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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