Situational Characteristics And Brain Activation Of Aggressive Judgment In College Students

Aggression and aggressive behavior are hot topics in the field of social cognition.College students are in a critical stage of transition from teenagers to adults.It is very necessary to understand the causes of college students’ aggression and reduce the occurrence of college students’ harmful aggression.The situation an individual is in can have an impact on aggression.Therefore,based on previous studies,this study explores the situational characteristics that induce the judgment of aggression in college students,and uses functional near infrared brain imaging technology to explore the brain activation region of aggression in college students under conflict situations.This study includes two experiments.In experiment 1,behavioral experiment was used to explore the situational characteristics that induce college students to judge aggression,and to explore whether anger is a sufficient and necessary condition for aggression.In experiment 1,a single-factor,three-level(situational characteristics:behavioral conflict situation VS relational conflict situation VS value conflict situation)was used to determine the characteristics of three conflict situations based on the division of interpersonal conflict by Brick and Kelly(1979).The dependent variable was the aggression judgment of the subjects in the situation.The subjects were required to judge the aggression in three situations,that is,to select coping styles,including verbal aggression,physical aggression,indifference and alarm handling.Multiple choices or single choices were available.At the same time,the participants’ anger was measured.The results of experiment 1 found that college students showed significant aggression in the three conflict situations,and the number of verbal attacks was significantly higher than the number of physical attacks.College students have slightly different judgments of aggression in different conflict situations.Specifically,there is no significant difference in verbal aggression,but there is a significant difference in physical aggression.College students report more physical aggression in behavioral conflict situations.At the same time,the results also found that the aggression of college students was accompanied by obvious anger,but when the anger was generated,college students did not necessarily show aggression.In addition,college students in conflict situations reported different levels of anger when they reported verbal aggression and physical aggression,with higher levels of anger when they reported physical aggression.In experiment 2,the situational characteristics of college students’ aggression judgment were determined in experiment 1.By using functional near infrared brain functional imaging technology,the brain activation state of subjects watching video materials in conflict situations was scanned,and the brain activation in the prefrontal and left temporal lobes was mainly investigated.The results of statistical analysis showed that the activation degree of prefrontal cortex(CH3,CH8,CH9)decreased significantly when aggression occurred,while the activation degree of superior temporal gyrus(CH13)increased significantly,indicating that these brain regions were involved in the process of aggression.The differences between verbal aggression and physical aggression were mainly located in the inferior frontal gyrus(CH21,CH22),and the activation degree of these regions in the inferior frontal gyrus was significantly enhanced when reporting verbal aggression.The above results indicate that:(1)Conflict is the situational characteristic that induces the aggressive judgment of college students.The verbal aggression of college students under behavioral conflict,relational conflict and value conflict is consistent,but the physical aggression is different.(2)Anger is a necessary but not sufficient condition for aggression.(3)In conflict situations,college students reported different levels of anger when they reported verbal and physical attacks,and higher levels of anger when they reported physical attacks.(4)In the conflict situation,the activation degree of the prefrontal cortex decreased and the activation degree of the left inferior temporal gyrus increased significantly when the aggression occurred.In conflict situations,the brain activation pattern of verbal aggression was different from that of physical aggression.The difference was mainly concentrated in the inferior frontal gyrus,and the activation degree of the inferior frontal gyrus was significantly enhanced during verbal aggression.