"I Felt It Tear Flesh": Violent Comics and Social Cognition

This study investigated the effects of reading extremely violent versus nonviolent comic books on 249 introductory psychology students' interpretations of overt and relational provocation situations. After reading their assigned comic books, participants read hypothetical stories in which an overt or relational aggression occurred, but the intent of the provocateur was ambiguous. After each story, participants were asked a series of questions about the provocateur's intent. Responses were coded in terms of the amount of negative and violent content. Trait hostility was significantly related to hostile responding. Regardless of the type of aggression, participants reading extremely violent comic books responded more negatively than participants reading nonviolent comic books. Males responded more negatively to the overt scenarios whereas females responded more negatively to the relational scenarios. These findings indicate social information processing of ambiguous material appears to be affected by both personality based variables, such as gender and trait hostility, and environmental stimuli, such as violent media. (Contains 15 references.) (Author/JDM)