Berkowitz's Study

When an animal is exposed to pain or discomfort, their reaction to this feeling is not only to get away from whatever is causing said pain, but generally also a heightened aggressiveness towards any available targets. Berkowitz theorized that this is the same for humans as well. In his research, he performed two separate studies that involved students feeling the discomfort, or pain as perceived by some participants, of holding a hand in cold water. These also involved some groups performing hostile tasks. Both of these studies then measured the hostile aggression they showed to the people around them, whether that person had contributed to the pain or not. In his first study, Berkowitz had three separate groups of female University students hold one of their hands in a tank of water. While they did this they were told to help a fellow student solve problems given to them during the study. One group was told the water might be painful and was given cold water to put their hand in. The second group was also given cold water, but …show more content…
Both of these groups required the men to put a hand into very cold water. While they did this, they also watched a partner work. Each group was given a different action to do when the partner made a mistake in their work. The first group was told to take money away from the partner, which was in this case considered an aggressive task. The second group was told to flash a sign at them when the partner made a mistake, a more neutral response. After this task was done, the participants with their hands in the cold water were given another task to work on with their partner, during which they were given the ability to expose their partner to obnoxiously loud blasts of noise. The group who, previously, been given the aggressive task of taking money away rather than just holding up a sign, were recorded as using more loud noises on their