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Gordon Thompson is Professor of Music at Skidmore College. His book, Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out, offers an insider’s view of the British pop-music recording industry. Yesterday he puzzled us all with this month’s masterful riddle, below he explains the answer. Were you able to solve it?

Riddle me now, riddle me then,
Can you tell me what again?
Brothers rage against the right,
But this song came before the night.
Not quite crooked, and not perverse;
Replace with “girl,” improve the verse.
Proto-punk, a random slice,
A wild guitar, a roll of the dice.

Forty-five years ago, the summer of 1964 saw the peak of Beatlemania with the release of the film A Hard Day’s Night and its title song. (See last month’s riddle.) Every record producer (called “artist-and-repertoire managers” in the sixties) and would be manager in the United Kingdom scoured the numerous clubs and dance halls looking for the next big act. The previous year had seen bands like Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Searchers rise to prominence along with singers like Billy J Kramer and Dusty Springfield. More acts arrived from the counties almost every week and that summer the Animals from Newcastle (even further north than Liverpool) had a hit with their version of “House of the Rising Sun.”

Nevertheless, everyone had to come to London, the cultural heart of the Isles. To make it, you had to be in the Big Smoke. Not surprisingly, London and vicinity produced its own stars first produced Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, the Dave Clark Five, and eventually the Rolling Stones, the Nashville Teens, and the Zombies. But perhaps the most English of all these groups, with the songwriter who would come to most confidently speak for the working class suburbs emerged onto the scene in the summer of Beatlemania.

Pye Records had already released disks by one local band, but without much success until 4 August 2009 when the Kinks released “You Really Got Me.”

“Brothers rage against the right,
but this song came before the night.”

The radioactive core of the Kinks, Ray Davies, had had a revelation about songwriting, a burst of insight that left football and art as hobbies. The band’s first release of one of his songs (“You Still Want Me”) had failed miserably, which is unsurprising given that Davies seems to have written it as a kind of imitation of the Beatles. “You Really Got Me” materialized in the front room of his parents’ house when he and his brother Dave began jamming on a two-chord riff, Ray pounding on their piano and Dave playing his guitar through an amp with a ruptured speaker. What began as a kind of shuffle soon clotted into a raw ostinato of such powerful simplicity that the brothers knew immediately they had something that could drive the dancers who came to their shows.

The Davies Brothers came from a working-class family in the North London suburb of Muswell Hill where Ray Davies had his artistic conversion. All he needed to do was find his muse. That muse turned out to be London and the suburban community in which he still lives. At one point in the mid sixties, frustrated by the greed and obfuscations of the music and publishing industries, Davies contemplated abandoning music, only to have his father fly into a rage over his perception that his son was letting the upper class (the “right”) destroy him too. Ray Davies channeled this contempt for class privilege into a celebration of British life, in both its tender moments and its vicious competitiveness.

His producer, Shel Talmy, helped Davies to select his best work and to capture the band’s sound and the American (Talmy came from Los Angeles) and he says he knew “You Really Got Me” would be a hit. With the success of “You Really Got Me,” he wanted another song that sustained that mood. Davies had written “Tired of Waiting,” but Talmy wanted to defer releasing it until that had capitalized on their first success. Thus, “You Really Got Me,” came before the follow-up release, “All Day and All of the Night.”

“Not quite crooked, and not perverse;
Replace with “girl,” improve the verse.”

The band’s name came in part from their appearance. They had played under names like “The Ray Davies Quartet” and “The Ravens,” but sometime in late 1963 they adopted the name “The Kinks,” probably as a description of the leather and high heels that some of the members wore. One of their managers, Larry Page, may have made the name change decision looking for a way to capture audience attention better.

In 1964, a promoter who had signed the Kinks for his shows sought to improve their stage presentations by asking entertainment veteran Hal Carter to coach them. The Kinks had been including an early version of the song in their stage repertoire, but Carter, perhaps confused by the band’s long hair, wondered whether Davies was singing to a male or female: “Jane, Carol, Sue, bint, tart—even jus plain ‘Girl.’ Whatever you do, you have to make it personal.” Davies recalls in his semi-fictional autobiography that “‘Girl instead of ‘Yeah’ mean a lot to me…’”

“Proto-punk, a random slice,
A wild guitar, a roll of the dice.”

Part of the distinctive guitar sound on “You Really Got Me” came because of brother Dave’s tiny Elpico amplifier acting as a preamp to his Vox AC 30 amplifier. Of course, he did not think of it as a “preamp”; he just tried to run a lead from the Elpico’s tiny speaker and plug it into his Vox. In combination with another amplifier, he nearly electrocuted himself; but after replacing the fuses in the family home and some rewiring of the wires connecting the amplifiers, he arrived at a nearly marvelous sound: “nearly marvelous” because he was still dissatisfied. He had no doubt heard of how American blues musicians played with ripped speakers and resolved to get the same sound by using a blade to put a “slice” into the Elpico’s cone. He could only guess at where to put the cut in the speaker paper, but the result—the consequence of a slice rather than a rip—gave his guitar a unique sound that Shel Talmy captured for posterity.

Dave Davies’ fingering technique—in contrast to his brother who had been getting second-hand classical guitar lessons—sought out the most simple of solutions and helped to popularize a style of playing that punk music later championed. Compared to other guitarists playing in London (such as Eric Clapton of the Yardbirds or session musician Big Jim Sullivan), Dave Davies’ approach was primitive. When the time came for his solo, he thrashed away of barely a half-dozen notes, but with all the aggression he could muster as his brother yelled encouragement at him. This recording represented their last best chance of holding on to a recording contract. Their first two releases had been flops. If this third release similarly failed, they might easily have been looking for another record contract, if not careers in commercial art. Instead, “You Really Got Me” rose steadily in first Britain’s charts and then, North America. Within weeks of its release, the recording sat at the top of most pop recording lists, forty-five years ago.

Gordon Thompson is Professor of Music at Skidmore College. His book, Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out, offers an insider’s view of the British pop-music recording industry. Below is a hint to a musical riddle. His introduction is below and be sure to check back tomorrow for the answer and to try his other riddles here. Feel free to guess the answer in the comments.

Sixties British pop created a wealth of musical material that we now describe as classics, not that classicists are likely to embrace them. Not just the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and the Who, but a wealth of musicians of that era competed to produced recordings that would catch the listening public’s attention, draw them to their concerts, and sell disks. This month’s riddle celebrates another anniversary from that milieu.

Riddle me now, riddle me then,
Can you tell me what again?

Brothers rage against the right,
But this song came before the night.

Not quite crooked, and not perverse;
Replace with “girl,” improve the verse.

Proto-punk, a random slice,
A wild guitar, a roll of the dice.

Deborah Gordon is a senior transportation policy analyst who has worked with the National Commission on Energy Policy, the Chinese government and many other organizations. Daniel Sperling is Professor of Engineering and Environmental Science and Founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis. Gordon and Sperling are the authors of Two Billion Cars: Driving Towards Sustainability which provides a concise history of America’s Love affair with cars and an overview of the global oil and auto industries. A few weeks ago we posted an original article by these authors.  Today we have pulled an excerpt from the book which looks specifically at Governor Schwarzenegger.

The unlikely hero who jolted California into climate change leadership is the former bodybuilder and action movie hero Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Before his election in fall 2003, California was experiencing something of a malaise.  Governor Schwarzenegger resurrected a bipartisan action-oriented government and, molded by circumstance, became and environmental leader.

In signing an agreement between California and the United Kingdom on July 31, 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger proclaimed, “California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming…International partnerships are needed in the fight against global warming and California has a responsibility and a profound role to play to protect not only our environment, but to be a world leader on this issue as well.”

He had come a long way in a short time.  Governor Schwarzenegger’s second inaugural address in January 2007 made it strikingly clear that he had evolved into an accomplished politician.  He was now focused, serious, and increasingly savvy.  In the cauldron of politics, he was forging himself into a centrist politician, strongly committed to getting things done, especially on the environment.  He emphasized above all else the need for action on global warming.  He was using global warming as his platform to unite voters from both parties behind him-in stark contrast to what President Bush was doing in Washington, D.C.

How did this Austrian bodybuilder evolve into an environmental leader?  He got his chance to govern through an extraordinary set of circumstances.  In 2003, voters became disenchanted with the remoteness and single-minded fund-raising of Democratic governor, Gray Davis, and voted him out of office in a rare recall election.  This election bypassed the normal process of primaries in which each political party selects a candidate.  That shortcut was essential to Schwarzenegger’s election.  Schwarzenegger was a moderate Republican in a state where the Republican Party has become very conservative.  According to most political experts, Schwarzenegger couldn’t have won a regular Republican primary.  But in a free-for-all election, he didn’t need his party’s endorsement.

In the end, the Democrats couldn’t put forth a compelling candidate, and Schwarzenegger slid into power with 48.6 percent of the vote.  he had never held a government office of any type, elected or appointed, and had little policy knowledge.  But he had huge name recognition as a result of his extraordinary success first as a bodybuilder, winning seven Mr. Olympia world championships, and then as a movie star, known for his Terminator action movies.  He also had management savvy in building very successful businesses capitalizing on his fame, though this was much overlooked at the time.  Governor Schwarzenegger resurrected a bipartisan action-orientated government and, molded by circumstance, became an environmental leader.

He entered office speaking of “blowing up boxes” of government, eliminating hundreds of boards and agencies, and bringing a new order.  His style was to browbeat the legislature.  The honeymoon began to fade during his first year when he provoked his legislature opponents by calling them “girlie men,” offended protesting nurses by telling them “special interests don’t like me in Sacramento because I kick their butt,” and antagonized teachers by asking voters to curtail teachers’ rights to job security.  Every one of the propositions he put forth to voters in a special election in fall 2005 went down in defeat.  His popularity plummeted.

He soon righted himself.  He apologized to voters for not respecting them.  He abandoned his more bombastic language.  He engaged himself in the business of governing and forged working relationships with the Democratic-controlled legislature.  His popularity was resurrected with apologies and an ability to learn from his mistakes, coupled with willful rejection of ideology and partisanship.  By late 2006, his ratings were once again soaring.  With a cooperative legislature, he concluded a series of legislative milestones, capped by the precedent-setting Global Warming Solutions Act.  In his 2007 inaugural address, Schwarzenegger justified this landmark law on moral grounds and “because California genuinely has the power to influence the res of the nation, even the world.”

Schwarzenegger was a product of circumstances.  He wobbled toward a model of leadership and innovation.  He’s not an intellectual leader.  He’s a problem solver with charisma and strong management and communication skills, who surrounds himself with strong, competent people, not least of which is his wife, Maria Shriver.  He’s been molded by the experience of being a Republican in a Democratic state and living with a politically astute Kennedy wife.  His bipartisanship was illustrated by his appointment of Terry Tamminene, an ardent environmentalist, as secretary of California’s Environmental Protection Agency and later as secretary of the cabinet, and Susan Kennedy, a Democrat and former abortion right advocate, as his chief of staff.

The governor’s desire to simultaneously achieve a healthy environment and economy in the state has resonated well.  With strong support from the venture capital community and leaders of many high-tech Silicon Valley companies, he has spurred the state’s businesses to think green thoughts.  His unwavering commitment to California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, low-carbon fuel standard, and greenhouse gas standards for vehicles has had the cumulative effect of convincing even the most recalcitrant company that there’s no turning back.  Indeed, Schwarzenegger sees climate change policy and green tech as his legacy.  The question is whether the various rules and laws and what skeptics refer to as the governor’s globe-trotting happy talk will translate into ral action and change.

Deborah Gordon is a senior transportation policy analyst who has worked with the National Commission on Energy Policy, the Chinese government and many other organizations. Daniel Sperling is Professor of Engineering and Environmental Science and Founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis. Gordon and Sperling are the authors of Two Billion Cars: Driving Towards Sustainability which provides a concise history of America’s Love affair with cars and an overview of the global oil and auto industries. In the original article below they look at what Washington needs to do to support sustainability.

Washington policymakers may have been backed into a costly corner on the Detroit bail out, but the real measure of their mettle is whether they can help us innovate our way out of this debacle. Automaking must undergo fundamental transformational change. The country needs a roadmap. That’s where Congress and the new Administration come in.

Over 20 years of government inaction does not instill confidence, however. Glorying in cheap oil, ignoring mounting imports, avoiding climate action, and preciously protecting U.S. automakers gave birth to Hummers while promising battery technology grew up overseas in Japan, Korea, and, increasingly, China. Few auto advances have been made. And now we’re poised to lose those gains as the venture capitial driven electric-vehicle companies that sprang up in recent years close shop.

One sure fix out of the utter mess we’re in would be to seriously raise gasoline taxes. This would change the entire oil equation, promoting sustained vehicle and fuel innovations the likes of which America has never seen. But with today’s economy bloodied and raw, this appears decidedly off the table, at least for now.

Instead, with current gasoline prices at all time lows, a minuscule 58 cents-a-gallon in 1980 dollars, the U.S. will remain hooked on oil. Priorities to accelerate the commercialization of clean advanced vehicles could be further derailed by Congress as it orders up the next fuel du jour. Corn ethanol, for example, a clear energy and climate fiasco, has long been the recipient of massive public subsidies amounting to about $10 billion in 2008. Federal commitments to clean vehicle and energy R&D, on the other hand, have dwindled to nearly nothing.

Over and over, the public interest has been swamped by regional and special interests and the private desires of consumers. This trend needs to be turned around: innovation needs to serve the public good.

California has figured out how to do this. And when it comes to cars, they have been pushing the envelope for half a century. It is now time for Washington to stop resisting a winning strategy and follow suit.

Adopting new clean vehicle performance standards is the key. The government must resist the temptation to pick winning technologies. Instead, we need innovative performance goals that let automakers and consumers decide which clean cars to commercialize. California’s 1960s pollution laws brought us the first automotive emission control, positive crankcase ventilation. Zero-emission vehicle regulations of the 1990s gave birth to the Prius. Just imagine what vehicle innovations new federal standards could summon.

The single most effective near-term action Washington can take to accelerate the development and adoption of next-generation clean vehicle technologies – electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and fuel cell vehicles – with no direct cost to consumers, is to create new performance standards for near-zero emission vehicles. Each company would be required to produce a set number of near-zero emission vehicles based on their market share, with more credit given to highly efficient vehicles with longer driving ranges that are mass marketed. Such regulations focus the minds of automakers and their suppliers. Small innovative start-up companies also get into the game. New supply chains for low-carbon cars would sprout up in America. Green jobs would be created.

It’s not too late for Washington, and Detroit, to follow the leaders and reimagine our automaking future. The European Union is already pursuing a near-zero emission vehicle category with less than 50 grams of carbon dioxide pollution for each kilometer traveled (equivalent to 113 mpg for gasoline).

So, while large gas taxes are still a sensible long-term solution, Washington must give automakers clear marching orders now. Our policymakers may be risk adverse when it comes to taxation, but Congress is an accomplished regulator.

The auto bail out, volatile oil prices, conflicts in the Middle East, increasing fears of climate change, and intense competition are creating the perfect storm for transformational auto innovation. Washington must take the reins and steer entrepreneurs, engineers, and the public down the path to reinvent vehicles.

Gordon Thompson is Professor of Music at Skidmore College. His book, Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out, offers an insider’s view of the British pop-music recording industry.  In the post below he looks at the end of 60’s Brit-Pop.

Tucked into a tight lane off busy Wardour Street in London’s Soho district, the Beatles gathered on 31 July 1968 to begin something they had done only a few times previously: record outside the safe confines of EMI’s Recording Studios in Abbey Road. They had grown increasingly dissatisfied with EMI’s reluctance to invest in competitive equipment, while bands like the Rolling Stones and the Who had been recording in American studios for years. These bands flocked to Los Angeles both because of the recording culture and because of technology that EMI had postponed installing: eight-track recording decks instead of the four-track decks common in British studios. When the Beatles arrived at Soho’s Trident Studios for “Hey Jude,” they intended to add vocals to their EMI four-track recording of the musical backing. However, when they heard playback on the eight-track Ampex decks through Trident’s sound system, they immediately relegated the first tape as rehearsal and began working anew.

Trident had its problems. Principally, the owners, the Sheffield Brothers, had simply plugged American machines that ran on an alternating current of sixty-cycles into the British fifty-cycle system, resulting in slower playback at a lower pitch. Any pitched overdubs that the Beatles would have tried over their original EMI recording would have been hopelessly out-of-tune. But over the next few days, the Beatles would re-record the backing track to “Hey Jude,” add vocals, and play with musical possibilities that eight tracks allowed. The new environment may have expanded their musical options, but it also amplified personality quirks and irritated old wounds. In particular, Paul McCartney antagonized his old friends through his preoccupation with perfection and his predilection for prodding his colleagues to improve their product. The first casualty was Ringo Starr who quit the band on 22 August, returning only in early September after tempers had cooled.

The London recording and music industries were beginning to evolve under the combined influences of their relatively sudden international success and the growth of independent studios like Trident. In September of 1968, as “Hey Jude” rose to the top of British and American record charts, the infrastructure that had grown to produce hundreds of British pop recordings underwent a sudden revolution. The session musicians, music directors, producers, songwriters, and engineers who had generated the diverse array of British pop, rock, and blues recordings under the cover of touring bands like Herman’s Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, Them, and the Yardbirds felt the system shudder.

“Hey Jude” describes the break-up of John Lennon’s marriage to Cynthia and its effects on their son Julian. Moreover, the inordinately long recording (over seven minutes) reflects McCartney’s interest in hymn-like musical structures (e.g., “Let It Be”) and serves as a requiem for the musical world that the Beatles had helped to define. Just as “Hey Jude” rose in international sales charts, a London trade paper, the New Musical Express, reported that two longstanding London session musicians had formed the “New Yardbirds.” Jimmy Page had established himself as a free-lance producer and John Paul Jones had demonstrated his skills as a music director. But, as technology and its availability transformed the industry, they saw their opportunity to leave the safety of session life. Thus, in the waning months of 1968, British recording engineers left for America, session musicians and music directors went on tours, and the old studios scrambled to stay competitive. The New Yardbirds, who soon renamed themselves Led Zeppelin, launched their mystical macho imperative into the seventies while the Beatles celebrated the end of sixties British pop by making a sad song sound better.

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Gordon W. Russell is a Profess Emeritus at the University of Lethbring in Alberta where he taught social psychology and conducted research on sports aggression for over 32 years.  His book Aggression in the Sports World: A Social Psychological Perspective is an international and interdisciplinary presentation of the best and most recent findings in the study of sports aggression, and provides a series of proposals intended to prevent or minimize the severity of riots and panics. In the excerpt below Russel looks at the role of competition and aggression.

Competition is by far the most central and hallowed concept in the sports world. Most children are introduced to the notion of winning during their formative years. Thereafter, it pervades both individual and group interactions at all levels of play. Moreover, competition has taken root as the preferred means of conducting activities in the business world, education, and, possibly to a lesser extent, in scientific circles. One might assume that competition brings out the best in people, more so than say, cooperation.

Parenthetically, the common assumption that competition is superior to cooperation as a means for conducting human interactions is based more on a shared cultural truism (McGuire, 1964), certainly not on the empirical evidence. A cultural truism is a widespread, unquestioned belief that is rarely, if ever challenged. For example, when was the last time you heard someone take issue with the age-old advice to “brush your teeth after every meal?” In North America at least, competition is every bit as much a cultural truism as the importance of brushing after meals.

A review of 121 published studies comparing the effectiveness of competitive versus cooperatively structured tasks on performance and achievement was undertaken (Johnson, Maruyama, Johnson, Nelson, & Skon, 1981). Cooperation was found to be clearly superior across a variety of tasks, including motor tasks. In one analysis involving 109 findings, 8 favored competition and 65 favored cooperation, whereas 36 favored neither type of setting. We see further that in conjunction with an enjoyment of hard work and a preference for difficult and challenging tasks, low competitiveness is associated with higher salaries among businessmen and higher academic grades among male and female undergraduates (Helmreich & Spence, 1978; see also, Russell 1993, pp. 89–91).

Competition often fails us in other ways. That is, competitive situations are frequently found to breed hostility among participants. Part of the reason lies with the attitudes of competitors. If participants enter the competition with rivalrous attitudes, then hostilities are apt to develop. The association between rivalry and competition is learned in childhood. Rivalrous attitudes “appear in the form of personal intentions that go beyond merely doing well in competition and involve the goal of hurting the other person, perhaps going out of one’s way to do so” (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959, p. 228). Competition itself can be defined as “two or more units, either individuals or groups, engaged in pursuing the same rewards, with these rewards so defined that if they are attained by any one unit, there are fewer rewards for the other units in the situation” (Berkowitz, 1962, p. 178).

The tendency for competition to produce aggression has been well documented (e.g., Berkowitz, 1962, 1973; Deutsch, 1949; Diab, 1970; Sherif & Sherif, 1969). A classic field investigation by Sherif and Sherif (1969) will illustrate the differences between competition and cooperation in fostering hostility. The setting was a summer camp for young boys (11–12 years) in Oklahoma in what is called the Robber’s Cave experiment. The boys were carefully matched on skill level and physical stature. The boys were normal, well-adjusted youngsters who did not previously know one another. Upon their arrival at the camp in separate buses, they were assigned to either of two cabins, later named by the boys as the “Rattlers” and the “Eagles.” Strong bonds of friendship and group loyalty quickly developed within each group. Their cabins were located a considerable distance from each other, and no contact was made until the second stage of the experiment. During the week following their arrival, the youngsters engaged in a number of highly appealing activities, for example, camping out in the woods, improving a swimming hole as well as organized informal games. By week’s end, the two groups had developed stable group structures.

Shortly after, the groups were made aware of each other’s existence, strong “we” versus “they” perceptions of one another emerged. Brought together for a variety of competitions, for example, tug of war, touch football, baseball, and treasure hunt, the early expressions of good sportsmanship and mutual respect began to evaporate. In its stead verbal and physical hostilities began and escalate to the point of a full blown donnybrook in the mess hall. Name calling and throwing of food and then dinnerware brought the experiment to an abrupt halt. Several days of concerted effort by camp personnel were required to restore some semblance of peace between the Rattlers and the Eagles.

The investigators next arranged a series of tasks for the boys that required the cooperation of both cabins to succeed. They were superordinate goals or “goals that have a compelling appeal for members of each group, but that neither group an achieve without participation of the other” (Sherif & Sherif, 1969, p. 256). Several “emergencies” having potentially dire consequences for both cabins were created by the researchers. The camp truck that went for food mysteriously developed engine failure. It could only be started with both groups pulling together on their former tug of war rope. At another point the waterline broke down stopping the flow of water to the camp. The Rattlers and Eagles agreed to join forces to search for the break in the line. In both examples, it was clearly in their best interests to cooperate with one another, as in fact they did. The result was that intergroup hostility gradually diminished and a number of friendships even began to blossom between the cabins.

A similar field study was undertaken in Lebanon (Diab, 1970) and illustrates the ease with which competition can lead to ill will, if not outright aggression. Following similar procedures, the youngsters were “matched” and assigned to two groups in the camp. Interestingly, each group contained roughly equal numbers of Moslems and Christians. Friendships and camaraderie within each group developed during the early days of the camp. However, when competition was introduced, hostilities again erupted between the cabins. So intense was the animosity—a knife was brandished—that Diab was required to prematurely end the study. The battle lines were drawn between two temporary and artificially created groups. Surprisingly, the centuries-old divisions between Moslems and Christians played no part in the hostilities.

One might be forgiven for concluding from the Oklahoma boys camp study that the answer to increasing liking between two competing groups lies with having them cooperate in pursuit of a common goal. The answer is not quite that simple. Worchel, Andreoli, and Folger (1977) reasoned that two variables, the outcome of the cooperative endeavor and the nature of the groups’ past interaction, would determine the level of intergroup liking. In a nutshell, previously competing groups who failed in their combined effort experienced less attraction for one another. However, success resulted in increased liking. For previously cooperating groups, success and failure on the superordinate task resulted in increased liking between the groups.

Early writers have long contended that aggression is an inherent element in most competitions. Konrad Lorenz (1966) makes the point in noting that “sport indubitably contains aggressive motivation, demonstrably absent in most animal play” (p. 242). This conclusion is echoed by Caplow (1964) who observed that “In virtually all competitive situations some degree of hostility develops between the competitors” (p. 318). Certainly, the summer camp studies support such a conclusion. In addition, it was noted earlier that the trait of competitiveness is strongly related to the subscales and total scores on the Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992). However, laboratory investigations testing the merits of a competition–aggression hypothesis have yielded mixed results. For example, members of a competitive group were less helpful and friendly and more verbally aggressive toward each other than were members of a cooperative group (Deutsch, 1949). A more direct test of the hypothesis was conducted using a two-person reaction time experiment in which electric shock for slow responses served as the measure of interpersonal aggression (Gaebelein & Taylor, 1971). Three levels of motivation were provided subjects: high competition, no shock for fastest response plus 5 cents; moderate competition, no shock; and no competition, shock predetermined. Support for a causal association between competition and aggression was not forthcoming. In the words of the researchers “competition had little influence on the expression of physical aggression” (p. 66).

A video game (Super Mario Brothers) provided the means for a further investigation of competition and its effects on aggression (Anderson & Morrow, 1995; see also, Bartholow, Sestir, & Davis, 2005). Specifically, pairs of male and female, university-aged participants were led through experimental instructions to adopt either a competitive or a cooperative frame of mind. A cooperative mind set was established for a pair by the experimenter stressing that their performances were to be combined and assessed together. For pairs in the competitive condition, they were told their performances would be compared at the end of the session. The goal for both groups then, was to avoid losing the life of the main character, that is, to advance as far as possible in each scenario.

The main characters are Mario and Luigi both of whom are controlled by the participants. Their task is to help the character avoid “cute but deadly creatures” as they navigate scenes. Participants can have their character deal with the creatures they encounter in either of two ways, killing or avoiding them. Jumping on top of a creature kills it as does hitting it with a fireball. Creatures can instead be avoided by the main character taking a different path or jumping over the creature.

The prediction that pairs assigned to the competitive condition would dispatch a greater number of creatures than those playing in the cooperative condition was confirmed. Competitive subjects had a 66% kill ratio in contrast to cooperative subjects who killed only 41%. Sex differences were not in evidence, that is, men and women had virtually the same kill ratios.

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