A Conceptual Review of Lab-Based Aggression Paradigms

Abstract

Aggression is often defined as a behavior that is done with the intent to harm an individual who is believed to want avoid being harmed (e.g., Baron & Richardson, 1994). Accordingly, social scientists have developed several tasks to study aggression in laboratory settings; tasks that we refer to as "lab-based aggression paradigms." However, because of the legal, ethical, and practical issues inherent in provoking aggression within the confines of a laboratory setting, it is feasible to study only very mildly harmful aggression. The current conceptual review examines the criteria that are necessary to study aggression in a laboratory setting, discusses the strengths and weaknesses of several new and/ or commonly-used lab-based aggression paradigms, and offers recommendations for the future of labbased aggression research. Collectively, we hope the current discussion helps researchers to describe the contributions and limitations of lab-based aggression research and, ultimately, helps to improve the informativeness of lab-based aggression research. Aggression is a common feature of social interactions and, thus, has been a topic of study for social scientists for decades. One valuable approach to isolate and understand the theorized causes of aggression is laboratory-based research, which requires usable and valid methods for measuring aggression in otherwise highly-artificial laboratory settings. However, behaviors that are clearly aggressive, such as one person forcefully striking another person with a weapon, are fraught with legal, ethical, and safety considerations for both participants and researchers; and would be logistically difficult to allow to occur in a laboratory setting. Intentionally provoking such extreme aggression is, therefore, not a viable option within lab-based research. For these reasons, aggression researchers have developed a repertoire of tasks that purportedly measure aggression, are believed to be safe for participants and researchers, and are ethically and legally permissible within the confines of a laboratory setting. We collectively refer to these tasks as "lab-based aggression paradigms." The overarching goals of the current manuscript are threefold: (1) To delineate the criteria that would be necessary for the behaviors within these lab-based paradigms to be considered aggressive, (2) to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of several extant lab-based aggression paradigms, and (3) to offer recommendations for improving research using lab-based aggression paradigms. We have organized the current manuscript into three major sections organized around these goals. The first major section discusses conceptualizations of aggression and their implications for measuring aggression in laboratory settings. The second major section discusses several extant lab-based aggression paradigms. The final major section lays out a series of recommendations that we believe would maximize the contribution of lab-based research to a cumulative and progressive science of aggressive behaviors. Keywords

Facet‐level analysis of the relations between personality and laboratory aggression

“…Despite these divergences from work on self-reported aggression, we believe that this investigation provides more nuanced information regarding the validity of CRTTs as a methodology that captures aggression as it manifests in a laboratory setting. There are active debates regarding the utility of laboratory aggression paradigms such as CRTTs (e.g., Chester & Lasko, 2019;McCarthy & Elson, 2018).…”

Post-Depletion Aggression Restrained: Replicabily of Brief Mindfulness Induction In Indonesian Sample

“…As a direct replication of Yusainy and Lawrence (2015) research, the current study employs their version of the CRTT as a method of aggression. The CRTT is one of the most popular laboratory aggression paradigms (McCarthy & Elson, 2018). In this computer-based reaction-time task, participants are allowed to deliver a blast of noise to an opponent each time they win a trial.…”

Left Unheard: Detecting Mood and Aggression Through Ostracism and Trait Mindfulness

“…Aggression task. The CRTT (Taylor, 1967) has been used in at least 130 publications to ostensibly measure how much harmful noise an individual is willing to administer to a fictitious partner (Elson, 2016;McCarthy & Elson, 2018), including in Indonesian undergraduates (Yusainy & Wicaksono, 2019). We presented the task in Inquisit 5 (https://www.milli second.com/download/library/competitivereactiontime/).…”

“…They propose that people may respond aggressively towards acute ostracism not only because of negative affect per se but also due to the desire to return to affective homeostasis. As the actual harm is never intended to be delivered in the Voodoo Doll Task (McCarthy & Elson, 2018), in the current study we replace this task with the Competitive Reaction-Time Task (CRTT: Taylor, 1967). The CRTT, also known as the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP), has been used in many experiments on the effect of ostracism on direct physical aggression (e.g., Beyer, Münte, & Krämer, 2014;Twenge, Baumeister, Tice, & Stucke, 2001).…”