Agressão e Fuga em Humanos no Paradigma de Agressão por Subtração de Pontos

Abstract

Aggressive behavior can be defined and studied in different ways in Psychology. In Behavior Analysis, aggression can be seen as a behavior addressed to the physical or social environment, that results in harm or threatens to do so, and has the very harm or the signs of its occurrence as the source of reinforcement. Aggression was systematically studied in the laboratory with nonhuman animals, and the Point Subtraction Aggression paradigm (PSAP) assumes to access the same behavioral phenomena with human participants. In two studies, this Dissertation evaluated and tested the limits of such correspondence. In Study 1 we examined the empirical literature using PSAP and six different versions of it were found. Some of these versions were based in nonhuman research, and other have added variables to the aggressive measure that may have risked its proper characterization. Study 2 adapted one of identified PSAP versions from the previous study to evaluate the effects of two consequences upon responding: point removal from the fictitious participant (aggression) and time without point subtraction (escape), aiming to describe each variable influence on responding. The results were not conclusive about the effects of these variables, and research issues were stressed to give basis to future experimentation. Taken together, both studies indicated that the human aggression investigation can be done in the laboratory through PSAP, however a series of methodological aspects need to be better examined.