Leonard Berkowitz
Professor Emeritus
Ph.D. 1951, University of Michigan

Email: lberkowi@wisc.edu

Although retired, I am still trying to develop my analysis of the formation, operation, and regulation of emotional states, particularly anger. This formulation holds that particular feelings, ideas, memories, and expressive-motor reactions are linked together associatively in an emotion-state network. The activation of any one of these components through focal attention presumably activates the other components in the same network. In the case of anger, it is presumed that any unpleasant feeling will tend to activate rudimentary anger feelings as well as aggression-related ideas, memories, and expressive-motor reactions, theoretically because of a biologically determined association connecting negative affect with these components.

Berkowitz, L. (1990). On the formation and regulation of anger and aggression: A cognitive-neoassociationistic analysis. American Psychologist.

Berkowitz, L. (1989). The frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 59-73.

Berkowitz, L. (1987). Mood, self-awareness, and the willingness to help. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 721-729.

Berkowitz, L. (1984). Some effects of thoughts on the anti- and prosocial influences of media events: A cognitive neoassociationistic analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 410-427.