Temperature, aggression, and the negative affect escape model.

Addresses P. A. Bell's (see record 1992-20144-001) comments on C. A. Anderson's (see record 1989-36724-001) review of the temperature–aggression literature. At a global level, all agree that geographic region studies and most time period studies do not cleanly address the question of the functional shape relating temperature to aggression. In addition, all agree that the negative affect escape model warrants additional empirical investigation. At a more specific level, however, numerous inaccuracies and misinterpretations are noted and corrected. The conclusions of the original review are confirmed. Suggestions for new research are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In defense of the negative affect escape model of heat and aggression.

Counters C. A. Anderson's (see record 1989-36724-001) interpretation of data allegedly inconsistent with the curvilinear negative affect escape model of temperature and aggression. Anderson suggests that archival studies support a rectilinear rather than curvilinear model as temperature increases from comfortable to hot and that inconsistencies surrounding curvilinearity lab studies should be resolved in favor of linearity. To the contrary, this article asserts that archival region and time period studies are inconsistent themselves, that most of them are inadequate for testing curvilinearity, and that some of them are consistent with curvilinearity. Moreover, concomitant lab and field studies also provide evidence for a curvilinear relationship that is as robust as the linear relationship ostensibly is in archival studies. Thus, there is much more support for the negative affect escape model, and much less evidence against it, than Anderson has suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the formation and regulation of anger and aggression: A cognitive-neoassociationistic analysis.

Noting that a wide variety of unpleasant feelings, including sadness and depression, apparently can give rise to anger and aggression, I propose a cognitive–neoassociationistic model to account for the effects of negative affect on the development of angry feelings and the display of emotional aggression. Negative affect tends to activate ideas, memories, and expressive–motor reactions associated with anger and aggression as well as rudimentary angry feelings. Subsequent thought involving attributions, appraisals, and schematic conceptions can then intensify, suppress, enrich, or differentiate the initial reactions. Bodily reactions as well as emotion-relevant thoughts can activate the other components of the particular emotion network to which they are linked. Research findings consistent with the model are summarized. Experimental findings are also reported indicating that attention to one's negative feelings can lead to a regulation of the overt effects of the negative affect. I argue that the model can integrate the core aspect of the James-Lange theory with the newer cognitive theories of emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation.

Examines the J. Dollard et al (1939) frustration–aggression hypothesis. The original formulation's main proposition is limited to interference with an expected attainment of a desired goal on hostile (emotional) aggression. Although some studies have yielded negative results, others support the core proposition. Frustrations can create aggressive inclinations even when they are not arbitrary or aimed at the subject personally. Interpretations and attributions can be understood partly in terms of the original analysis but they can also influence the unpleasantness of the thwarting. A proposed revision of the 1939 model holds that frustrations generate aggressive inclinations to the degree that they arouse negative affect. Evidence regarding the aggressive consequences of aversive events is reviewed, and L. Berkowitz's cognitive–neoassociationistic model is summarized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Addiction Motivation Reformulated: An Affective Processing Model of Negative Reinforcement.

This article offers a reformulation of the negative reinforcement model of drug addiction and proposes that the escape and avoidance of negative affect is the prepotent motive for addictive drug use. The authors posit that negative affect is the motivational core of the withdrawal syndrome and argue that, through repeated cycles of drug use and withdrawal, addicted organisms learn to detect interoceptive cues of negative affect preconsciously. Thus, the motivational basis of much drug use is opaque and tends not to reflect cognitive control. When either stressors or abstinence causes negative affect to grow and enter consciousness, increasing negative affect biases information processing in ways that promote renewed drug administration. After explicating their model, the authors address previous critiques of negative reinforcement models in light of their reformulation and review predictions generated by their model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Passionate love and the misattribution of arousal.

Two studies provide evidence that misattribution of arousal facilitates romantic attraction. In Exp I, arousal of 54 male undergraduates was manipulated through exercise. Arousal Ss liked an attractive female confederate more and an unattractive female less than did controls. In Exp II, arousal of 66 Ss was manipulated in a positive (comedy tape) or negative (mutilation tape) way; other Ss heard a nonarousing tape (textbook excerpt). Results replicate the interaction found in Exp I: Valence of initial arousal did not affect attraction to the confederate. Salience of plausible labels for arousal is hypothesized to mediate the misattribution effect. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misattribution and speech anxiety.

30 high-speech-anxious and 30 low-speech-anxious Ss participated in an experiment to test the hypothesis that misattribution would reduce the anxiety of speech-anxious Ss. The present study crosscut misattribution vs no misattribution (control) and high vs low speech anxiety and assessed the impact on Ss' nervous behavior and subsequent speech making. The misattribution concerning bodily preparation for Ss' speech-making events was delivered verbally to 15 speech-anxious and 15 nonanxious Ss prior to their speeches. Results show that misattribution did not significantly affect the behavior of Ss making speeches. Implications for misattribution when personality traits are involved are discussed. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ambient temperature and violent crime: Tests of the linear and curvilinear hypotheses.

Laboratory research on the effects of temperature has led P. A. Bell and R. A. Baron (see record 1976-27853-001) to propose a curvilinear model relating negative affect and aggression. Two alternative explanations, one artifactual and the other based on attributions for arousal, are presented that predict a linear relationship between temperature and aggression in real-world settings. Two studies examining the relation of violent crime to ambient temperature over 90 summer days in Chicago and over a 2-yr period in Houston both yielded linear relationships and revealed significant day-of-the-week effects. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The aggression paradox: Understanding links among aggression, sensation seeking, and the consideration of future consequences.

Four studies involving 573 female and 272 male college students demonstrated that multiple forms and measures of aggression were associated with high levels of sensation seeking, impulsivity, and a focus on the immediate consequences of behavior. Multiple regression analyses and structural equation models supported a theoretical model based on the general aggression model (C. A. Anderson & B. J. Bushman, 2002), positing that hostile cognition and negative affect mediate the relationships between the aforementioned individual differences and aggression. Sensation seeking also predicted a desire to engage in physical and verbal aggression. The final study demonstrated that relative to those scoring low, individuals scoring high on the consideration of future consequences are only less aggressive when aggression is likely to carry future costs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Violence is a curvilinear function of temperature in Dallas: A replication.

Data on weather and aggravated assaults were obtained to determine whether the curvilinear relationship between temperature and violence previously observed in Minneapolis, Minnesota (E. G. Cohn & J. Rotton, 1997), could be replicated. The data consisted of calls for services received by police in Dallas between January 1, 1994, and December 31, 1995. Controlling for holidays, school closings, time of day, day of the week, season of the year, and their interactions, moderator-variable autoregression analyses indicated that assaults were an inverted U-shaped function of temperature. Replicating past research, the curvilinear relationship was dominant during daylight hours and spring months, whereas linear relationships were observed during nighttime hours and other seasons. The results are interpreted in terms of routine activity theory and the negative affect escape model of aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facial affect processing and depression susceptibility: Cognitive biases and cognitive neuroscience.

Facial affect processing is essential to social development and functioning and is particularly relevant to models of depression. Although cognitive and interpersonal theories have long described different pathways to depression, cognitive-interpersonal and evolutionary social risk models of depression focus on the interrelation of interpersonal experience, cognition, and social behavior. We therefore review the burgeoning depressive facial affect processing literature and examine its potential for integrating disciplines, theories, and research. In particular, we evaluate studies in which information processing or cognitive neuroscience paradigms were used to assess facial affect processing in depressed and depression-susceptible populations. Most studies have assessed and supported cognitive models. This research suggests that depressed and depression-vulnerable groups show abnormal facial affect interpretation, attention, and memory, although findings vary based on depression severity, comorbid anxiety, or length of time faces are viewed. Facial affect processing biases appear to correspond with distinct neural activity patterns and increased depressive emotion and thought. Biases typically emerge in depressed moods but are occasionally found in the absence of such moods. Indirect evidence suggests that childhood neglect might cultivate abnormal facial affect processing, which can impede social functioning in ways consistent with cognitive-interpersonal and interpersonal models. However, reviewed studies provide mixed support for the social risk model prediction that depressive states prompt cognitive hypervigilance to social threat information. We recommend prospective interdisciplinary research examining whether facial affect processing abnormalities promote—or are promoted by—depressogenic attachment experiences, negative thinking, and social dysfunction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suicide as escape from self.

Suicide is analyzed in terms of motivations to escape from aversive self-awareness. The causal chain begins with events that fall severely short of standards and expectations. These failures are attributed internally, which makes self-awareness painful. Awareness of the self's inadequacies generates negative affect, and the individual therefore desires to escape from self-awareness and the associated affect. The person tries to achieve a state of cognitive deconstruction (constricted temporal focus, concrete thinking, immediate or proximal goals, cognitive rigidity, and rejection of meaning), which helps prevent meaningful self-awareness and emotion. The deconstructed state brings irrationality and disinhibition, making drastic measures seem acceptable. Suicide can be seen as an ultimate step in the effort to escape from self and world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The seven sins of memory: Insights from psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Examines how and why memory can get us into trouble. It is suggested that memory's misdeeds can be classified into 7 basic "sins": transience, absentmindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. The first 3 sins involve different types of forgetting, the next 3 refer to different types of distortions, and the final sin concerns intrusive recollections that are difficult to forget. Evidence is reviewed concerning each of the 7 sins from relevant sectors of psychology (cognitive, social, and clinical) and from cognitive neuroscience studies that include patients with focal brain damage or make use of recently developed neuroimaging techniques. Although the 7 sins may appear to reflect flaws in system design, it is argued instead that they are by-products of otherwise adaptive features of memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An inkblot for attitudes: Affect misattribution as implicit measurement.

Misattributions people make about their own affective reactions can be used to measure attitudes implicitly. Combining the logic of projective tests with advances in priming research, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was sensitive to normatively favorable and unfavorable evaluations (Experiments 1-4), and the misattribution effect was strong at both fast and slow presentation rates (Experiments 3 and 4). Providing further evidence of validity, the AMP was strongly related to individual differences in self-reported political attitudes and voting intentions (Experiment 5). In the socially sensitive domain of racial attitudes, the AMP showed in-group bias for Black and White participants. AMP performance correlated with explicit racial attitudes, a relationship that was moderated by motivations to control prejudice (Experiment 6). Across studies, the task was unaffected by direct warnings to avoid bias. Advantages of the AMP include large effect sizes, high reliability, ease of use, and resistance to correction attempts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How Positive Affect Modulates Cognitive Control: Reduced Perseveration at the Cost of Increased Distractibility.

A fundamental problem that organisms face in a changing environment is how to regulate dynamically the balance between stable maintenance and flexible switching of goals and cognitive sets. The authors show that positive affect plays an important role in the regulation of this stability-flexibility balance. In a cognitive set-switching paradigm, the induction of mild increases in positive affect, as compared with neutral or negative affect, promoted cognitive flexibility and reduced perseveration, but also incurred a cost in terms of increased distractibility. Rather than influencing set switching in an unspecific way, positive affect thus exerted opposite effects on perseveration and distractibility. Results are consistent with neuropsychological models according to which effects of positive affect on cognitive control are mediated by increased dopamine levels in frontal brain areas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How does cognitive control reduce anger and aggression? The role of conflict monitoring and forgiveness processes.

It is well-established that superior cognitive control abilities are associated with lower levels of anger and aggression. However, the precise emotion regulation operations underlying this relationship have been underspecified and underexplored in previous research. Drawing on neuropsychological models of cognitive control, the authors propose that limited capacity resources can be recruited within a hostile situation to promote a process of forgiveness. The results of 2 studies supported this proposal. Across studies, individual differences in hostility-primed cognitive control were assessed implicitly. In Study 1, hostility-primed cognitive control predicted less aggressive behavior in response to a laboratory provocation. Moreover, forgiveness mediated these effects. In Study 2, hostility-primed cognitive control predicted forgiveness of provocations in participants' daily lives and subsequent reductions in anger. In sum, the results contribute to a systematic understanding of how cognitive control leads to lower levels of anger and aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cross-cultural study of the psychometric properties of the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire among Italian nonclinical adolescents.

Five independent studies were used to test the hypothesis that a reliable 2-factor structure underlies the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ) items and that the 2 scales show distinct patterns of association with personality and bullying behavior measures. Study 1 (N = 1,447) gave evidence of a clear 2-factor structure of RPQ items with factor loading matrices closely matching reactive (congruence coefficient = .90) and proactive (congruence coefficient = .91) models of item assignment. The RPQ 2-factor structure was consistently replicated in Study 2 (N = 662), as well as across the remaining 3 studies. In Study 3 (N = 536), Neuroticism differentiated reactive and proactive forms of aggression. In Study 4 (N = 674), self-reports of bullying behaviors were selectively correlated with proactive aggression. Findings confirm and extend the differential correlates of proactive–reactive aggression and also support the psychometric properties of the RPQ in a different cultural context. Finally, in Study 5 (N = 347), the RPQ scales showed adequate 2-month test–retest reliability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive controls and aggression in children: The concept of cognitive–affective balance.

160 6–15 yr old psychiatric patients (97 males, 63 females) were assigned to high- or low-aggression groups on the basis of their performance on the Miniature Situations Test. The majority of Ss were diagnosed as having attention deficit, conduct, and anxiety disorders; the remaining Ss were diagnosed as having borderline or psychotic disorders. The groups (along with age and sex variables) were compared with 2 tests of the leveling/sharpening cognitive control—one presenting nonaggressive stimuli and the other stimuli that aroused aggressive fantasies/affects. High-aggression Ss showed more cognitive sharpening when managing aggressive stimuli and more leveling with nonaggressive stimuli. A significant interaction with sex was also observed. Findings support the concept of cognitive–affective balance (i.e., the unique manner in which personalities coordinate and meet both the requirements of external stimuli/tasks and those of fantasies/affects). Results are discussed in terms of aggression as a personality characteristic and whether psychosexual identity and sex are syntonic. The concept of cognitive–affective balance is related to other models addressing the relationship between cognition and personality/emotions. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cannabis: Review of behavioral effects in animals.

Reviews research studies concerning the action of cannabis and its derivatives on numerous aspects of animal behavior. These aspects include spontaneous activity; escape and avoidance behavior; schedule-controlled behavior; state-dependent learning; miscellaneous appetitively and nonappetitively motivated behavior; food and water intake; and aggression. Disparate findings are discussed and attributed mainly to differences in dosage and experimental procedure. It is suggested that in a number of instances the effects of cannabis are similar to those of anticholinergic drugs. (4 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender differences in aggression as a function of provocation: A meta-analysis.

In this article, we meta-analytically examine experimental studies to assess the moderating effect of provocation on gender differences in aggression. Convergent evidence shows that, whereas unprovoked men are more aggressive than women, provocation markedly attenuates this gender difference. Gender differences in appraisals of provocation intensity and fear of danger from retaliation (but not negative affect) partially mediate the attenuating effect of provocation. However, they do not entirely account for its manipulated effect. Type of provocation and other contextual variables also affect the magnitude of gender differences in aggression. The results support a social role analysis of gender differences in aggression and counter A. H. Eagly and V. Steffen's (see record 1987-10140-001) meta-analytic inability to confirm an attenuating effect of provocation on gender differences in aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)