Situational pressure, attitudes toward blacks, and laboratory aggression

The importance of the situational context in producing discriminatory behavior cannot he overlooked. This experiment on laboratory aggression investigated the effect of racial attitudes on the willingness to shock a black victim. A second purpose was to compare 2 groups in the shock levels administered to a black or
a white victim. The results showed that attitudes toward blacks are not related to the level of shock administered to blacks. A black victim is shocked less than a white victim. This discriminatory behavior can be understood as a function of the social pressures of the university community as influenced, for example, by the affirmative action programs.