Reflexive fighting in response to aversive stimulation.
Electric shock reliably triggers reflexive fighting in rats without any training, and later studies show this reflex can be conditioned, replaced by other species-typical responses, or brought under operant control.
01Research in Context
What this study did
SCHUTZ et al. (1962) watched pairs of rats on a small metal floor.
The team gave brief electric shocks and filmed what happened next.
They changed floor size and shock strength to see when fighting appeared.
What they found
Every shock made the rats jump into the same short attack pattern.
The fighting looked like a reflex: it needed no training and no return bites.
Smaller floors and stronger shocks produced the clearest battles.
How this fits with other research
Lyon et al. (1970) built on this work. They played a tone before each shock and found that the rats soon fought as soon as they heard the tone. Their study shows that the same reflex can be brought under stimulus control.
Jones et al. (1977) used squirrel monkeys instead of rats. Shock made the monkeys drink, not fight. Together the papers warn us that one aversive stimulus can trigger very different species-typical responses.
Berler et al. (1982) showed that post-shock behavior is not always a fixed reflex. When food pellets followed lever presses made right after shock, rats learned to press faster. Their result extends the 1962 finding into the operant realm: what happens after shock can be shaped by its consequences.
Why it matters
The study reminds us that pain can trigger instant, unlearned aggression. When you see sudden client aggression after an aversive event, consider that the response may be reflexive, not planned. You can then focus on antecedent changes—less noise, more space, softer materials—instead of assuming the behavior is purely operant.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Reflexive fighting was elicited between paired rats as a reflex reaction to electric shock prior to any specific conditioning. Such fighting was fairly stereotyped and easily differentiated from the rats' usual behavior. The strength of this reflex was not attributable to any apparent operant reinforcement. Elicitation of fighting was a direct function of the enclosed floor area and a nonmonotonic function of the shock intensity. Failure to scramble the polarity of the electrified grid produced inconsistent fighting. Under optimal conditions fighting was consistently elicited by shock regardless of the rat's sex, strain, previous familiarity with each other, or the number present during shock. Repeated shock presentations did not produce an appreciable decrease in fighting until signs of physical debility appeared. Although shock did not cause a rat to attack inanimate objects, it did produce attack movements toward other small animals. Failure of guinea pigs to defend themselves revealed that the elicitation of fighting from the rat does not require reciprocal attack. Paired hamsters showed fighting reactions similar to those of the rats, whereas guinea pigs failed to fight. Electrode shock and a heated floor elicited fighting between the rats, but intense noise and a cooled floor did not.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1962 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1962.5-511