Executive cognitive functioning and aggression: Is it an issue of impulsivity

A large body of research has documented a relation between the executive cognitive functions (ECFs) and interpersonal aggressive behavior. A predominant theory proposes that individuals with poor ECFs are more aggressive because they are unable to inhibit impulsive behaviors. However, evidence for this relationship is typically indirect. In this study, 46 healthy men and women completed measures of ECF, the Taylor Aggression Paradigm, and the Go/No-Go discrimination task, a behavioral measure of impulsivity. Also, impulsiveness of participant responses during the aggression task was directly assessed by measuring latency of responses to provocation (‘‘set-time’’). It was hypothesized that low-quartile–scoring ECF men and women would perform more aggressively and more impulsively than high-quartile peers. Consistent with expectations, results indicated that ECF was related to aggression and to impulsivity on the Go/No-Go task. However, low-ECF men and women did not have shorter set-times; in fact, on this task, low-ECF participants ’ behavioral decisions seemed slightly slower than those of high-ECF participants. In light of these results, the authors speculate that a social information-processing problem may mediate the ECF aggression relationship rather than altered impulsivity per se