On not being able to aggress

Rational-Emotive Therapy: Research Data That Supports The Clinical and Personality Hypotheses of RET and Other Modes of Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

This article examines 32 important clinical and personality hypotheses of rational-emotive therapy (RET) and other modes of cognitive-behavior therapy and lists a large number of research studies that provide empirical confirmation of these hypotheses. It concludes that (1) a vast amount of research data exists, most of which tends to confirm the major clinical and personality hypotheses of RET; (2) this data keeps increasing by leaps and bounds; (3) RET hypotheses nicely lend themselves to experimental investigation and therefore encourage a considerable amount of research; (4) researchers have not yet tested some of the major RET formulations and could do so with profit to the field of psychotherapy and personality theory.

Hostility as a function of the opportunity to counteraggress

Half of the subjects, college students, were insulted by the experimenter while half were not. Within each of these conditions, half of the subjects were led to believe they would have an opportunity to administer electric shock to the experimenter, while the other half were not. A measure of hostility toward the experimenter was taken before there was any actual opportunity to shock him. As predicted from reactance theory, it was found that the mere opportunity to shock the experimenter reduced hostility that was produced by his insulting behavior. Alternative interpretations and implications were discussed.

THE EFFECTS OF THWARTING OF AGGRESSION ON SUBSEQUENT AGGRESSION

In the first of two studies, male undergraduates were either angered or not angered by a confederate and then randomly assigned to one of three conditions (no thwarting, non-arbitrary thwarting, and arbitrary thwarting) in a 2 × 3 factorial design. Following the thwarting manipulation, subjects were given an opportunity to aggress against the confederate. It was hypothesized that: (a) greater aggression would be displayed by the angry subjects and (b) thwarting of both classes of aggression (angry and-non-angry) would lead to an increase in subsequent aggression. Both hypotheses were confirmed - subjects in the angry condition displayed more aggression, and thwarting increased subsequent aggressivity. Additionally, the amount of aggression displayed increased linearly from the no-thwarting to the non-arbitrary thwarting to the arbitrary thwarting condition for both classes of aggression. In the second study, a delayed post-test was employed to determine the durability of aggression following the arbitrary thwarting of an instigation to aggress. It was found that the aggression aroused by arbitrary thwarting was maintained for at least one day.