Cognitive and social-cognitive factors as mediators of aggression using structural equation modeling

ABSTRACT

Violence and aggression continue to be both public health and economic concerns. In an effort to better understand, predict, and prevent violence and aggression, a number of models have been proposed that include both static and dynamic risk factors and indicators. Despite research demonstrating links between cognitive and social-cognitive factors with violence and aggression, their role in understanding violence is still unclear. The current study developed a multi-faceted model of aggression including social-cognitive, cognitive, personality, and psychiatric factors. A community, male sample (N = 1,192) collected through Amazon’s Mturk responded to a series of self-report measures and a cognitive task. Utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM), we created a latent variable path analysis model predicting aggression. Several important paths were significant including from entity theory to aggression, mediated by hostile attribution bias, schizotypy to aggression, mediated by both hostile attribution bias and disinhibition, substance use to aggression mediated by disinhibition, and psychopathy to aggression directly. This model provides a framework for future research that focuses on process factors of violence and aggression, including social-cognitive and cognitive, that may eventually prove valuable for risk reduction.

KEYWORDS:

• Violence and aggression
• risk assessment
• social-cognitive
• cognitive predictors
• structural equation modeling

Data availability

The data are available from the first author upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We also ran a model with age as a predictor and as a covariate. Age was not a significant predictor of aggression (p = .902) and did not substantively change any other parameter estimates or model fit indices. As such, it was excluded from the final model.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of North Texas Department of Psychology and a Toulouse Graduate School Graduate Research Award.