Emotions in Social Information Processing and Their Relations With Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Referred Aggressive Boys

TLDR

The study examined how emotional aspects of social information processing relate to reactive and proactive aggression in 54 referred aggressive boys aged 7–13 and a comparison group. Participants listened to peer‑provocation vignettes and answered questions on SIP, emotions, and regulation, while controlling for socially desirable responding, verbal intelligence, and vignette recall. Aggressive boys showed greater hostile intent attribution, higher happiness, lower guilt, more anger, fewer adaptive regulation strategies, more aggressive responses, and less negative evaluation of those responses, and these patterns were linked to reactive and proactive aggression, except that emotion regulation was negatively related to both.

Abstract

We studied emotional aspects of social information processing (SIP) and their specific relations with reactive and proactive aggression in 54 boys ages 7 to 13 who had been referred for aggressive behavior problems and a comparison group. Participants listened to vignettes concerning provocations by peers and answered questions concerning SIP, own and peer's emotions, and emotion regulation. Aggressive boys attributed more hostile intent, happiness, and less guilt; reported more anger; mentioned less adaptive emotion-regulation strategies; generated more aggressive responses; and evaluated aggressive responses less negatively than comparison boys. Hypothesized specific relations with reactive and proactive aggression were found, except for emotion regulation that was negatively related with both kinds of aggression. Potentially confounding effects of socially desirable answering, verbal intelligence, and recall of vignettes were controlled for.