Personality, Antisocial Thoughts, & Aggression

描述（由研究者提供）：反社会的想法，比如那些与伤害他人有关的想法，可能在导致攻击行为中起着关键作用。例如，对于媒体暴力对攻击性的影响，一个突出的解释是，媒体暴力增加了攻击性，因为它启动或激活了以反社会行为为中心的思想。一旦被启动，这种反社会的想法更有可能引导人们对新事件的解释以及对自己行为的选择。提出的研究建立在对攻击性的这种认知解释之上。该项目将根据人们对亲社会词和反社会词进行分类的速度来检验个体在攻击性方面的差异。此外，该项目还将研究一个反社会概念在多大程度上启动另一个反社会概念的个体差异，以及痛苦和反社会思想在多大程度上相互关联。个体之间认知过程的差异将与攻击相关特征以及日常生活中的行为和经验相关。该项目还将涉及使用认知测量来预测实验室中的攻击行为，特别是在接触媒体暴力和操纵心理困扰之后。最后，该项目建议通过操纵可能导致攻击行为的认知过程来扩展攻击的认知分析。初步的研究结果表明，这样的研究可能会揭示关于攻击的原因、相关关系和预防的新见解。由于这个原因，这个项目将对有攻击倾向的个体的评估和治疗产生影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by investigator): Antisocial thoughts, such as those related to hurting people, may play a key role in causing aggressive behavior. For example, the prominent explanation for the effect of media violence on aggression proposes that media violence increases aggression because it primes or activates thoughts centered around antisocial actions. Once primed, such antisocial thoughts are more likely to guide in the interpretation of new events as well as the selection of one's actions. The proposed research builds on such a cognitive explanation for aggression. The project will examine individual differences in aggression on the basis of the speed with which people can categorize prosocial and antisocial words. In addition, the project will also examine individual differences in the extent to which one antisocial concept primes another antisocial concept, as well as the extent to which distress and antisocial thoughts are connected. These differences in cognitive processes between individuals will be correlated with aggression-related traits as well as with behavior and experience in everyday life. The project will also involve using cognitive measures to predict aggressive behaviors in the laboratory, particularly following exposure to media violence and manipulations of psychological distress. Finally, the project proposes to extend the cognitive analysis of aggression by manipulating the cognitive processes that may give rise to aggressive behavior. Preliminary findings suggest that such research may reveal new insights about the causes, correlates, and prevention of aggression. For this reason, this project will have implications for the assessment and treatment of aggressive-prone individuals.