Threat effects on cognitive systems: Testing links to aggression proneness.

Abstract

The biobehavioral study of aggression has implications for expanding our understanding of transdiagnostic processes that increase risk for disinhibited behaviors. Toward this end, our study tested tenets from the process model of aggression (Verona & Bresin, 2015). First, we expected that the predictability of threat would differentially alter cognitive networks, including attentional alerting and executive control. Second, we examined the moderating effects of self- and informant reports of aggression on threat-related changes in cognitive functioning. Using event-related potential (ERP) measures of cognitive-attentional processes, 143 community individuals participated in a well-validated and translational threat manipulation (NPU) task (Schmitz & Grillon, 2012) while completing the Attention Network Test (Fan et al., 2002). Analyses revealed that relatively unpredictable threat quickened alerting-related reaction time, whereas predictable threat interfered with processing of flanker task stimuli. The results, however, failed to show reliable relationships between aggression proneness and threat-related cognitive alterations. The findings fit with a broader literature on cognitive and behavioral outputs of threat activation and provide fruitful avenues for better understanding threat-related aggression. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).