Martijn van Teffelen

Chapter 6 146 The present work holds several clinical implications. First, the finding that CBM-I for hostility increased benign bias and reduced hostile bias and aggression implies that people with clinical hostility levels experience small but significant improvements after the repeated stimulation of benign interpretations in random ambiguous scenarios. This shows that CBM-I holds promise as a prevention or intervention strategy for hostility at relatively low cost. In addition, explorative analysis of CBM-I effects on (physical) aggressive behavior suggests that the effect is slightly stronger for men. Evidently, this finding suggestion requires replication. Our findings also suggest that CBM-I could be implemented in both treatment- and non- treatment-seeking settings. However, research is still in its’ early stages as a number of important questions remain unanswered at this point: Does efficacy sustain over time? What is the optimal dose-response effect? Can CBM-I serve as an add-on to standard treatment, for example when people are on waitlist? And, is the intervention effective in everyday clinical practice? The questions require further research prior to further implementation. In sum, we observed that CBM-I increased benign bias, reduced hostile bias, and reduced and behavioral aggression with small effects, which may be of benefit for people with clinical levels of hostility.