Relations between aggression, social cognition, and physiological response in a proactive aggression condition.

• Main Author: Chan, Wei Teng.
• Other Authors: Joyce Pang Shu Min
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology::Motivation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/50890
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Aggression can be categorized into two types: reactive (RA) and proactive aggression (PA). RA and PA have differential behavioral, social-cognitive, and physiological correlates. This study aims to investigate (1) how trait-RA and trait-PA differ from each other in terms of their social-cognitive and physiological correlates, and (2) how trait aggression, socialcognitive, and physiological correlates relate to the behavioral aggressive responses in an experiment where participants’ proactive aggression was aroused. Forty-five undergraduates (18 males, 27 females, Mage = 21.18 years old) participated in this study. In the experiment, participants were led to believe that they were in a competitive game and they could win the game by delivering noise shocks to affect their competitor’s performance. Results indicated that trait-RA was not significantly related to hostile attribution and trait-PA was not significantly related to anticipating positive outcomes of aggression. Both trait-RA and trait-PA were also not related to heart rate. Trait-PA was significantly related to expectations for tangible rewards, peer approval, victim suffering, and adult approval while trait-RA was related to expectations for adult approval. After being aroused, participants who score higher trait-PA were more likely to administer noise shocks to their competitors and this relationship was moderated by expectations for adult and peer approval. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.