Citation

Subramani OS, Parrott DJ, Latzman RD, Washburn DA. Aggressive Behav. 2019; 45(2): 151-160.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, International Society for Research on Aggression, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/ab.21804

PMID

30515840

Abstract

Research has implicated biased attention allocation toward emotional cues as a proximal mechanism in the association between trait disinhibition and physical aggression. The current study tested this putative cognitive mechanism by incentivizing a shift of attention from a provoking stimulus to a neutral stimulus during a laboratory aggression paradigm. Participants were 119 undergraduate men. They completed a questionnaire that assessed trait disinhibition, were randomly assigned to a distraction or no-distraction control condition, and completed a shock-based aggression task in which they received low and high provocation from a fictitious opponent. A significant positive association between trait disinhibition and physical aggression was found among non-distracted participants exposed to high, but not low, provocation. Distraction from provoking cues significantly attenuated this association. This study is among the first to provide experimental evidence of (a) the positive relation between trait disinhibition and laboratory-based physical aggression, and (b) a potential method for attenuating this association.

© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Language: en

Keywords

aggressive behavior; attention; trait disinhibition