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The factors that affect the latency period between attracting a target person's attention and delivering either good or bad news were examined. The subjects were 66 (34 female, 32 male) Canadian university students. Three hypotheses were confirmed: There was a longer latency period for bad news than for good news, women had a longer latency period for bad news than for good news and a longer latency period for delivering either bad news or good news than men did, and there was a longer latency period when women delivered bad news to a man than when women delivered bad news to a woman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on P. Fraisse's (1964) theory of emotion and tries to show how it is a better explanation of aggression than any other theory of emotion. It shows difficulties inherent in the theories of aggression of Zillman and Berkowitz. These two theories of emotion are rendered useless by the recent advances in endocrinology, sophisticated techniques to record autonomic response skin conductivity, and other measures of emotional responses that show differential patterns. Fraisse's theory states that emotion is a response to a situation for which the individual is not prepared. Emotional intensity will be greater in response to unanticipated events than to events that are anticipated. The unexpected death of a young family member is more shocking and saddening than the expected death of a bedridden, aging grandparent. Results of the study confirmed the hypothesis that subjects who expected donations and were then refused would give a more negative evaluation of the confederate than would the group that was not assured of any donation.

The purpose of the experiment was to demonstrate whether men are more aggressive when disappointed by a woman whom they like rather than dislike. First, 78 men, 19 to 24 years of age, were recruited by using a newspaper advertisement. They were then placed in one of the two conditions: They were confronted by a female confederate that they either liked or did not like; they then received either positive or negative personal evaluations by the particular confederate in relation to prose-reading tasks. Dependent measures on blood pressure, use of bogus electric shock on a person, and evaluation of the confederate were taken as measures of aggression. The following predictions were made: (a) Negative evaluations by the liked confederate would result in more aggression than by either a disliked confederate or by a liked confederate giving a positive evaluation, and (b) subjects would be more aggressive when the female confederate gave them a negative rather than a positive evaluation or when she was disliked rather than liked. Predictions were supported on all the measures of aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A field study was conducted to test the following hypotheses: Canadian Ss will be more aggressive when (a) they are frustrated close to the goal than when they are frustrated away from the goal; (b) they are frustrated by an East Indian than by European confederates (Cs); (c) they are frustrated by younger than by older Cs; (d) they are frustrated by a C who breaks into a queue without saying “excuse me” than after saying “excuse me”; (e) they are male rather than female, and (f) they are male and closer to goal when frustrated than if they are female or if they are of either sex and away from the goal. Two East Indians and two European Canadian Cs frustrated 320 male and female Canadians in 32 experimental conditions. A five-way analysis of variance confirmed the above hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to see the difference between the visibility and invisibility of the victim, as it affects aggression, cheating, and rudeness. Three hypotheses were tested: individuals will be more aggressive, will cheat more, and will be more rude when the victim is invisible than when he is visible. The first two hypotheses were tested on 70 Laurentian University students under laboratory conditions, whereas the third hypothesis was tested on a road where 120 observations were made. All the hypotheses were confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents results of a study based on the hypothesis that individuals in romantic relationships would distance more when writing rejection letters than when writing letters of acceptance. Thirty-two female Canadian social psychology undergraduates who were not familiar with the immediacy principle wrote letters of acceptance or rejection. The women were asked to imagine that they had been asked out on a date by a man they had previously gone out with. To enhance believability, we asked the women to remember a similar experience. Half the women were asked to write a letter of rejection, and the other half were asked to write a letter of acceptance. After they had finished writing these letters, both groups of women were asked to compose letters containing the opposite message. These data demonstrate the applicability of Mehrabian's immediacy principle to romantic letters and are consistent with other findings. Thus, distancing theory is relevant to social-cognitive material as well as to overt behavior.

Milgram's proximity-remoteness model, showing that it is more difficult to be cruel to a close victim, has been replicated. The present paper reports two additional experiments that demonstrate that individuals are harsher in their judgments and evaluations when the target person is invisible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims at testing three hypotheses regarding a motorist in distress along the side of the road: (a) more motorists will help on a lonely than on a busy road; (b) more motorists will help in sunny than in rainy weather; and (c) more motorists will help a female than a male victim. The procedure and what was said to the helping motorists was the same as Skolnick's. We differed from Skolnick and used the variable sunny or rainy weather instead of' night or day time. A 2 x 2 x 2 design was used, varying location (busy or lonely road), sex of the victim, and weather (sunny or rainy). All the observations were made by hidden observers in the month of September and October between noon to 4:00 p.m. in time blocks of 10 minutes. In rainy conditions, the C did not start waving for help until he was wet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]