Keeping One's Cool: Trait Anger, Hostile Thoughts, and the Recruitment of Limited Capacity Control

Abstract

A regulatory perspective on trait anger suggests that low-trait-anger individuals may recruit limited-capacity cognitive control resources following the activation of hostile thoughts. Because no prior studies directly examine such processes, the present studies seek to do so. Study 1 reveals that a simple word-evaluation paradigm can be used to examine individual differences in hostile reactivity, in that high-trait-anger individuals display more pronounced tendencies to evaluate words negatively following a hostile prime. Studies 2-4 examine a cognitive control account of such findings. Study 2 finds that time-limiting evaluations eliminate trait-linked differences in evaluative priming. Studies 3 and 4 find that low-trait-anger individuals display deficits on a secondary task immediately following the activation of a hostile thought. All studies, then, converge on the link between low trait anger and the spontaneous recruitment of limited-capacity cognitive control resources following hostile primes.