The Influence Of Trait Anger On Aggressive Behavior And The Moderated Effect Of Cognitive Reappraisal

As a kind of product of evolution,aggressive behavior enables individuals to obtain more resources and higher social status.However,at the same time,it causes a lot of adverse effects,such as damaging physical and mental health and interpersonal relationship,and even leading to violent crime which is a major threat to social stability.The General Aggression Model(GAM)posits that trait factors(e.g.trait anger)influence aggressive behavior through the interaction with situational factors.However,so far,there is not enough empirical study to reveal the behavioral patterns and neural mechanisms of the effect of trait anger on aggressive behavior.In addition,the Integrative Cognitive Model(ICM)further argues that cognitive reappraisal as one factor of effort control can reduce the aggressive behavior by adjusting the hostile interpretation in the hostile situations,which lack empirical proof,too.Based on these,this study aimed at normal individuals and used a modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm(TAP)to explore the relationship among them.First,we examined the effect of individuals' trait anger score on aggressive behavior and the moderated effect of cognitive reappraisal.Then we chose individuals who scores high or low in trait anger to explore the differences of brain activity between them and the influence of cognitive reappraisal instruction on brain activity in the TAP.In the first study,we measured participations' score of trait anger and randomly assigned them to control group or cognitive reappraisal group to investigate the effect of trait anger scores on punishment selection and decision time,competition reaction time and state anger self-ratings during TAP under the different instruction.The resultsindicated that:(1)in the decision phase,there was a significant correlation between anger-reaction and aggressive behavior under the provocation condition and cognitive reappraisal reduced aggressive behavior under the provocation condition.In addition,cognitive reappraisal moderated the effect of trait anger on aggressive behavior,specifically,for individuals in the control group,with the increase of anger-reaction the aggressive behavior under the provocation condition increased significantly,while there is no same effect for individuals in the cognitive reappraisal group.(2)In the feedback phase,trait anger significantly predicted the state anger after receiving feedback,and cognitive reappraisal reduced state anger.(3)Compared with nonprovocation condition,individuals' decision time is longer and competition reaction time is shorter under the provocation condition.In the second study,we chose participants with high and low trait anger and randomly assigned them to control group or cognitive reappraisal group to investigate the influences of trait anger and cognitive reappraisal on the brain activity during TAP.The behavior results indicated that:(1)in the decision phase,trait anger predicted aggressive behavior under the provocative situation while the main effect of cognitive reappraisal and the interaction between trait anger and cognitive reappraisal were not significantly.(2)In the competition phase,the competition reaction time of participants in cognitive reappraisal group is shorter than control group.The f MRI results indicated that:(1)in the decision phase,the brain activations about theory of mind is significantly different between high and low trait anger participants;cognitive reappraisal decreased the activation related to anger,emotion recognition,conflict monitoring and theory of mind,including the postcentral gyrus,anterior cingulate cortex,orbital frontal gyrus,precuneus and other brain regions;the interaction effect indicated that cognitive reappraisal reduced the activation of visual areas in high trait anger participants.(2)In the feedback phase,compared with lost feedback,when receiving won feedback,the activation related to reward such as caudate nucleus was greater while the activation related to negative stimulus such as insula was greater when received lost feedback than won feedback.In addition,when received won feedback,the brain related to theory of mind was activated greater for the high trait anger participation than low trait anger participations;cognitive reappraisal increased the activation level of pain center;the interaction effect showed that cognitive reappraisal increased the activation of prefrontalcortex for the high trait anger individuals.When received lost feedback,cognitive reappraisal increased the activation level of prefrontal cortex and other brain regions related to inhibition control.Above all,under the provocative condition,trait anger produced influences for aggressive behavior in the behavior and neural level.Furthermore,cognitive reappraisal instruction moderated this effect.