Emotion dysregulation, negative affect, and aggression: A moderated, multiple mediator analysis

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Highlights

  • Emotion dysregulation mediates the link between negative affect and aggression.

  • Indirect effects of emotion regulation variables are moderated by sex.

  • Difficulties with emotional awareness and distress tolerance are mediators in males.

  • Difficulties with distress tolerance emerged as a mediator in females.

Abstract

Research on violence has highlighted the role of trait negative affect in reactive aggressive behavior. Emotion dysregulation is a multidimensional construct reflecting maladaptive ways in which a person experiences and responds to emotional states, and has also been empirically linked to aggression. This study sought to test the hypothesis that multiple facets of emotion dysregulation would mediate the relationship between negative affect and physical aggression in a nonclinical sample. An additional aim was to examine the moderating effect of sex in the relationship between negative affect and aggression, and whether mediators differ as a function of sex. Three-hundred and eighteen participants completed measures of physical aggression, difficulties in emotion regulation, and negative affect. Results showed that sex moderated the relationship between negative affect and physical aggression, and emotion dysregulation fully mediated the relationship between these variables in both males and females. While difficulty inhibiting impulsive behavior when distressed was a significant mediator across sexes, difficulties with emotional awareness demonstrated a mediation effect only in males. Findings provide preliminary support for the facets of emotion dysregulation that are important in understanding the negative affect – physical aggression association in males and females.

Introduction

Aggressive behavior falls under the externalizing factor of the personality spectrum, a latent dimension encompassing substance abuse and antisocial behaviors (Kendler, Davis, & Kessler, 1997). Extant research has highlighted the role of negative affect (or Neuroticism) in the pathogenesis of reactive aggression (Miller and Lynam, 2006, Rothbart et al., 1994). Negative affect reflects the disposition to experience aversive affective states, encompassing emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, shame and disgust (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Indeed, the propensity to experience negative affect has been a focal point of developmental theories of externalizing problems (Waldman, Singh, & Lahey, 2006).

The association between trait negative affect and aggressive behavior is well documented in the literature. In children, prospective associations between negative affect and aggression have been identified (Rothbart et al., 1994). Negative emotionality in adolescence predicts later antisocial personality disorder, over and above adolescent conduct disorder (Krueger, 1999). Among adults, negative affect variables are associated with aggression (Miller, Zeichner, & Wilson, 2012), with Neuroticism emerging as the primary broadband personality trait distinguishing reactive and proactive aggression (Miller & Lynam, 2006). Further evidence suggests the association between Neuroticism and aggression is related in part to an increase in aggressive emotions (Barlett & Anderson, 2012).

To better elucidate the negative affect-aggression association, additional investigations into mechanisms underlying this relationship are needed. Emotion regulation (ER) reflects the set of processes that influence which emotions one has, when one has them, and how one experiences and expresses these emotions (Gross, 2013). Emotion dysregulation reflects maladaptive ways in which a person experiences and responds to emotional states (Werner & Gross, 2010). Emotion dysregulation has emerged as a possible mechanism by which negative affect influences psychopathology in general. Calkins’ (1994) developmental theory of ER suggests the effects of behavioral traits (e.g., emotional reactivity) on social outcomes are mediated by individual differences in ER. Supporting this, in a study of maltreated and nonmaltreated children, Kim-Spoon, Cicchetti, and Rogosch (2013) found ER longitudinally mediated the relationship between emotional lability–negativity and internalizing symptoms. In the externalizing domain, ER difficulties have been shown to mediate the relationship between negative affect intensity and drinking to cope (Veilleux, Skinner, Reese, & Shaver, 2014). The role of ER in explaining the link between negative affect and aggression has been less examined however, and warrants further inquiry.

Several lines of research support the notion that negative affect may lead to aggression through ER difficulties (see Roberton, Daffern, & Bucks, 2012). In conceptualizing clinical anger, Gardner and Moore (2008) posit aggression functions as avoidance, thereby serving to regulate anger in the short-term. Among adolescents, emotion dysregulation prospectively predicts aggressive behavior, although psychopathology in general does not predict later ER deficits, providing evidence for emotion dysregulation as a risk marker (McLaughlin, Hatzenbuehler, Mennin, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2011). In a student sample, deficits in self-regulation partially mediate the relationship between anger rumination and reactive aggression (White & Turner, 2014).

Although significant advances have been made in the study of ER, research has been hindered by problems with definitional clarity (Zinbarg & Mineka, 2007). We take an acceptance-based perspective, in which emotion dysregulation is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct involving difficulties with the awareness, understanding, and acceptance of emotions; difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior and inhibiting impulsive behaviors; and, limited access context-appropriate regulatory strategies when distressed (Gratz & Roemer, 2004).

Prior research suggests problems in each of these domains are associated with aggression. In a sample of undergraduates, self-reported difficulties inhibiting impulsive behaviors when distressed, difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior when distressed, and limited perceived access to ER strategies each exhibited significant correlations with frequency of intimate partner abuse (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). In another study, emotional nonacceptance mediated the association between restrictive emotionality and aggressive behavior in males (Cohn, Jakupcak, Seibert, Hildebrandt, & Zeichner, 2010). Recently, using experience sampling methodology, the ability to understand and differentiate between emotions was shown to moderate the relationship between anger and aggression (Pond et al., 2012). Together, these studies suggest negative affect may increase the likelihood of aggression via one’s difficulty adaptively regulating these experiences.

Research on aggression suggests that males are more aggressive than females (see Bettencourt & Miller, 1996). In a meta-analysis by Knight, Guthrie, Page, and Fabes (2002), the magnitude of sex differences in aggression covaried as a function of emotional arousal, suggesting that divergence in aggression between males and females partially stems from differences in emotional arousal or regulation. Consistent with this, emotion dysregulation was recently found to mediate the link between childhood maltreatment and intimate partner violence in males only (Gratz, Paulson, Jakupcak, & Tull, 2009). Given these findings, investigations into relationships between emotional arousal, regulation, and aggression should also examine potential sex differences, as these associations may vary as a function of sex.

This study will elaborate on the relationship between trait negative affect and aggression, and examine the role of multiple aspects of ER in explaining this relationship. We hypothesized that trait negative affect would significantly relate to trait physical aggression, and this association would be stronger in men as compared to women. Next, we hypothesized that six facets of emotion dysregulation (emotional nonacceptance; difficulties engaging in goal-directed behaviors when distressed; difficulties controlling impulsive behaviors when distressed; lack of emotional awareness; limited perceived access to emotion regulation strategies; and, lack of emotional clarity) would be associated with trait physical aggression at the bivariate level, and ER difficulties would mediate the relationship between negative affect and aggression. To evaluate this question, we examined the simultaneous and shared influence of individual ER domains in mediating the relationship between negative affect and physical aggression and the moderating role of sex among these associations.

Section snippets

Participants

Three-hundred and eighteen undergraduate students were recruited from a university in the northeastern United States. Participants were required to be at least 18 years old and able to read and understand English. Ages ranged from 18 to 67 years (M = 21.35, SD = 5.83), and 71% of the sample was female. The sample was 62.6% Caucasian, 16% African–American, 11% Hispanic, 5% Asian, and 5.4% ‘Other.’ Median household income ranged from 46,000 to 50,000. This study received full approval from the

Descriptive statistics

Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations for PANAS–NA, DERS-Total and subscale scores, AQ–PA, and age are displayed in Table 1. PANAS–NA and AQ–PA exhibited a moderate positive association (r = .23, p < .001). PANAS–NA and DERS-Total exhibited a large positive correlation (r = .58, p < .001). There was a moderate positive correlation between DERS-Total and AQ–PA (r = .36, p < .001). Consistent with the pattern of DERS-Total findings, and supporting our hypotheses, all DERS subscale

Discussion

Psychopathology research has suggested that the manner in which one responds to internal states may be more important in understanding problem behaviors and symptoms, than the frequency or intensity of these states (Hayes, Wilson, Gifford, Follette, & Strosahl, 1996). Consistent with this, the present study sought to clarify the relationship between negative affect and aggression by examining the mediating role of emotion dysregulation. Results lend support for the role of emotion dysregulation

Conclusion and future directions

Within an ER framework, aggression can be thought of as a maladaptive resolution to the problem of emotions perceived to be intolerable. Findings from the present study provide preliminary support that physical aggression may function as an attempt to alleviate distressing negative emotions. Replicating and expanding this area of inquiry in more chronically violent samples is important, and this may have notable treatment implications. Specifically, treatments designed to alter one’s

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    Author's Note: Writing of this article was supported by the Office of Academic Affiliations, Advanced Fellowship Program in Mental Illness Research and Treatment, Department of Veterans Affairs.

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