Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2024-04-24
Abstract： Aggressive behavior serves a certain adaptive function, which may directly manifest in the emotional experience of the aggressor. Numerous experimental studies have found that individual aggressive behavior can enhance positive emotions. The reinforcement model of aggression, from the perspective of group evolution, provides theoretical support for these findings, suggesting that throughout human evolution, aggressive behavior became intrinsically rewarding as it frequently became associated with external benefits. However, experimental studies may suffer from issues of ecological validity, as non-adaptive features of aggressive behavior tend to be more prominent in real-life situations. Baumeister and Campbell’s perspective, along with their proposed opponent-process theory, emphasizes the maladaptive effects of aggression on emotions. As trait aggression increases, negative emotions during aggressive episodes gradually diminish, and positive emotions gradually intensify. This study, grounded in the two aforementioned theories, investigated the impact of individual aggressive behavior on emotional experiences and the moderating role of trait aggression, both in laboratory and real-life settings./t/nIn Study 1, we recruited 170 college students for an experiment. Participants initially completed the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule(PANAS) to measure baseline emotions, then engaged in the Competitive Reaction-Time Task. After the task, participants reported their emotional experiences during successful noise blasts using PANAS and completed the Angry Aggression Scale. Hierarchical regression analysis was employed to examine the influence of aggressive behavior on emotions and the moderating effect of trait aggression. In Study 2, we recruited 154 college students for a 10-day, five times a day experience sampling measurement. During each measurement, participants reflected on their experiences in the last 30 minutes and completed the Aggression-ES-A along with measures of PANAS. Multi-level regression models were fitted to analyze the relationship between individual aggressive behavior and emotional experiences, as well as the cross-level moderating effect of trait aggression./t/nThe results of Study 1 indicated that aggressive behavior positively predicted individuals’ positive emotions and had no significant association with negative emotions. The moderating effect of trait aggression on the associations was not significant. The results of Study 2 revealed that in real-life situations, individual aggressive behavior negatively predicted positive emotions and positively predicted negative emotions. Trait aggression played a moderating role in the aforementioned associations, specifically manifesting as an increase in trait aggression was associated with a gradual increase in the slope of the former and a gradual decrease in the slope of the latter./t/nFrom the two studies, the following conclusions can be drawn: (1) In laboratory situations, aggressive behavior has an adaptive impact on individuals’ emotional experiences, primarily by enhancing positive emotions. (2) In daily life, the impact of aggressive behavior on emotions exhibits non-adaptive characteristics, resulting in a reduction in positive emotions and an increase in negative emotions. Trait aggression moderates this effect, with an increase in trait aggression gradually eliminating the non-adaptive impact of aggressive behavior on emotions and beginning to reveal its positive impact on positive emotions. This study, from an emotional perspective, reflects the adaptive significance of aggression: at the laboratory level, aggressive activities can directly generate a pleasurable effect, and in real-life situations, with an increase in trait aggression, the pleasurable aspect of aggressive behavior begins to appear.
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Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Aggression can make individuals produce positive emotions, that is, aggression has a pleasant effect. This is not only directly reflected in the individual’s emotional experience of aggressive behavior, but also reflected in the association between some personality traits and aggression. In addition, it is also supported by neuroimaging studies about aggression. The opponent-process theory and the reinforcement model of aggression explain the psychological causes of this effect from two different perspectives: individual’s change and group’s evolution. This effect can consolidate the pattern of individual’s aggressive behavior, which further enriches the meta-theoretical framework of aggressive behavior. The above analysis indicates that cathartic therapy should be used carefully in the intervention of people with high aggressive tendency, and suggests that there may be similarities in the psychological causes of aggressive behavior and addictive behavior. In the future, emotional measurement tools should be improved to clarify the dynamic changes of emotions during aggression. It is also necessary to further explore the influencing factors of aggression’s pleasant effect and improve the ecological validity of the research.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Emotion is considered to be an important factor affecting aggressive behavior. According to emotion regulation theory, distressed people hope to improve their moods, and the motivation to use aggression to improve mood will increase aggressive behavior. In other words, the expectation of emotions is an important factor in the generation of aggressive behavior. Previous theories and studies mostly focused on the role of negative emotions such as anger in aggressive behavior. Recently, some researchers believe that positive affect plays an equally important role in aggression. Also, negative and positive affect are orthogonal, they should be studied separately. In addition, according to the purpose of aggression, it is often divided into premeditated/ proactive aggression and impulsive/reactive aggression, the mechanism between the two subtypes may exist differences. Finally, most of the previous studies used college students as participants, and the external validity is limited. The present study based on emotion regulation theory, selected violent offenders as participants to explore the role of negative/positive affect in proactive and reactive aggression with 2 studies. In study 1, we recruited 88 violent offenders for a scenario-based experiment. Participants were randomly divided into a reactive aggression group (n = 46) and a proactive aggression group (n = 42) in the adapted reaction time competition paradigm (Taylor Aggression Paradigm). Participants finished the first stage to manipulate types of aggression. Participants were told to compete with another participant (a fake participant) in racing the speed of reactions. In the reactive aggression group, participants lost the game and received negative feedback from their rivals; in the proactive aggression group, participants won the game and received positive feedback from their rivals. Then, they completed the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and the questionnaire of emotion regulation motive. Finally, they finished the second stage in which they could send noises to their rivals, which can be considered as an aggressive indicator. Model 4 of Process in SPSS 23.0 was used to test the mediating role of emotion regulation motive between negative/positive affect and aggression. Participants finished PANAS after the second stage for study 2. Repeated measures ANOVA and regression analysis were used to test the change of emotion before and after aggression. Study 1 showed that the motivation to improve mood played a mediating role between negative emotion and proactive/reactive aggression, but the effect was not significant for positive emotion. Study 2 showed that positive emotions would increase after proactive and reactive aggression; reactive aggression could reduce negative emotions, while proactive aggression could increase negative emotions. The following conclusions can be obtained from the two experiments: (1) In a negative emotional state, violent offenders hope to improve their mood by conducting aggressive behavior. (2) Proactive and reactive aggression can increase the positive emotions of violent offenders, indicating that aggression can produce pleasure. (3) Reactive aggression can reduce negative emotions; proactive aggression can increase the negative emotions of violent criminals. The present study illustrates the relationship between emotion, especially positive emotion, and aggressive behavior in violent offenders. Aggression can produce pleasure, but it may also increase negative emotions, which in turn increases aggressive behavior, forming a feedback loop, which reflects the non-adaptive of aggressive behavior from the perspective of emotion. In practice, especially in prison, we should help individuals to learn a reasonable way to regulate their emotions, such as mindfulness.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-12-04
Abstract：
Aggression can make individuals produce positive emotions, that is, aggression has a pleasant effect. This is not only directly reflected in the individual’s emotional experience of aggressive behavior, but also reflected in the association between some personality traits and aggression. In addition, it is also supported by neuroimaging studies about aggression. The opponent-process theory and the reinforcement model of aggression explain the psychological causes of this effect from two different perspectives: individual’s change and group’s evolution. This effect can consolidate the pattern of individual’s aggressive behavior, which further enriches the meta-theoretical framework of aggressive behavior. The above analysis indicates that cathartic therapy should be used carefully in the intervention of people with high aggressive tendency, and suggests that there may be similarities in the psychological causes of aggressive behavior and addictive behavior. In the future, emotional measurement tools should be improved to clarify the dynamic changes of emotions during aggression. It is also necessary to further explore the influencing factors of aggression’s pleasant effect and improve the ecological validity of the research.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Personality Psychology submitted time 2021-10-23
Abstract： Emotion is considered to be an important factor affecting aggressive behavior. According to emotion regulation theory, distressed people hope to improve their moods，and the motivation to use aggression to improve mood will increase aggressive behavior. In other words, the expectation of emotions is an important factor in the generation of aggressive behavior. Previous theories and studies mostly focused on the role of negative emotions such as anger in aggressive behavior. Recently, some researchers believe that positive affect plays an equally important role in aggression. Also， negative and positive affect are orthogonal, they should be studied separately. In addition, according to the purpose of aggression, it is often divided into premeditated/ proactive aggression and impulsive/reactive aggression, the mechanism between the two subtypes may exist differences. Finally, most of the previous studies used college students as participants, and the external validity is limited. The present study based on emotion regulation theory, selected violent offenders as participants to explore the role of negative/positive affect in proactive and reactive aggression with 2 studies. In study 1, we recruited 88 violent offenders for scenario–based experiment. Participants were randomly divided into a reactive aggression group (n = 46) and a proactive aggression group (n = 42) in the adapted reaction time competition paradigm (Taylor Aggression Paradigm). Participants finished the first stage to manipulate types of aggression. Participants were told to compete with another participant (a fake participant) in racing the speed of reactions. In the reactive aggression group, participants lost the game and received negative feedback from their rivals; in the proactive aggression group, participants won the game and received positive feedback from their rivals. Then, they completed the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and the questionnaire of emotion regulation motive. Finally, they finished the second stage in which they could send their rivals’ noises, which can be considered as the aggressive indicator. Model 4 of Process was used to test the mediating role of emotion regulation motive between negative/positive affect and aggression. Participants finished PANAS after second stage for study 2. Repeated measures ANOVA and regression analysis were used to test the change of emotion before and after aggression. Study 1 showed that the motivation to improve mood played a mediating role between negative emotion and proactive/reactive aggression, but the effect was not significant for positive emotion. Study 2 showed that positive emotions would increase after proactive and reactive aggression; reactive aggression could reduce negative emotions, while proactive aggression could increase negative emotions. The following conclusions can be obtained from the two experiments: (1) In the negative emotions, violent offenders hope to improve their mood by conducting aggressive behavior. (2) Proactive and reactive aggression can increase the positive emotions of violent offenders, indicating that aggression can produce pleasure. (3) Reactive aggression can reduce the negative emotions; proactive aggression can increase the negative emotions of violent criminals. The present study illustrates the relationship between emotion, especially positive emotion and aggressive behavior in violent offenders. Aggression can produce pleasure, but it may also increase negative emotions, which in turn increases aggressive behavior, forming a feedback loop, which reflects the non-adaptive of aggressive behavior from the perspective of emotion. In practice, especially in prison, we should help individuals to learn a reasonable way to regulate their emotions，such as mindfulness. "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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