In vivo defensive behaviors, fear, and attention bias to physical and negative evaluation threats

Aggressive behavior is a major public health issue for which there are few efficacious treatments. Although much of information processing is automatic, there are few studies of early-stage decoding biases (e.g., attention bias to threat) and aggressive behavior, potentially resulting in missed opportunities for identifying targets of intervention. Previous studies are limited by indirect measures of attention bias and little consideration of proximal factors like state fear, which organizes perception and motivates defensive behaviors. We used laboratory methods (i.e., eye-tracking, idiographic mood induction, and the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm), to examine the association between attention bias to physical and negative evaluation threat and in vivo defensive responding (i.e., aggression and escape) and the potential moderating role of state fear among 74 undergraduate students. As predicted, attention bias to threat was positively associated with in vivo aggression. Fear did not potentiate aggression or modify the relationship between attentional bias to threat and aggression; however, in the fear condition, greater attentional bias to threat was associated with less escape behavior. Findings add to the sparse literature identifying early-stage decoding processes as possible risk factors of aggression and suggest a need for additional research on freeze behavior in response to threat and provocation.