Controlling reactive aggression through cognitive evaluation of proactive aggression cues

Abstract

The authors investigated how the relationship between the acts of proactive and reactive aggression was moderated by the individual differences in cognitive regulation of emotion. An aggression paradigm, a electrocardiogram recording, a cognitive assessment battery, and a short form IQ test were completed by 109 children, aged 8 to 13 years (Juujärvi, Kaartinen, Laitinen, Vanninen, & Pulkkinen, 2006; Juujärvi, Kooistra, Kaartinen, & Pulkkinen, 2001; Lehto, Juujärvi, Kooistra, & Pulkkinen, 2003). The less the children subdued the intensity of their defence to the attacks in the aggression paradigm, the poorer they performed in the cognitive assessment battery tasks measuring Working memory capacity and in the task assessing crystallised intelligence. The mean cardiovascular reactivity during the aggression paradigm was neither associated with the performances in either the cognitive assessment battery nor the intelligence tasks. Both information processing and knowledge dimensions of cognition contributed to regulation of emotion, but the respective effects of the processes cannot be inferred from the mean cardiovascular reactivity.