Martijn van Teffelen

Provoked aggression, psychopathy and narcissism 51 3 INTRODUCTION To prevent aggressive behavior and its destructive consequences it is vitally important to identify and comprehend the effects of its’ situational antecedents. Provocations that predict aggressive behavior are, for example, electric shocks (Taylor, 1967), aversive noise blasts (Bushman, 1995), social exclusion (Twenge et al., 2001) and poor evaluation (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998). Although these provocations predict aggression, knowledge on potential differences between diverse provocation techniques in eliciting aggression and other outcome measures is still limited. Two available studies found that guided imagination of a fictive anger- evoking event resulted in increased self-reported anger, compared to autobiographical recall of an anger-evoking event (Jallais & Gilet, 2010; Zhang et al., 2014). Another study compared the impact of four provocation methods (i.e., an anger-evoking film clip, autobiographical recall of an anger-evoking event, punishment, and harassment) and observed increased physiological responding after autobiographical recall and harassment, but no significant difference in self-reported anger across the four methods (Lobbestael et al., 2008). Yet, between-domain (e.g., physical versus psychological provocation), or even within-domain (e.g., experiencing shocks versus loud noises) head-to-head comparisons of provocations on a behavioral level are sparse. Consequently, the relative strength of previously observed provocation effects on aggressive behavior is unclear, limiting (meta-analytical) comparability. Also, provocation methods may operate through different (e.g., emotional, or cognitive) pathways. In the present work we will directly compare provocation methods on a behavioral, emotional, and cognitive level. The effects of provocation on aggressive behavior are often studied in the context of personality factors such as psychopathy and narcissism because these factors predispose to behave aggressively (Hyatt et al., 2019; Rasmussen, 2016; Reidy et al., 2011). On the one hand, psychopathy is characterized by affective deficiency. Studies generally find two psychopathy factors (Harpur et al., 1989); one factor representing a personality dimension (i.e., egocentricity, lack of empathy, lack of guilt and impaired affective processing), and the other factor representing a behavioral dimension (i.e., unstable, and antisocial lifestyle or social deviance). On the other hand, narcissistic people tend to harbor a cognitive-affective preoccupation with the self, including grandiose self-expectations, superiority, and entitlement (Emmons, 1987; Raskin & Hall, 1979). Evidence of the impact of psychopathic traits on provoked aggression is mixed. Studies in forensic populations (e.g., Williamson et al., 1987) roughly observed no or negative relationships between psychopathy on provoked aggression, while studies in non-forensic populations (e.g., Lotze et al., 2007) demonstrated a stronger positive relationship between psychopathic traits and provoked aggression. For example, one study showed that psychopathic traits and