Causes of Aggressive Action Due to Dispositional Aggressiveness: Implications of Provocation and Self-Regulation Resource

Abstract

Do extremely aggressive individuals attack their partners during all interactions? Previous studies based on romantic partners' interaction suggested stronger association between dispositional aggressiveness and aggressive behavior in cases of prominent provocation and lower self-regulation resources. We conducted an interaction experiment with 64 undergraduates. After completing a questionnaire on aggressiveness, the participants played video games with either uncooperative/cooperative partners and then performed a counting task requiring complete attention. Following these tasks, participants were asked to recommend the level of an unpalatable drink to be served to their game partners. A hierarchical binomial logistic regression analysis revealed that dispositional aggressiveness was an especially robust predictor of serving unpalatable drinks among people characterized with both weak inhibition (spent long time on the attention control task) and greater provocation (uncooperative partners). These results extended the previous studies generalizability from romantic to nonromantic relationships.