Hostile Attribution Research Articles

Aggression differentially modulates neural correlates of social intention attribution to benevolent, tickling and taunting laughter: An fMRI study in children and adolescents

ABSTRACT Human laughter is a powerful means of communicating social intention, ranging from welcoming and friendly to hostile and ridiculing. To be communicated accurately, the recipient must correctly identify the laugher’s underlying social intention. Regular misattribution of the social intention of others has been associated with maladaptive psychosocial development, in particular with aggressive behavior. We investigated the relationship between self-reported aggressive behavior and the neural correlates of social intention attributions to different audiovisual laughter types in 50 healthy children and adolescents (29 female, 10–18 years, M 15.5, SD 2.2) using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Trial-by-trial associations of neural response and behavioral attributions were distinctly modulated by aggression for benevolent versus taunting and tickling laughter. With increasing aggression, hostile misattributions of benevolent laughter were associated with decreased dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior insular cortex activation. In contrast, hostile attributions of taunting and tickling laughter were associated with increased superior frontal, superior temporal, medial prefrontal, supplementary motor, and anterior and mid-cingulate cortex activation. We argue that aggression may be associated with down-regulated emotional saliency of benevolent laughter, whereas up-regulated neural responses to taunting laughter may underlie a heightened sensitivity to hostility or acceptance of taunting behavior in more aggressive individuals.

Examining the Relationship between Psychopathic Leadership, Work Phobic Anxiety and Employee Work Alienation: The Moderating Role of Hostile Attribution Bias

The current study examines the direct relationship between psychopathic leadership and work alienation while incorporating the mediating role of work phobic anxiety. The study sustains that work phobic anxiety mediates the relationship between leader psychopathy and employee work alienation. In addition to this, as grounded in Affective Events Theory, the study further establishes that Hostile Attribution Bias (HAB) as employee-centric dispositional factor moderates the relationship of leader psychopathy an affect inducing event and work phobic anxiety, an employee's behavioral outcome a reaction concerning stimulus workplace. The study employs a quantitative time-lagged design with multisource data collected in three waves through the survey method. Results of the data analysis established all hypotheses of the research in the proposed directions. Confirmatory Factor Analyses were also performed to ensure, reliability and validity of the scales employed in the study; the mediation & moderation were analyzed using SPSS Process Macro, using the "Bootstrapping Method" (Hayes, 2017).

사회불안과 관계적 공격성의 관계 : 관계적 적대적 귀인편향과 충동성의 조절된 매개효과

사회불안이 관계적 공격성으로 이어지는 기제를 확인하기 위해 관계적 적대적 귀인편향과 충 동성을 포함하는 조절된 매개모형을 검증하였다. 전국 대학생 278명(남 96명, 여 182명)을 대 상으로 온라인 자기보고 질문지를 통해 사회불안, 적대적 귀인편향, 관계적 공격성, 충동성, 우울, 신체적 공격성을 측정하였다. 위계적 회귀분석과 Process Macro를 사용해 분석한 결과, 사회불안은 관계적 공격성을 정적으로 예측하였고, 사회불안과 관계적 공격성 간 관계에서 관계적 적대적 귀인편향의 매개효과와 관계적 적대적 귀인편향과 관계적 공격성 간 관계에서 충동성의 조절효과가 각각 유의하였다. 그러나 최종 조절된 매개모형은 유의하지 않았다. 본 연구는 사회불안이 높은 일부가 관계적 공격성을 보이게 되는 심리적 기제를 제안, 검증하였 다는 의의가 있다.

PCIT engagement and persistence among child welfare-involved families: Associations with harsh parenting, physiological reactivity, and social cognitive processes at intake.

Parent-Child interaction therapy (PCIT) has been shown to improve positive, responsive parenting and lower risk for child maltreatment (CM), including among families who are already involved in the child welfare system. However, higher risk families show higher rates of treatment attrition, limiting effectiveness. In N = 120 child welfare families randomized to PCIT, we tested behavioral and physiological markers of parent self-regulation and socio-cognitive processes assessed at pre-intervention as predictors of retention in PCIT. Results of multinomial logistic regressions indicate that parents who declined treatment displayed more negative parenting, greater perceptions of child responsibility and control in adult-child transactions, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) increases to a positive dyadic interaction task, and RSA withdrawal to a challenging, dyadic toy clean-up task. Increased odds of dropout during PCIT's child-directed interaction phase were associated with greater parent attentional bias to angry facial cues on an emotional go/no-go task. Hostile attributions about one's child predicted risk for dropout during the parent-directed interaction phase, and readiness for change scores predicted higher odds of treatment completion. Implications for intervening with child welfare-involved families are discussed along with study limitations.

Narcissism and Anger: the Moderating Role of Social Exclusion and the Mediating Role of Hostile Attribution Bias Mechanism

The present research (N = 169) examined the relationship between narcissism and anger responses considering the moderating role of social exclusion and the mediating role of hostile attribution bias. For this, social exclusion scenario and inclusion scenarios were utilized, and a total 183 participants were recruited from the UK using the online platform Qualtrics. Fourteen responders were excluded for failing the attention check question and the remaining 169 participants were randomly assigned to either the social inclusion condition (n = 87) or the social exclusion condition (n = 82). The results demonstrated that participants with high narcissism reported a greater level of anger when socially excluded, yet not when they were socially accepted. Furthermore, we observed indirect (mediation) effects in which greater levels of anger were affected by higher narcissism via higher levels of hostile attribution bias in both social exclusion and inclusion conditions, but the indirect effect was stronger in the condition of social exclusion than in the condition of social inclusion. Thus, the strong direct and indirect relationship between narcissism and anger can be found in the social exclusion condition, while the weaker but significant indirect relationship between narcissism and anger via hostile attribution can be also observed in the social inclusion condition. We discuss the implications of these findings and future research directions.

Situational context influences the degree of hostile attributions made by individuals with schizophrenia or autism spectrum disorder.

Previous work has demonstrated that the tendency to make hostile attributions is not a stable trait but varies across different social situations. Therefore, we sought to investigate whether hostile attributions within clinical samples are better understood as a persistent characteristic or one that varies across contexts. The current analyses investigated patterns of attributions among people diagnosed with schizophrenia (SCZ, n=271) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n=100) and non-clinical control participants (NCC, n=233) in an existing data set. Results showed that specific relational features in vignettes portraying different social encounters influence the way people make attributions and that variability across contexts is present in both non-clinical and clinical populations. Like non-clinical participants, participants diagnosed with ASD ascribed the greatest hostility to a scene involving an authority figure. In contrast, SCZ participants reported the greatest hostility in response to a scene involving a friend. These findings suggest that salient environmental factors should be considered when assessing social cognitive skills and biases. Hostile attributions should be perceived as situational constructs rather than stable and persistent characteristics. Hostile attributions were most prevalent among persons diagnosed with schizophrenia; however, on average, all participants showed greater hostility for situations involving an authority figure, an acquaintance, or a friend relative to those involving a co-worker or stranger. Psychotherapists and clinicians working with people diagnosed with schizophrenia or autism spectrum disorder could work on identifying situation triggers, which may prompt hostile attributions. Psycho-educational and psychotherapeutic interventions can be altered based on individual triggers of hostile attributions, and attempts can be made to lessen these attributions. Paranoia appears to be linked to hostile attributions regardless of the specific clinical diagnosis and should be considered in the therapeutic process.

Longitudinal relationships among interpersonal openness trait, hostile attribution bias, and displaced aggressive behaviour: Big Five treated as covariates

Displaced aggressive behaviour is associated with many negative outcomes. Although certain personality traits predict displaced aggressive behaviour, the uniquely longitudinal effect of indigenous interpersonal traits on displaced aggressive behaviour is ignored. To address this gap, we explored the longitudinal relationship among an indigenously interpersonal trait of China (interpersonal openness), hostile attribution bias, and self-reported displaced aggressive behaviour. Additionally, we tested whether hostile attribution bias mediated the relationship between interpersonal openness and self-reported displaced aggressive behaviour. The Interpersonal Self-Support Scale for Undergraduate Students, Word Sentence Association Paradigm for Hostility, Displaced Aggression Questionnaire, and the NEO Personality Inventory-3 were administered to 942 undergraduates on two occasions, 6months apart. A cross-lagged model showed that, after controlling for the Big Five personality traits, interpersonal openness predicted subsequent hostile attribution bias, and hostile attribution bias predicted self-reported displaced aggressive behaviour 6months later. Hostile attribution bias at time 2 mediated the relationship between interpersonal openness at time 1 and self-reported displaced aggressive behaviour at time 2. These results were consistent with the interpersonal self-support theory's appraisals of interpersonal openness, and they extended the social information processing and general aggression models to explain displaced aggressive behaviour.

受欺负与青少年外化问题关系的“健康环境悖论”：敌意性归因的中介作用

受欺负与青少年外化问题关系的“健康环境悖论”：敌意性归因的中介作用

Neuronal responses to adverse social threat in healthy human subjects

Social-emotional information processing (SEIP) is critical for appropriate human interaction. It is composed of processes that underlie how we behave towards others, especially in response to adverse social threat. We conducted a study in 26 healthy participants who completed a validated Video-SEIP (V-SEIP) task in the fMRI scanning environment. The V-SEIP phases studied included encoding (ENC) of socially relevant information, hostile attribution (HA) of motive, and the negative emotional response (NER) the participant would have in the context of the video vignettes. The ENC phase was associated with activation of amygdala, left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, right middle temporal gyrus, and visual cortex, the HA phase associated with activation of several brain regions including frontal and temporal cortex as well as basal ganglia and cerebellum, while the NER phase was associated with activation in the midbrain with regions involving the periaqueductal gray, basal ganglia, and the cerebellum. We suggest that this V-SEIP task represents a novel neuro-biomarker for the study of SEIP and that it can be extended for use in a number of psychiatric conditions in which anger, irritability, and impulsive aggressive are prominent features.

Pathological prediction: a top-down cause of organic disease

Though predictive processing (PP) approaches to the mind were originally applied to exteroceptive perception, i.e., vision and action, recent work has started to explore the role of interoceptive perception, i.e., emotion and affect (Barrett, 2017; Barrett and Simmons, 2015; Miller and Clark, 2018; Seth, 2013; Van de Cruys, 2017; Wilkinson et al., 2019). This article builds on this work by extending PP beyond emotion to the construction of emotional dispositions. I employ principles from dynamical systems theory and PP to provide a model of how dispositional anger (also known as ‘hostile attribution bias’ or HAB) can develop in response to early experiences of psychosocial stress. The model is then deployed to explain the established link between psychosocial stress in early life and the appearance of certain organic disease phenotypes (such as cardiovascular disease) in later life. This phenomenon can appear mysterious when viewed through the standard biomedical explanatory lens, which has difficulty accounting for the causal influence of subjective perceptions and evaluations of the social and material environment on the development of organic disease processes. The model provided presents such cases as instances of developmental mismatch. They occur when an organism develops an emotional disposition that leads them to make habitually-biased appraisals of what the social environment affords. The model provides a novel explanation of certain organic disease phenotypes with top-down and developmental causes, and demystifies one class of cases involving apparently spooky ‘mind-to-matter’ causation.

СВОБОДА: ОТВЕТСТВЕННОСТЬ, НЕГАТИВИЗМ, ЗАБОТА

Relevance and purpose. In the context of modern social life and its reflection by science, the phenomenon of freedom is one of the fundamental theoretical and practical problems. Understanding the true causes of the formation of an asocial personality, far from extreme science paradigms, is one of the pressing problems of modern psychology. The purpose of this article is to analyze and consider the issues of freedom and aggressive behavior of adolescents in the modes of responsibility, negativism and care. Research methods. Theoretical analysis and synthesis of relevant literature. Research results. Aspects of freedom in connection with external and internal restrictions are considered, constructive and destructive types of freedom are distinguished. The problem of differentiating the desire for freedom and the risks of negativism are noted, active negativity and passive negativity are described. Aspects of hostile attribution bias as structural-motivational element of deviant and delinquent behavior are revealed. Egalitarian and traditional concepts of parenting and their connection with the development of autonomous, independent personality are considered. The conditions in association with the values of freedom, independence and care act as predictors of the subjective feeling of happiness in adolescents are noted. Conclusions. Freedom is a prerequisite condition for the development of responsibility, personality with an internal locus of control. Freedom should be coupled аwith responsibility, parental supervision and providing of freedom for a teen to make a significant contribution to the socialization of freedom and responsibility. The phenomenon of emancipation in adolescence can be associated with the risks of negativism as a form of aggression. High partial self esteem (leadership ability and self esteem of one’s “physical self”) correlate with negativism. One of the essential mechanisms for the formation and functioning of negativism is the hostile attribution bias, the tendency to which is associated with high risks of delinquent behavior. Children from families with freedom parenting style are characterized by deprivation of care, they are more often less satisfied with “family” childhood. At the same time, controlling parents can also play a negative role, increasing the risks of aggression.

Parents' early representations of their children moderate socialization processes: Evidence from two studies.

Difficult infants are commonly considered at risk for maladaptive developmental cascades, but evidence is mixed, prompting efforts to elucidate moderators of effects of difficulty. We examined features of parents' representations of their infants - adaptive (appropriate mind-mindedness, MM) and dysfunctional (low reflective functioning, RF, hostile attributions) - as potential moderators. In Family Study (N = 102), we tested parents' appropriate MM comments to their infants as moderating a path from infants' observed difficulty (negative affect, unresponsiveness) to parents' observed power assertion at ages 2-4.5 to children's observed and parent-rated (dis)regard for conduct rules at age 5.5. In father-child relationships, MM moderated that path: for fathers with low MM, the infants' increasing difficulty was associated with fathers' greater power assertion, which in turn was associated with children's more disregard for rules. The path was absent for fathers with average or high MM. In Children and Parents Study (N = 200), dysfunctional representations (low RF, hostile attributions) moderated the link between child objective difficulty, observed as anger in laboratory episodes, and difficulty as described by the parent. Reports of mothers with highly dysfunctional representations were unrelated to children's observed anger. Reports of mothers with average or low dysfunctional representations aligned with laboratory observations.

Hostile attribution bias among offenders and non‐offenders: Making social information processing more adequate

AbstractExploring the relationships between variables that predict hostile attributions is essential for understanding aggressive behaviours and for enabling the development of suitable aggression‐reduction interventions. The aim of this series of two studies was to investigate how ascribing intentionality and blame to other people are critical in predicting hostile attribution. In Study 1 (general sample: N = 163, 63.8% females; inmates: N = 109 people, 78.9% females), we hypothesized that people that are sensitive to provocation declare higher levels of anger and that this is serially mediated by perceived intentionality of the act and perceived blame of the harm‐doer. The results confirmed these assumptions. In Study 2, the participants took part in a 3‐month psycho‐educational training that included mentalization elements. We hypothesized that the level of hostile attributions among inmates (N = 8, females) would be lower after the training. Changes in the inmates' attributions were observed after a qualitative analysis of the results. This finding achieved the study's aim of demonstrating how such theoretical assumptions can be practically implemented.

Loving Your Parents and Treating Others Well: The Effect of Filial Piety on Cyberbullying Perpetration and Its Functional Mechanism Among Chinese Graduate Students.

Although a few studies have investigated the effect of family factors on cyberbullying perpetration, these studies have mainly focused on the roles of parents. Few studies have examined the roles of children. In traditional Chinese culture, the filial piety belief (FPB) refers to the viewpoint that considers the roles of children in a family context. We suggest that how children consider their roles in a family might also influence cyberbullying perpetration. Based on the dual filial piety model and social information processing model, this study examined the effect of FPB on cyberbullying perpetration and tested its mediation of hostile attribution bias. In total, 588 graduate students participated. The participants completed several questionnaires, including the FPB scale, the social information processing-attribution response questionnaire, and the cyberbullying scale. The results were as follows. First, reciprocal filial piety (RFP) was significantly negatively correlated with hostile attribution bias and cyberbullying perpetration, while authoritarian filial piety (AFP) was significantly positively correlated with hostile attribution bias and cyberbullying perpetration. Second, hostile attribution bias mediated the association between FPB (comprising AFP and RFP) and cyberbullying perpetration; RFP decreased hostile attribution bias, while AFP increased hostile attribution bias; and hostile attribution bias increased cyberbullying perpetration. The current study expands our understanding of the influential factors and formation mechanism of cyberbullying perpetration in Chinese culture.

Analyzing the Relationship Between Child-to-Parent Violence and Perceived Parental Warmth.

The relationship between child-to-parent violence (CPV) and the perceived parental warmth dimension has been well established. However, it is necessary to further investigate the nature of this relationship considering the involvement of other variables. The objective of this study was to analyze the role of cognitive (hostile attribution), emotional (anger), and social variables (deviant peer group and drug use) in the relationship between the perceived parental warmth dimension (warmth-communication and criticism-rejection) and CPV motivated by reactive or instrumental reasons. The community sample consisted of 1,599 Spanish adolescents (54.8% girls) between the ages of 12 and 18 years (Mage = 14.6, SD = 1.6 years) from different secondary schools in Jaén (75.3%) and Oviedo (24.7%) (Spain). Each participant completed the Child-to-Parent Violence Questionnaire (CPV-Q), the Warmth Scale (WS), adolescents’ version, the Social Information Processing (SIP) in Child-to-parent Conflicts Questionnaire and Deviant Peers and Drug Use Questionnaires. The results indicate that perceived parental warmth is negatively correlated with hostile attribution, adolescent anger, relationship with a deviant peer group, while perceived parental criticism is positively linked to these variables. Likewise, hostile attribution and adolescent anger are positively linked to reactive CPV. Relationship with a deviant peer group is associated with drug use, which also predicts both reactive and instrumental CPV. In sum, a lack of perceived parental warmth has important repercussions in the form of the psychological and social maladjustment of children, which in turn is differentially correlated with reactive or instrumental CPV. Thus, prevention and intervention programs for CPV should consider, on the one hand, working with parents on parental practices that incorporate parental warmth as a fundamental element and, on the other hand, working with children on cognitive, emotional, and social aspects, taking into account the different motivations for this type of violence.

The effect of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding: a conservation of resources perspective

PurposeDrawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to explore the influencing mechanism of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding. Specifically, this study focuses on the mediating role of psychological distress and the moderating role of hostile attribution bias in affecting the mediation.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 324 employees of a high-technology company in China by a three-wave questionnaire survey. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping approach were employed to test hypotheses.FindingsThis study found that exploitative leadership was positively related to knowledge hiding and that psychological distress mediated this relationship. Moreover, the results revealed that the positive relationship between exploitative leadership and psychological distress and the indirect effect of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding via psychological distress were stronger when hostile attribution was high rather than low.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study offer guidance for managers to better undermine the negative effects of exploitative leadership.Originality/valueFirst, this study extends the literature on exploitative leadership by verifying the positive effect of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding. Second, this study enriches one’s understanding of the “black box” underlying the link between exploitative leadership and its consequences by demonstrating the mediating role of psychological distress. Third, by verifying the moderating role of hostile attribution bias, this study provides insights into the boundary conditions of the impact of exploitative leadership.

Correction to: Emotions and Cognitions in Early Childhood Aggression: the Role of Irritability and Hostile Attribution Biases

In the recently published article "Emotions and Cognitions in Early Childhood Aggression: the Role of Irritability and Hostile Attribution Biases" Figure captions (under Figs.1 and 2) and notes within the figures are redundant. These notes should be deleted.

Ο Μεσολαβητικός Ρόλος της Εχθρικής Απόδοσης Αιτιότητας στη Σχέση της Προσωπικότητας με τον Κυβερνο-Εκφοβισμό

The aim of this study was to investigate the association of the Big Five personality traits, Hostile Attribution Bias, and cyber-bullying among 347 Greek students attending the last grade of primary school and Junior High School. In order to explore whether the effect of personality traits on cyber-bullying is better explained through Hostile Attribution Bias, a mediation analysis was run. Results showed that Hostile Attribution Bias mediated the links between high Neuroticism, and low Extraversion on the one hand and cyber-bullying on the other. Overall, findings suggest that individuals low in Emotional Stability and less sociable are more likely to manifest cyber-bullying due to their tendency to attribute hostile intent, which may be exacerbated during computer mediated communication, which frequently provides limited social cues to the user. Findings can contribute towards the prevention and intervention of cyber-bullying through programs which help students interpret ambiguous social interactions.

Detouring in the family system as an antecedent of children's adjustment problems.

Guided by conceptualizations of relational boundaries from family systems theory, this study examined unique links between detouring (e.g., alliance between parents against child) and young children's psychological functioning after accounting for general family negativity and conflict. Participants in this longitudinal (i.e., 2 annual waves of data collection), multimethod (i.e., observation, survey, semistructured interview), multiinformant (i.e., parent, teacher, observer) study included 218 young children (mean [M] age = 5.76 years) and their families. The findings from cross-lagged panel analysis indicated that detouring uniquely predicted increases in children's externalizing problems, hostile attribution bias, and peer rejection and victimization over a 1-year period (i.e., the transition from kindergarten to first grade). Conversely, the findings failed to support a child effects model in that child adjustment problems did not predict increases in detouring or family negativity and conflict over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotions and Cognitions in Early Childhood Aggression: the Role of Irritability and Hostile Attribution Biases.

The present study examines the role of irritability in form and function subtypes of aggression over 1year in early childhood (N= 300, Mage= 44.70months, SD= 4.38months). This study prospectively tests hostile attribution biases (HAB) as a mediator in irritability's relations with aggression, with hypothesized form-specific relations between HAB and aggression. Moderation by gender and a reversed alternative model (aggression to irritability, mediated by HAB), were also tested. Path analyses showed irritability predicted increases in all subtypes of aggression (βs =0.24-0.34), but with moderation by gender, such that irritability significantly predicted increases in reactive relational aggression for girls only (β=0.43). Reactive physical aggression also significantly predicted increases in irritability (β=0.15). HAB was not associated significantly with any forms or functions of aggression, although gender differences emerged between HAB for instrumental provocations and reactive physical aggression. No significant indirect effects were found. Results highlight the importance of considering both forms and functions of aggression when investigating irritability, and point to potential gender differences in the role of irritability in relational aggression in early childhood.