The Effects of Coffee on Aggression
California State University, Northridge
Anush Danielyan, Psychology Department,
California State University, Northridge
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to:
18111 Nordhoff Street Northridge, CA 91330
Abstract
The purpose for this study is to investigate whether California State University of Northridge coffee-drinkers are more aggressive than non-coffee drinkers. I specifically collected data from California State University, Northridge students during the afternoon at the coffee shop. I randomly selected twenty participants from all age groups, varying ethnic groups; both males and females. Participants were asked to answer ten survey questions regarding aggression. I specifically designed questions relating to emotional and physiological aggression as oppose to physical aggression. The purpose for the survey questions is to measure whether coffee-drinker are more aggressive than non-coffee-drinkers. Results showed that non coffee-drinkers are more aggressive than coffee-drinkers.
The Effects of Coffee on Aggression
There has been a great number of research conducted in regards cognitive and physiological changes due to caffeine intake (Snel, Lorist, &Tieges, 2004), however; when provoked, the aggression effects on humans can be interpreted in various ways. “Caffeine can elevate physiological arousal, including increased blood pressure, cortisol and epinephrine; especially when provoked” (Zillmann 1983, p.140).
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Recent study by (Denson Madi, 2011) show that when subjects consume a placebo they show reduced aggression level when provoked and an increase in the caffeine group. The caffeine expectancies can subject’s aggression level however, in some cases it could be the provocation itself that can aggravate aggression and caffeine may not have anything to do with it. Aggressive behavior can also vary widely between individuals and mental depletion can reduce aggression (Denson & Mandi, 2011).
Overall the effect of caffeine can increase aggression if provoked; however aggression can be attributed to the nature of provocation and caffeine may not even have to do anything with one’s aggression (DeWall & Anderson 2011).
Past research has shown various methods and results on coffee and aggression (Denson et.al, 2011).
Denson states that caffeine expectancies can reduce mental exhaustion and may induce aggression. It is commonly expected that caffeine increases alertness and may boost energy so when people are tired they intake drinks that contain caffeine to boost energy. Caffeine expectancy alone can be the contributor to alertness and boost of energy, so the expectancy alone can play a role in individual’s alertness and boost of energy. Participants that were given placebo and have positive caffeine expectancies have shown a boost of energy when they are mentally depleted. The boost of energy and alertness is widely known to be common caffeine expectancy so the placebo itself can contribute to the expectancy (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010).
In the present study, I measured whether aggression level between coffee-drinkers and non-coffee-drinkers would vary. I predicted that coffee drinkers would measure to show higher aggression level comparing to non-coffee-drinkers. I came up with this prediction by interrogating previous studies regarding caffeine and aggression. Ethically, I am not allowed to assign people in caffeine or non-caffeinated (placebo) group. So, to ethically test whether coffee-drinkers are more aggressive than non-coffee-drinkers I collected data from people that already drink caffeinated coffee “caffeinated group.” The data was collected through survey questioners regarding aggression. After everyone completed the survey questions, I compared caffeinated coffee-drinker’s results with the group that does not drink coffee; which I consider the “non-caffeinated group” in this study. Results actually showed that non-coffee-drinkers are more aggressive than coffee drinkers. This indicated that my study has a high level of internal consistency in regards the study’s scale.
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Methods
Design
I conducted a self-report Instrumental Survey Design to test my hypothesis. I picked out ten specific aggression related questions online (Buss & Perry, 1992).
I used the self-report measure to allow participants to measure their aggression level by answering the list of ten survey questions that are related to psychological and emotional aggression (see appendix).
Furthermore, participants were instructed to take the survey serious and do their best to answer the questions honestly.
Participants
I randomly selected a total of 20 participants that were already either drinking coffee-drinkers or non- coffee-drinking and asked them to answer the list of 10 survey questions. Participants were 12 male students and eight female students from California State University, Northridge at the coffee shop. In terms of age, participants’ age varied from 18 to late 50’s. Race education level, declared major was not asked. The total of 20 participants were sampled through random selection.
Materials
I randomly selected 20 participants at the coffee shop and instructed them to answer the ten survey questions to measure the dependent variable (see appendix).
To measure the data I used the Likert scale: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree. The scale was on a 5-point scale: strongly disagree=1, disagree=2, neither agree nor disagree=3, agree=4, strongly agree=5.
After conducting an independent sample t-test, the effectiveness of coffee and aggression between coffee-drinkers and non-coffee drinkers was confirmed. Subjects that completed the Buss & Perry aggression related questions on a 5-point scale to rate their level of aggression; (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly disagree).
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I found significant difference between coffee-drinkers and non-coffee-drinkers, t(17)=3.372, p = .004 (see Table 1).
The results show there is a significant difference between coffee-drinkers and non-coffee-drinkers.
Dependent variable. The self-report survey questions contained a list of ten questions relating emotional and physiological aggression. Each question was measured using a 5-point scale (1 = strongly agree to 5 = strongly disagree).
I instructed the subjects to select a number that most describes them regarding how aggressive they are. Example: “I have trouble controlling my temper” or “Some of my friends think I am an aggressive person” After all the participants answered every single question I calculated everyone’s scores. The higher the scores on the survey conclude higher aggression level. Possible scores can range from 10-50.
The survey questions evaluated the construct validity of the study as shown in t-test. I listed specific questions regarding aggression that can be associated with coffee. The first question listed “I drink coffee at least once a day.” People that are regular coffee-drinkers that drink coffee at least once a day selected “yes.” Subjects that are not regular coffee-drinkers and don’t drink coffee at least once a day selected “no.” Followed by, the participants answered questions that reassess the construct validity. For example: ”I often get frustrated when I have to stand in a long line to buy coffee” and “I easily get frustrated when things don’t go my way.” These statements were measured using the 5-point scale tool (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly disagree).
The first question
Results
T-test Examining the Difference between coffee-drinkers and non-coffee-drinkers
An independent sample t-test was conducted to determine whether there was a significant difference between coffee-drinkers and non-coffee-drinkers. Results show that there is a significant difference between two conditions; it turned out that non-coffee-drinkers comparing to coffee-drinkers show a higher aggression level. However there were more non-coffee drinkers in the sample than coffee-drinkers. Coffee drinkers (N=7), none-coffee-drinkers (N=12), total of (N=19) participants. One participants was dropped because he she did not answer the question; “I drink coffee at least once a day.” The significant difference in the scores for non-coffee-drinkers (M=3.2917, SD=.52477) and for coffee-drinkers (M=2.5571, SD=.29921) conditions; t(17)=3.37, p=.004(see Table 1 for means and t-test).
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Lastly, I ran a reliability analysis and results show that the Cronbach’s alpha is .705 in regards to the study’s sample. This indicated that my hypothesis was not supported.
Discussion
I hypothesized that coffee-drinkers are more aggressive than people that don’t drink coffee on regular. My hypothesis was not supported. Results show higher aggression level in non-coffee-drinkers than in coffee drinkers which is contrary to previous studies. My results contradict previous studies showing that caffeine does in fact increase aggression especially when provoked (Denson, 2011).
Past studies also indicate if one is mentally exhausted and provoked then those individuals are less likely to refrain from aggressive impulse and that can make aggression more likely to occur (Hagger, 2010).
My results showed the opposite; non-coffee-drinkers measures indicated lower aggression levels comparing coffee-drinker group.
There were a lot of problems to my study which could be the reason why my hypothesis was not supported and contextual factors could have played a big role on the results. This could be due to many confounding variables: small sample size, the type of questions on the survey, the way the data was collected, time of the day, number of coffee-drinkers/number of non-coffee-drinkers in my data, weather, social desirability, participant’s mood at the time, how serious they took the survey, location, sample size was only restricted to CSUN students …etc. The questions on the survey were well constructed and the questions were relative to aggression and it measured what it was meant to measure—aggression; hence it had good construct validity. However social desirability could have been one of the confounding variables. The survey questions were too explicit; it was clear to the participants that the purpose of the study was to measure participant’s aggression level. Hence, for future studies I should use implicit questions to decrease social desirability effect.
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My study has low internal validity because there was no cause and effect in the study. I did not manipulate any variables to determine whether coffee causes regular coffee-drinkers more aggressive than individuals that don’t drink coffee regularly. The purpose of the study was to find out if coffee is associated with increasing aggression. Extraneous variable were not easy to control because I did not have a control group and my sample size was too small, the study was limited to only California State University, Northridge students. For that reason, many extraneous variables could have contaminated my data. The participants were answering the survey questions during a hot summer day, most of them looked exhausted from the heat so there could be high chance that most participants did not take the survey serious. Heat exhaustion could have played a role in how participants answered the questions. There could be a large number of lurking variables in my study; the confounding variables that stand out to me the most is heat exhaustion, social desirability, small sample size and participant’s attempt to take the survey serious.
Most the participants looked like they were in a hurry so I predicted that the participants quickly filled out the survey without reading all the questions. To check this—I purposely listed two questions that are very similar to each other to see if the subjects were taking the survey serious. For example: question number 7 states “I easily get frustrated when things don’t go my way” and question number ten states “I often get frustrated when things don’t go my way.” The difference between question number 7 and questions number ten is the word “easily” and “often.” If a participant is paying attention to the questions and taking the survey serious then I assume that they will select identical answers to both questions. If a participant does not have identical answers for question number 7 and ten then I can assume that they did not take the survey serious and maybe were not paying attention are very similar. This on particular factors could have been the biggest threat to the validity of my study.
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The study had weak external validity due to small sample size; the sample represents only CSUN students. In addition, the number of non-coffee-drinkers outnumbered the number of coffee-drinkers and one subject was dropped because he or she failed to answer the question to determine whether he or she drinks coffee at least once a day. Twelve participants selected “yes” to agree that they drink coffee at least once a day and 7 participants answered “no” to indicate that they do not drink coffee at least once a day. Hence, the sample was not representative because there were more non-coffee drinkers than coffee-drinkers and that threw off the scale because the sample does not contain equal number of coffee-drinkers and non-coffee-drinkers.
For a future study I would do two different experiments. In the first experiments I would collect a bigger sample; a sample of more than twenty participants. After that I would conduct an experimental design on caffeinated and non-caffeinated groups so that I can manipulate the variables to see if caffeine causes aggression by comparing the groups. None of the participants will know which group they are in. it is widely expected that caffeine boosts energy and increases alertness and if I randomly assign participants to either caffeinated or non-caffeinated group then that will control caffeine expectancies. After I assign participants in either caffeinated or non-caffeinated coffee group, I will for at least twenty minutes for caffeine to kick in until I give them survey questions to answer regarding aggression. This time I will design more implicit question rather than explicit questions. The participants will not know my hypothesis because that could change how they answer the survey questions which may possibly contaminate the data.
For the future, I would do a factorial 2X2 experimental design but this time with caffeine tablet and a placebo. In addition, provoke them which an annoying blast of noise and then select a number of shocks they would give to someone. The participants will be blind to which group they were assigned to. Firstly, I would select a large sample size; assign participants to either caffeinated tablet or non-caffeinated tablet. Twenty minutes after they participants consumed the tablet I will provoke them by a blast of noise through their headphone, followed by they will virtually select the number of shocks they would give someone. The higher numbers of shocks would indicate higher level of aggression. If caffeine does really increase aggression then I assume that the caffeinated group would measure to have higher aggression level comparing to placebo group. If the participants don’t know which group they are in then this will rule out caffeine expectancy.
References
Buss, A. H., & Perry, M. P. (1992).
The aggression questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 452-459.
Denson, T. F., Jacobson, M., von Hippel, W., Kemp, R. I., & Mak, T. (2012).
Caffeine expectancies but not caffeine reduce depletion-induced aggression. Psychology Of Addictive Behaviors, 26(1), 140-144. doi:10.1037/a0024725.
DeWall, C. N., Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2012).Aggression. Chapter in I. Weiner (Ed.), Handbook of Psychology, 2nd Edition, Volume 5, 449-466. H. Tennen & J. Suls (Eds.), Personality and Social Psychology. New York: Wiley.
DeWall, C. N., Baumeister, R. F., Stillman, T. F., & Gailliot, M. T. (2007).
Violence restrained: Effects of self-regulation and its depletion on aggression. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 62–76.
Hagger, M. S., Wood, C., Stiff, C., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2010).
Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 495–525.
Snel, J., Lorist, M. M., &Tieges, Z. (2004).Coffee, caffeine, and cognitive performance. Nutrition, brain, and behavior. In A. Nehlig (Ed.), Coffee, tea, chocolate, and the brain (pp. 53–71).
Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Zillmann, D. (1983).
Arousal and aggression. In R. G. Geen& E. Donnerstein (Eds.), Aggression: Theoretical and empirical reviews (Vol. 1., pp. 75–102).
New York: Academic Press.
Table 1
Group Statistics |
| dailycoffee | N | Mean | Std. Deviation | Std. Error Mean |
scale_score | no | 12 | 3.2917 | .52477 | .15149 |
| yes | 7 | 2.5571 | .29921 | .11309 |
Bar Graph
Figure 1. Non-coffee-drinkers show higher aggression levels than coffee-drinkers.
Appendix
List of Survey Questions Used in the Research
Strongly disagree= 1
Disagree=2
Neither agree nor disagree=3
Agree=4
Strongly agree=5
1. I drink coffee at least once a day.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
2. I often get frustrated when I have to stand in a long line to buy coffee.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
3. If I am feeling frustrated then I will express how I feel.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
4. When people annoy me I tell them what I think of them
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
]
5. I can’t help getting into arguments when people disagree with me.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
6. Some of my friends think I am an aggressive person.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
7. I easily get frustrated when things don’t go my way
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
8. I have trouble controlling my temper.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
9. I often exhibit road rage.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
10. I often get frustrated when things don’t go my way.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
11. I have the tendency of getting frustrated when people don’t show up on time.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
T
