Separating emotion and motivational direction in fear and anger: Effects on frontal asymmetry.

Wacker, Jan; Heldmann, Marcus; Stemmler, Gerhard

doi:10.1037/1528-3542.3.2.167

Cited by 129 publications

(139 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(75 reference statements)

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“…This suggestion was inspired by Harmon-Jones and Allen (1997), who reported on a relation of higher bilateral frontal cortical activity and higher scores on the BAS scale. Behavioral activation comprising approach and withdrawal motivation would also be in line with Wacker et al's (2003) arguments in favor of a relation of the BAS with behavioral activation irrespective of the direction of behavior. So, they had two hypothesis to test: the BIS/BAS model, and the bilateral BAS model.…”

Section: Asymmetrical Frontal Brain Activity and Angersupporting

confidence: 57%

Aggression and brain asymmetries: A theoretical review

Rohlfs

Ramírez

2006

Aggression and Violent Behavior

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The relationship between aggression and brain asymmetries has not been studied enough. The association between both concepts can be approached from two different perspectives. One perspective points to brain asymmetries underlying the emotion of anger and consequently aggression in normal people. Another one is concerned with the existence of brain asymmetries in aggressive people (e.g., in the case of suicides or psychopathies). Research on emotional processing points out the confusion between emotional valence (positive-negative) and motivational direction (approach-withdrawal). Because of this, it is not clear whether the frontal asymmetry reflects the valence of the emotion, the direction of the motivation, or a combination of valence and motivation. Appetitive motivations are not always associated with positive affects. Anger (a negative emotion) has been associated with approach motivation and with aggression. Relative left-prefrontal activity is associated with state anger and with aggression. This information would lead to the conclusion that the more violent a culture, the higher the relative proportion of the right-handers. On the other side, there is an exaggerated structural asymmetry in the anterior hippocampus (R>L) in unsuccessful psychopaths. In suicidal persons, the functional insufficiency of the right hemisphere produces a compensatory shift to left hemisphere information processing, showing a reversed asymmetry of typical traits for suicidal people. These findings suggest, therefore, the existence of a certain correlation between brain asymmetries and human aggression.

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Section: Asymmetrical Frontal Brain Activity and Angersupporting

confidence: 57%

Aggression and brain asymmetries: A theoretical review

Rohlfs

Ramírez

2006

Aggression and Violent Behavior

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“…For example, Wacker et al (2003) demonstrated that relative activation patterns of the left anterior region in response to imagining a past event that elicited anger were strongly correlated with scores on measures of BAS. Building from the evidence produced by Harmon-Jones and Allen (1998) regarding the utility of resting anterior cortical activation to predict trait anger, researchers have shown that resting relative activation of the left anterior region is associated with measures of BAS and trait anger (Hewig et al 2004).…”

Section: Approach-withdrawal Modelmentioning

confidence: 97%

Models of anger: contributions from psychophysiology, neuropsychology and the cognitive behavioral perspective

Cox

Harrison

2008

Brain Struct Funct

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The current review examined the research and current models of anger from three distinct literatures: psychophysiology, neuropsychology and the cognitive-behavioral perspective. Two primary conceptual difficulties are addressed in this review. First, the debate over how and when to differentiate between anger and hostility is discussed. Second, the issue regarding cognitive or emotional dominance or primacy in the experience of anger is considered. Once the conceptual ambiguity is addressed, data from the cognitive-behavioral, psychophysiological and neuropsychological literatures are reviewed with a focus on issues of laterality. Particular attention is given to research of appraisal theory from the cognitive literature, cortical arousal and related cerebral models from the psychophysiological literature, and functional cerebral systems from the neuropsychological literature. Despite significant differences appearing both within and between the bodies of literature, when viewed without the traditional ambiguity surrounding this topic, there appears to be a great deal of overlap which may be conducive to the construction of a unified theoretical model. Such a model is proposed in the final section of this paper.

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“…An extension of Davidson's model by Heller (Heller et al, 1997;Heller and Nitschke, 1998) adds the arousal dimension, associated with the right parietal cortex activity. Davidson's approach and withdrawal systems are somewhat similar to Gray's behavioral activation and inhibition systems (BAS and BIS, respectively) (Gray, 1994;Wacker et al, 2003). The BAS is hypothesized to control appetitive and goal-directed behavior and becomes activated in response to incentive, reward, and other positive stimuli.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%