Violent Comic Books Influence Relational Aggression

This paper assesses the impact that reading violent comic books has on hostile attributional bias using relationally aggressive scenarios. College students (N=85) read either very violent or mildly violent comic books. Participants rated the comic books on levels of violence, humor, interest level, and overall likeability. They also read five hypothetical stories in which a relationally aggressive event occurs to a child, but the intent of the provocateur is unclear. Participants then answered questions concerning the stories. Like previous research, results show that when using overt provocation situations trait hostility was significantly related to attributions about the provocateur. They also show that an individual with a chronically aggressive construct will typically demonstrate biased social information-processing. In addition, the results offer support for the contention that violent comic books influence the perception of relationally ambiguous provocation situations. When asked about the intent of the provocateur, participants reading the very violent comic book responded significantly more negatively than participants reading the mildly violent comic book. Thus, violent comic books appear to lead to a short term relational hostile attributional bias. Also, participants reading the violent comic book ascribed a more negative emotional state to the provocateur than participants reading the mildly violent comic book. (MKA)