Effect on retaliation of causal attributions concerning attack.

In two studies, men were defeated on either 17%, 50%, or 83% of reaction time trials, received aversive noise, and could ostensibly retaliate by delivering shock to their partner. The noise level delivered was described in Experiment 1 as typical of most other people (high consensus) or atypical of most other people (low consensus) and in Experiment 2 as from a partner who knew (high foreseeability) or did not know (low foreseeability) the kind and level of stimulation controlled by the switches delivering reinforcement to the recipient. Hypotheses were based on the notion that retaliation increases as more personal causality is attributed to a provoker and that more personal causality is inferred in highly foreseeable--or low consensus--50% defeat conditions. As expected, greater differences in aggression between high and low consensus and between high and low foreseeability were displayed in the 50% defeat condition than in the other defeat conditions. Anticipated differences in inferences were obtained.