Seeing red? A systematic review of the evidence for attentional biases to threat-relevant stimuli in propensity to reactive aggression

Abstract Psychological models of aggression have suggested that propensity to aggressive behaviour, especially reactive aggression (RA), may be associated with attentional biases to threat or hostile stimuli. Findings to date are inconsistent, but have often treated aggression as a general construct. This review aimed to evaluate the evidence for a specific association of such attentional biases in propensity to RA, excluding populations with known attention processing abnormalities. A systematic search of the literature was undertaken and twelve eligible experiments, reported in nine studies, were identified. Data were combined and reviewed using narrative synthesis, assessing the presence of differences in attentional processing of threat-relevant stimuli in RA, and specificity of biases to threat-related stimuli and to RA. Preliminary and tentative evidence is presented suggesting that such biases are shown by individuals who exhibit high reactive aggression, which may be specific to this form of aggression. Most studies reporting positive findings reported an attentional bias towards interpersonal threat stimuli, with some evidence that this does not generalise to other types of emotional stimuli. However, positive findings were not reported by all studies, and the small number of studies and varied tasks prevented more nuanced analysis. The review also highlights sampling biases which affect generalisability of findings, particularly beyond the male population.