Abstract
Two experiments investigating the effects of chronic vs. acute insulin-induced hypoglycemia on attack and biting behavior elicited by tailshock are reported. Chronic-injection subjects had blood-sugar level experimentally reduced by insulin for 29 days, including the day of shock testing. Acute-injection subjects received an insulin injection only on the day of testing. High levels of attack and biting behavior were shown in the single-animal shock-elicited aggression situation by the chronic subjects in both experiments. High response levels were shown by the acute-injection subjects only in Experiment 2. The lack of such responding in Experiment 1 was attributed to the different injection procedures used in the two experiments. The data are supportive of the proposed negative relationship between hypoglycemia and aggressive responding.
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This research was supported in part by a Tower Fund Research Grant from Austin Peay State University to the first author. Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, 1978.
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Davis, S.F., Cronin, E.L., Meriwether, J.A. et al. Shock-elicited attack and biting as a function of chronic vs. acute insulin injection. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 12, 149–151 (1978). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329654
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329654