strong aggressive responses from the aroused men.

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