Impulsivity and Perpetration of Intimate Partner Aggression: The Moderating Effects of Negative Affective State and Alcohol

Abstract

Background: The goal of this study was to test the interactive effects of negative urgency, state negative affect, and alcohol intoxication on intimate partner aggression (IPA) perpetration. Methods: Heavy drinkers who recently perpetrated IPA completed self-report measures of impulsivity, were administered an alcohol or control beverage, and completed a laboratory aggression task. State negative affect was assessed unobtrusively via the Facial Action Coding System. Results: Consistent with our prediction, negative urgency was significantly and positively related to IPA when state negative affect was also high, but this relation was not significant when state negative affect was low. Conclusions: These results have implications for understanding the role of negative affect and impulsivity in IPA perpetration and for understanding trait models of impulsivity in general.

Keywords:

• Urgency
• problematic drinking
• aggression
• facial action coding system

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Notes

1 We choose to omit a placebo control for two reasons. First, a meta-analysis by Bushman and Cooper (1990) found no significant difference between placebo and control for aggression. Second, there are concerns that placebo groups might produce compensatory responses for aggression, thereby inflating the effect (Testa et al., 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Grant R01-AA-020578 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism awarded to Christopher I. Eckhardt and Dominic J. Parrott.