At the beginning of the semester, participants filled out the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI; Buss & Durkee, 1957) to assess their trait level of hostility.
Approximately 6-10 weeks later, these participants were recruited to participate in the comic book study. Research assistants, blind to the participant’s trait hostility scores, randomly assigned participants to one of two conditions: Extremely Violent and Mildly Violent. Participants in the extremely violent condition read comic books with a high degree of violence and aggressive themes. Participants in the Mildly violent condition read a relatively nonviolent comic book.
およそ6～10週間後、これらの参加者はコミックブック研究に参加するために登録された。調査アシスタントは、参加者の敵愾心特性のスコアを知らないまま、ランダムに次の2つのうちから一方の状況を参加者に課した：非常に暴力的な状況とやや暴力的な状況。
非常に暴力的な状況においての参加者は、暴力性が高く、攻撃的なテーマのコミックブックを読む。やや暴力的な状況においての参加者は、相対的に非暴力のコミックブックを読む。
大体６～10週間後、これらの参加者はコミック本学への参加者として募られた。研究助手、参加者の特色敵意のスコアを見えなくする、無作為に参加者を二つのうちの一つの状態に割り当てる：暴力的と少し暴力的。
きわめて暴力的な状態の参加者は高度の暴力と攻撃テーマのコミック本を読む。少し暴力的な状態の参加者は比較的暴力性のないコミック本を読む。
participants were told that the researchers were developing measures for two separate studies on children and that we need their input to help develop appropriate measures. First, participants read their assigned comic book and completed the Comic Book Rating task. Then, as a separate assessment, participants read and answered questions about a series of relational provocation stories. For this task, participants were asked to respond to the questions as they thought a 10-year-old would respond. The Relational Provocation Stories task is a type of projective test. Thus, participants’ responses should reflect their current state of mind, with regard to hostile/non-hostile perceptions.
それから、別の試験として参加者は関連のある挑発的な物語のシリーズを読んで質問に答える。この課題として、参加者は10歳児が答えるだろうと思うように質問に答えるようにと言われる。この関連のある挑発的な物語の課題は投影的な検査のタイプです。従って、参加者の応答は彼らの敵対的か非敵対的かの認識に関する心の現状を反映していべきである。
Whereas some participants will respond negatively, others will respond neutrally or positively. The affect/positivity-negativity associated with participants’ “child-like” responses are in fact projections of the participants’ current cognitive/emotional state. At the same time, this line of questioning should maintain the pretense that the researchers were developing experimental measures for children. Finally, participants were asked a series of questions about their own experience with comics books using a Comic Book History Form.
