Influence Of Different Components Of Empathy On Aggressive Behavior Of High Trait Anger Individuals

Aggressive behavior has long been a research hotspot as well as difficult problem in the fields of psychology,sociology,criminology,etc.Studies have shown that trait anger not only directly triggers individual's aggressive behavior,but also further influences its aggressive performance through the mediating effect of hostile cognition.However,early Social Information Processing Theory(SIP)and the General Aggression Model(GAM)emphasized one-sided automated cognitive processing of hostile situations,while ignoring the role of individual factors such as emotions in social information processing.Inspired by the Cognitive New Association Theory(CNA),the Emotion-Cognitive Integration Model of Social Information Processing(EC-SIP),and the Integrative Cognitive Model(ICM),researchers began to bring in some non-cognitive variables such as empathy,and explored their impacts on the relationship between anger and aggressive behavior.Empathy is closely related to aggressive behavior.Appropriate empathy can not only improve the probability of prosocial behavior,but also effectively inhibit aggressive behavior.But most previous studies just researched the relationship between empathy and aggressive behavior with regarding empathy as a whole.Recent research shows,empathy has a complex structure.The cognitive and affective components are independent to each other and they have different effects on aggressive behavior.Researchers Davis,Chen Jing,etc.proposed two theoretical situations in which empathy inhibits aggression,that is cognitive and affective empathy inhibit aggressive behavior,but the mechanism of the influence of empathy on aggression has not been discussed in detail.Existing research found that cognitive empathy has a greater inhibitory effect on aggressive behavior than affective empathy.However,the effect of cognitive empathy on aggressive behavior may be affected by the situation.Whether the cognitive empathy is affected by personality trait or induced by situation,when in a situation of medium level threat or lower,it has a good inhibitory effect on aggressive behavior,but when in a high provocative situation,the inhibitory effect weakens or even disappears.In other words,the inhibitory effect of cognitive empathy on aggressive behavior is not stable,especially for high-trait anger individuals.Even if they have high cognitive empathy,aggressive behavior may still occur in many cases.Affective empathy seems to be easier to train and get improved,especially for aggressive male individuals.Thus,improving affective empathy should be an effective way of aggression intervention path for them.Generally speaking,individuals with high trait anger has lower threshold of anger than ordinary people,and show more aggressive behavior in ambiguous hostile situations.So,for individuals with high trait anger,does initiating cognitive empathy or affective empathy in different situations inhibit aggressive behavior? If so,is it true in some certain situations or all situations? These questions have not been explored and discussed by researchers so far.To sum up,based on the Social Information Processing Model(SIP),this study adopted questionnaire as well as behavior experiments to investigate the role of empathy in the system of trait anger-hostile cognition-aggressive behavior with three sub studies.Also,it studied the influence of initiating different components of empathy on aggressive behavior of high trait anger individuals.The results showed that:(1)Trait anger,hostile cognition,and aggressive behavior are significantly positively correlated;cognitive empathy is not significantly correlated with aggressive behavior;Affective empathy is significantly negatively correlated with aggressive behavior.(2)Cognitive empathy plays a moderating role in the system of trait anger,hostile cognition,and aggressive behavior,regulating the first stage and direct effects of the mediation model.(3)Hostile cognition and affective empathy play multiple mediating roles between trait anger and aggressive behavior.(4)Initiating cognitive empathy has a good inhibitory effect on the aggressive behavior of high-trait anger individuals.But this inhibitory effect only happens in situations in which individuals are not provoked.Once they are provoked,cognitive empathy weakens or even disappears.(5)For individuals with both high trait anger and high cognitive empathy,initiating affective empathy can effectively inhibit aggressive behavior in most situations.Firstly,the research results not only enrich the theoretical data for the study of the relationship between empathy and aggressive behavior,but also provide preliminary evidence for the hypothesis of Social Information Processing Model(SIP),that is,empathy influences aggression in the first stage(social cue coding)and the fifth stage(response decision)of SIP;At the same time,the Integrative Cognitive Mode(ICM)is extended,which helps us further understand the mechanism of trait anger on aggressive behaviors and the effect of empathy on aggressive behaviors.Secondly,the research on the effect of empathy on aggressive behavior can provide more targeted evidence to reduce the aggressive behavior of high-trait anger individuals,and provide new ideas for reducing the aggressive behavior of high-trait anger individuals.We have to admit that cognitive empathy has a good inhibitory effect on aggressive behavior.However,the inhibition of cognitive empathy is not stable,especially in provocative situations.For individuals with both high trait anger and high cognitive empathy,improving their affective empathy can effectively inhibit aggressive behavior in most cases.Therefore,we believe that in order to intervene in the aggressive behavior of high-trait anger individuals,it is necessary to enhance the individual's cognitive empathy and affective empathy at the same time to achieve the harmonious combination of them.If cognitive empathy,as a personality trait,is really difficult to improve,considering the improvement of affective empathy of individuals may be an effective measure to intervene the aggressive behavior of high trait anger individuals.