Automatic and controlled social information processing and relational aggression in young adults

This study examined associations of relational aggression with measures of controlled and automatic social information processing. Undergraduates (n = 118, 67% female) provided self-reports of relational aggression and normative beliefs about aggression, and they read vignettes about ambiguous relational conflicts and answered questions assessing hostile attributions and justification of aggressive retaliation. A reading time paradigm was used to measure automatic processing of an aggressive sentence in each vignette. Although measures of controlled and automatic processing were unrelated, each contributed unique variance in the prediction of relational aggression. Implications of findings for our understanding of cognitive influences on relational aggression are discussed.