Faculty Publications

Driving Stimuli Increases Accessibility Of Aggression-Related Concepts In "Angry" Drivers

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Anger, Lexical decision task, Priming, Trait driving anger

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Personality and Individual Differences

Volume

55

Issue

2

First Page

135

Last Page

140

Abstract

Stimuli present in aversive situations (even initially neutral stimuli) can become associated with aggressive feelings and thoughts become capable of acting as cues for aggressive thoughts. The present research examined whether driving stimuli can serve as triggers for aggression-related concepts for individuals predisposed to becoming angry while driving (i.e., high in self-reported trait driving anger). Using the General Aggression Model (. Anderson & Bushman, 2002) as a guide, two studies demonstrated that participants high in trait driving anger responded more quickly to aggressive words when paired with driving than neutral stimuli. There were no differences in primes for nonaggressive words and nonwords. Study 2 also found that, for participants high in driving anger, increased accessibility of aggressive words following driving primes predicted self-reported anger in a provoking driving scenario. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Original Publication Date

7-1-2013

DOI of published version

10.1016/j.paid.2013.02.014

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