THE EFFECT OF SPACED VS. MASSED PRESENTATION OF AGGRESSION ITEMS ON VERBAL AGGRESSIVE RESPONSES OF CHILDREN

A story completion test was constructed and administered to 99 ten‐year‐old boys. The main results were: (1) The average number of aggressive responses tends to be lower when the aggression items are presented in a ‘spaced’ manner than when they are ‘massed’. (2) There is a spread effect from aggression items to neutral items. Aggression and neutral items presented in mixed order give a stronger effect. (3) A relatively consistent factor structure of aggression responses was shown in the test. Aggression towards peers and authority were independent of each other, and seem to be influenced differently by the manner of presentation of stimuli.