Competitive Reaction Time Research Articles

The Ways and Means of Interracial Aggression: Modern Racists’ Use of Covert Retaliation

Modern racists are theorized to have negative affect and attitudes toward African Americans yet be motivated to avoid appearing prejudiced. Thus, they may behave toward African Americans in covert ways. This hypothesis was tested using both an overt and covert measure of aggression in a competitive reaction-time task. Experiment 1 found that high modern racists were more overtly and covertly aggressive than were low modern racists, regardless of competitor race. In addition, high modern racists displayed a pattern of increasing covert aggression toward African Americans, whereas low modern racists inhibited retaliation even under high levels of provocation. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 and provided evidence suggesting that covert aggression is a strategic process that cannot be employed under conditions of reduced cognitive capacity. Covert aggression, along with other covert behaviors, is seen as highlighting differences between high and low modern racists.

TRAIT ANGER PREDICTS MOOD BUT NOT BLOOD PRESSURE RESPONSES TO CHALLENGE FOLLOWING ACUTE EXERCISE

1432 The purpose of this study was to examine whether reductions in negative mood and blood pressure responsivity following acute exercise differed as a function of trait anger. Sixty-six (31 women and 35 men) regular exercisers (at least 3 times per week) completed two laboratory testing sessions during which their mood and blood pressure responses to two interpersonal challenges were measured. The challenges consisted of: 1) delivering a speech describing a recent anger-provoking experience, and 2) completing a competitive reaction time (CRT) task on a computer. Previous to the challenges, participants completed either 30 minutes of exercise or rest. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were measured prior to exercise or rest and during each challenge; negative moods were reported prior to exercise or rest and immediately following each challenge. Trait anger was measured using the Speilberger State-Trait Anger Scale and median splits of the trait scale were used to categorize individuals as either high- or low-anger. Analyses revealed that although exercise prior to the challenges reduced SBP and DBP responses to the CRT (p<.01) and DBP responses to the speech (p<.01), trait anger did not moderate this effect. Exercise was also found to reduce reports of anger, frustration, irritation, and anxiety following the CRT (p's<.05). Compared to the low-anger participants, high-anger individuals showed greater reductions in anger (p=.039) and marginally greater reductions in anxiety (p=.072) between their rest and exercise days following the CRT. Trait anger did not predict exercise-related mood changes following the speech. These findings suggest that while acute exercise reduces blood pressure and negative mood responses to subsequent interpersonal challenge, the type of challenge and the trait characteristics of the participants may moderate these relationships.

Effects of cocaine on human aggression

Thirty male undergraduates received either a placebo, low dose (1 mg/kg), or high dose (2 mg/kg) of orally administered cocaine. Subjects were then given the oppurtunity to administer electric shocks to an increasingly aggressive fictious opponent during a competitive reaction-time task. Aggression was defined as the intensity of shock the subject was willing to set for his adversary. The results of this study indicate that subjects in the high-dose cocaine condition reacted more aggressively than placebo subjects irrespective of level of provocation.

Hemodynamics of Blood Pressure Responses During Active and Passive Coping

This laboratory study was designed to address a number of interrelated issues regarding cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress. One objective was to extend the previous research comparing cardiovascular responses during active versus passive coping, by comparing responses to two task conditions designed to be similar in all ways except the opportunity to make a response influencing the task's outcome. A second objective was to compare responses to two different passive film tasks, which differed in outcome uncertainty and the degree of vicarious active coping achieved through identification with the role portrayed by the actors. A third objective was to evaluate whether individuals are predisposed to exhibit a particular hemodynamic pattern underlying their blood pressure adjustments, independently of the task demands imposed. Ninety healthy young adult male subjects were tested in pairs on a series of tasks that included a competitive reaction-time task, an active as well as a passive phase of a team reaction-time task, and passive viewing of two film segments. The tasks demanding active coping responses tended to raise blood pressure due primarily to an increase in cardiac output, while vascular resistance fell. During passive coping demands cardiac output increased to a lesser extent, but vascular resistance also tended to increase, thereby raising blood pressure by their synergistic effects. However, these patterns were not typical of all participating subjects. On the basis of their cardiac output and vascular resistance responses to the competitive reaction-time task, one third of the subjects were categorized as being high myocardial reactors (n = 30) and another third high vascular reactors (n = 31). Post-hoc analyses of responses to the other tasks, based on these categorizations, indicated that the hemodynamic basis of reactivity is an individual characteristic only partially modified by coping demands. The active/passive coping dimension is discussed both conceptually and in relation to the role of stress in the etiology of hypertension.

Temporal stability of the hemodynamics of cardiovascular reactivity

Cardiovascular responses to a competitive reaction-time task were monitored in 13 male subjects tested twice, 3 months apart. The temporal stability of blood pressure responses was in line with previous reports. However, in this study impedance cardiography permitted the investigation of the hemodynamic adjustments underlying the observed blood pressure responses. Analyses revealed that cardiac output and total peripheral resistance responses displayed temporal stability, indicating that subjects' blood pressure responses on the two occasions were the result of similar hemodynamic responses. These data thus extend the literature by demonstrating that the hemodynamic response pattern itself represents a stable individual differences variable.

Cognitive, Behavioral, and Affective Correlates of the Cook and Medley Hostility Scale

The Cook and Medley Hostility (Ho) Scale is an increasingly important measure in studies examining health consequences of hostility. The two studies discussed herein provide further evidence of the construct validity of this measure. In Study 1, high Ho scores were associated with a greater level of aroused anger and disparaging appraisals of subjects' partners in a competitive reaction-time game as well as marginally more frequent antagonistic behavior. In Study 2, high Ho scores were associated with greater levels of angry and suspicious thoughts and feelings in response to hypothetical interpersonal conflicts and the tendency to attribute hostile intent to actors' displays of negative social behaviors. These findings are consistent with previous conceptual descriptions of the cognitive, behavioral, and affective correlates of hostility. The results are discussed in terms of interpretation of studies using the Ho scale and possible refinements of the measure.

Race, borderline hypertension, and hemodynamic responses to behavioral stress before and after beta-adrenergic blockade.

Blood pressure (BP) and hemodynamic responses (cardiac output [CO] and total peripheral resistance [TPR]) to a competitive reaction-time task, previously shown to increase beta-adrenergic activity, were compared in 20 Black and 20 White young men, once following infusion of saline placebo and later repeated after infusion of the nonselective beta-antagonist, propranolol. Both racial groups included subjects with marginal systolic BP (SBP) elevations (n = 6 Whites, n = 5 Blacks) and subjects with normal BP (n = 14 Whites, n = 15 Blacks). Blacks with marginal SBP elevations showed greater diastolic BP increases during the stressor than their White counterparts, both before and after beta-blockade. Both Blacks and Whites with marginal SBP elevations showed greater CO increases during the task than normotensives prior to blockade. Independent of BP status, Black subjects consistently showed higher TPR responses to the task than Whites (lesser decreases before blockade and greater increases after blockade). Blacks also showed greater diminution than Whites after blockade in ionotropic myocardial responses (stroke volume, pre-ejection period, and CO) to the stressor. The possible contributions of alpha-adrenergic and beta-adrenergic influences to these racial group differences are discussed.

Exposure to pornography, permissive and nonpermissive cues, and male aggression toward females

The present study examined the role of permissive and nonpermissive cues in mediating the relationship between exposure to erotica and aggression. Male subjects viewed either neutral slides with a silent female or erotic slides with a female who made permissive, nonpermissive, or no comments about the slides. The males rated the slides and subsequently rated the female confederate. Male subjects were then given an opportunity to administer their choice of several intensities of shock to the female in a competitive reaction-time task. Subjects in the permissive cues condition rated the erotic slides as more arousing, saw the female as more reasonable and accepting, and selected more intense shocks for the female than did subjects in the other conditions. One explanation of these results is that permissive cues in the presence of erotica led the male to believe that other normally inappropriate behaviors would be tolerated.

Person perception and the study of aggression.

Summary A critical analysis of the concept of aggression provided a basis for empirically demonstrating the relativity involved in the use of the label “aggressive.” Male and female undergraduates (N = 60) were employed as naive observers and were given descriptions of a frequently used paradigm in the study of aggression. They read one of three scenarios depicting the interaction of two persons in a competitive reaction-time game involving the exchange of electric shocks of various intensities. Results showed that observers were highly consistent in their labeling of behavior. In the depicted scenarios, a player was labeled as nonaggressive, defensive, good, and impotent as long as his shock intensity settings were lower than the other player's, and were labeled as aggressive, offensive, bad, and potent when he set higher intensities than his opponent.