Personality, Antisocial Thoughts, & Aggression

描述(由调查人员提供)：反社会思想，如那些与伤害他人有关的思想，可能在导致攻击性行为方面发挥关键作用。例如，对媒体暴力对攻击性影响的突出解释提出，媒体暴力增加攻击性，因为它激发或激活了以反社会行动为中心的思想。一旦准备就绪，这种反社会的想法更有可能指导对新事件的解释以及对一个人行为的选择。这项拟议的研究建立在对攻击性的认知解释之上。该项目将根据人们对亲社会和反社会词语进行分类的速度来考察攻击性的个体差异。此外，该项目还将考察一个反社会概念在多大程度上激发另一个反社会概念的个体差异，以及痛苦和反社会思想的联系程度。个体之间认知过程的这些差异将与攻击性相关的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性行为，特别是在暴露于媒体暴力和心理痛苦操纵之后。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对攻击的认知分析。初步研究结果表明，这类研究可能会揭示攻击性的原因、相关性和预防的新见解。出于这个原因，该项目将对有攻击性倾向的个人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.