Abstract
Angry rumination and hostile attribution bias are important cognitive factors of aggression. Although prior theoretical models of aggression suggest that aggressive cognitive factors may influence each other, there are no studies examining the longitudinal relationship between angry rumination and hostile attribution bias. The present study used cross-lagged structural equation modeling to explore the longitudinal mutual relationship between hostile attribution bias and angry rumination; 941 undergraduate students (38.5% male) completed questionnaires assessing the variables at two time points. The results indicate that hostile attribution bias showed a small but statistically significant effect on angry rumination 6 months later, and angry rumination showed a quite small but marginally significant effect on hostile attribution bias across time. The present study supports the idea that hostile attribution bias influences angry rumination, and argue that the relationship between angry rumination and hostile attribution bias may be mutual. Additionally, the results suggest that there may be a causal relation of different aggression-related cognitive factors.
Highlights
Angry rumination is prolonged thinking about personally meaningful angry events and is accompanied by angry feelings or thoughts about revenge [1, 2]
The results indicated that angry rumination and hostile attribution bias were significantly and positively associated with one another at each time point
All model fit indices of the two measurement models showed that the latent model fit the data well: χ2 = 32.49–60.43, df = 19, p < 0.001, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.993–0.998, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.990–0.997, root-meansquare error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.02–0.04, SRMR = 0.016–0.19
Summary
Angry rumination is prolonged thinking about personally meaningful angry events and is accompanied by angry feelings or thoughts about revenge [1, 2]. Angry rumination is a pattern of thinking that intensifies anger and increases aggressive tendencies [3]. Previous behavioral studies have shown that angry rumination is associated with negative outcomes, such as aggressive behavior [4], negative emotion, and depressive symptoms [5]. Previous studies further revealed that angry rumination is one of the several important aggression-related cognitive factors [6]. Angry rumination is a negative mental factor that should be subjected to intervention and changed. Understanding the mental mechanisms of the development of angry rumination in daily life is both important and necessary. The aggression-related cognitive mechanism of the development of angry rumination in daily life
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