Previous research supports the idea that individuals high in trait anger tend to experience more hostile attribution bias. According to the Integrative Cognitive Model, cognitive factors, such as rumination, may increase the risk of hostile attribution bias and any subsequent aggressive behaviors. Sex differences are apparent in rumination and anger expression. The present research explored the potential role trait rumination plays in hostile attribution bias as well as potential conditional effects of sex on this relationship. Participants were asked to complete a number of self-report measures and vignettes of ambiguously hostile situations adapted to improve reliability. Hypotheses were largely supported and trait anger rumination was significantly predictive of hostile attribution bias; however, conditional effects of sex were non-significant. The adapted hostile attribution bias measure had improved reliability and may have utility for a survey-based method to assessing hostile attribution bias. Findings may further our understanding of hostile interpretations and potential for subsequent aggressive behaviors in high trait ruminators in ambiguous situations as well as lead to potential areas of intervention to reduce anger and anger rumination.

Background: The long-term detrimental impact of childhood emotional maltreatment is being increasingly recognised in the empirical literature. Adulthood trait-aggression is one proposed outcome of childhood emotional maltreatment. However, the pathways by which emotional maltreatment leads to trait-aggression are not well understood. Method: A systematic review was conducted to appraise the current empirical evidence base regarding the relationship between childhood emotional maltreatment and adulthood trait-aggression. Eighteen studies were reviewed and their quality analysed based on a number of pre-defined criteria. An empirical study was conducted using a cross-sectional, survey based design to evaluate hostile attribution bias and emotion regulation difficulties as mediators between childhood emotional maltreatment and adulthood trait-aggression. Participants were men (N = 42) recruited from NHS Forensic Mental Health Services. Results: Results from the systematic review provided support for a positive and significant association between childhood emotional abuse and adulthood traitaggression. There was evidence to indicate that childhood emotional neglect was also positively associated with adulthood trait-aggression, however, only a small number of studies have examined this relationship. The empirical study found significant indirect effects of childhood emotional abuse on self-reported aggression through emotion regulation difficulties. Emotion regulation difficulties did not have a significant effect on the relationship between childhood emotional neglect and aggression. Hostile attribution bias was not found to significantly mediate the relationship between either emotional abuse and aggression or emotional neglect and aggression. Conclusion: Those who experience emotional maltreatment during childhood may be at increased likelihood of engaging in aggressive behaviour in adulthood. Emotion regulation difficulties may play a key role in the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and aggression and this should be taken into consideration when assessing and treating adults who have difficulties with aggression. The routes by which emotional neglect and emotional abuse lead to aggression may differ. Further research is required to better understand the processes which lead from emotional maltreatment to aggression, particularly with regards to emotional neglect.

Research on factors that contribute to the forms and functions of aggression (reactive, proactive, relational, and overt) is important for informing intervention efforts with aggressive youth. Previous research shows that aggressive youth often have cognitive and social deficits associated with their aggressive behavior. For example, aggressive youth may exhibit deficits in social variables such as social intelligence (i.e., the understanding of behaviors of people and ability to predict outcomes of situations). Hypothetically, this lack of social intelligence may be related to how youth interpret social situations, and could conceivably lead to hostile attributional bias, or the tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as hostile. The main purpose of this study was to examine whether HAB mediated the relationship between social intelligence and reactive relational aggression in a sample of detained adolescent boys (ages 12-18). The results failed to support this hypothesis. Supplemental analyses explored whether HAB moderated the relationship between social intelligence and the subtypes of aggression, but results were not consistent with this hypothesis.

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Contexte : Bien que l'hostilité et l'agressivité ne soient pas essentielles au diagnostic de la dépression, ces symptômes se sont révélés être très prévalents chez les patients déprimés et sont associés à des niveaux de comorbidité et de sévérité de la maladie plus élevés. En outre, des études ont montré que la dépression est associée de manière significative à des biais d’interprétation négatifs et que, selon les théories cognitives de la dépression, ces biais peuvent représenter un facteur de risque considérable pour l’apparition et/ou le maintien de la maladie. Alors que les biais d'interprétation négatifs soient reconnus comme un élément fondamental des modèles cognitifs de la dépression, peu d'études ont examiné les biais spécifiques du traitement de l'information, notamment le biais d’attribution d’intention hostile, chez des individus hostiles présentant des symptômes dépressifs. Méthodologie : À l'aide de données pré-recueillies auprès d'un échantillon de 72 (hommes = 41,6%, femmes = 58,3%) participants hostiles (n = 26) et non hostiles (n = 46), cette étude visait à examiner l'association entre la dépression et le biais d'attribution d’intention hostile en déterminant si les scores de niveau de dépression étaient liés de manière unique aux mesures électrophysiologiques du biais d'attribution hostile. Résultats : Le groupe hostile a montré des niveaux de dépression et d'agressivité réactive plus élevés que le groupe non hostile. En outre, les scores de dépression étaient des prédicteurs significatifs de l'effet N400 dans la condition non hostile, alors que l'agressivité réactive ne l'était pas, tandis que dans la condition hostile, le modèle global s’est avéré significatif, avec des niveaux de dépression et d'agressivité réactive montrant tous deux de fortes tendances vers la signification. Limites : Une petite taille d'échantillon a limité la portée des conclusions de l’étude. De plus, la sélection de l’échantillon n’a pas permis d'examiner les différences de groupe spécifiques concernant le biais d'attribution hostile dans les groupes déprimés et non déprimés. Conclusion : ii Cette étude souligne l’importance de mieux comprendre les mécanismes de perception associés à la dépression et d'envisager l'application de techniques de restructuration cognitive pour contrer les processus d'interprétation biaisés dans des contextes où la dépression et l'agression se croisent. Cette étude suggère également que des alternatives aux méthodologies d'auto évaluation pourraient être plus utiles lors de l'évaluation des processus automatiques et implicites. / Background: Hostility and aggression have been found to be highly prevalent among depressed patients and are associated with higher comorbidity and illness severity levels. Although negative interpretation biases are a fundamental element of cognitive models of depression, few studies have examined the specific biases in information processing, mainly the hostile attribution bias, found in hostile individuals who present depressive symptoms. Method: Using pre-collected data from a sample of 72 (male=41,6%, female=58,3%) undergraduate and community-based hostile (n=26) and non-hostile (n=46) adult participants, the authors aimed to examine the association between depression and the hostile attribution bias by determining whether depression level scores were uniquely related to electrophysiological measures of the hostile attribution bias. Results: The hostile group showed higher measured levels of depression and reactive aggression, compared to the non-hostile group. Also, depression scores were significant predictors of the N400 effect in the non-hostile condition, while reactive aggression was not, whereas in the hostile condition, the overall model was significant, with depression and reactive aggression levels both showing strong trends towards significance. Limitations: A small sample size limited the scope of our conclusions. Also, sample selection prevented the authors from examining specific group differences regarding the hostile attribution bias in depressed and non-depressed groups. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of better understanding the perception mechanisms that are associated with depression and to consider the application of cognitive restructuring techniques to counter biased interpretation processes in settings where depression and aggression intersect. This study also suggests that alternatives to self-evaluative methodologies might be more useful when assessing automatic and implicit processes.

Background: Anxiety disorders constitute the most prevalent subgroup of mental health conditions. While anxious individuals are more widely known as being socially withdrawn and shy, recent research highlights a rather non-prototypical image, one that is aggressive. The main goal of this event-related brain potentials (ERPs) study is to augment our knowledge of the neurophysiological responding of hostile attribution biases of anxious individuals to ambiguous situations. Methods: Using pre-collected data from a sample of 68 undergraduate and community-based adult participants, this study aims to explore the N400 deflection utilising Gagnon et al.’s (2016) Hostile Expectancy Violation Paradigm with anxious individuals, and whether the N400 deflection persists after controlling for aggression. Results: A more negative amplitude was observed in response to a critical word that mismatched rather than matched with the character’s expected hostile intention. Regression analyses revealed that anxiety scores negatively predicted the N400 following the mismatched expected hostile intention while controlling for reactive aggression suggesting that the violation of hostile expectancy about the intention behind an ambiguous provocative behavior is more pronounced among anxious participants. Conversely, in the hostile condition, the overall model was significant, although anxiety scores did not account for the overall effect, reactive aggression did. Conclusion: This study provides preliminary evidence that anxiety symptoms are uniquely related to hostile attribution bias independent of reactive aggression. Future research should aim to replicate these findings with a clinically diagnosed sample of individuals with anxiety disorders. / Contexte : Les troubles anxieux constituent un sous-groupe le plus répandu dans les conditions de santé mentales. Malgré cette prévalence, ils ne reçoivent pas la même reconnaissance en raison des comorbidités, une étiologie inconnu et une manque de traitement spécifique. Récemment, la littérature scientifique s'est concentré sur la neuro-imageries de l`anxiété. Par contre, une compréhension plus complète sur comment l'électrophysiologie et le stress interagissent et mène aux symptômes de l’anxiété est requis. Méthodologie : À l'aide de données pré-recueillies auprès d'un échantillon de 68 participants, cette étude visait à étudier la déflexion N400 en utilisant le Paradigme de la Violation d'Espérance Hostile de Gagnon et al. (2016) chez les individus adultes présentant de l'anxiété. Résultats : dans la condition non-hostile, nous avons observez une déflection négative significative du N400 chez les individus qui ont un score de BIAH plus élevée, en contrôlant pour l’agressivité. Les analyses de régressions ont démontré une déflection négative du N400. En d’autres mots, les adultes qui ont plus d'anxiété étaient surpris suivant un contexte hostile et une intention non hostile car il s'attendait à une contexte hostile. Tandis que dans la condition hostile, le modèle global s’est avéré significatif, par contre l’agressivité réactive a tenu compte de l'effet global et n’ont pas les scores d’anxiétés. Conclusion : À notre connaissances, aucune articles scientifiques à explorer le BAIH avec des mesures électrophysiologique du cerveaux, comme preuve des influences des symptômes d'anxiété sur la cognition. Cette recherche à augmenter notre connaissance sur la présence du BAIH chez les adultes avec des symptômes d’anxiété en examinant des marqueurs électrophysiologique du cerveaux. Les implications et limites de l’étude sont également discutées. Reproduire ces résultats avec un échantillon cliniquement diagnostiqué de personnes souffrant de troubles anxieux, devrait donc être l'une des priorités de la recherche future.

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