The Effects of Pain Cues on Hitting Behavior

This study investigates the effects of pain and non-pain consequences on groups of 22 high- and 22 low-aggression boys, as determined by a peer rating scale. The boys, who had a mean age of 10 years, 8 months, were instructed to hit a punching apparatus. Through earphones, half of each group heard pain cues, i.e., "ouch", while the other half heard neutral stimuli. The conditioning session lasted three minutes and was followed by a 2-minute extinction period. Frequency of hitting for each 30-second interval was recorded. It was found that the boys in the pain-cue condition exhibited significantly more hitting responses than the boys in the non-pain-cue condition, and the high aggressive boys performed almost twice as many hitting responses and responded less to extinction than the low aggressive boys. (DP)