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Gender differences in sensitivity to provocation and hostile attribution bias toward ambiguous facial cues in violent offenders and community-based adults

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Abstract

Aggressive offenders commonly show hostile attribution bias in the perception of facial affect. Individuals’ sensitivity to provocation has been also linked to hostile attribution. However, most studies have been limited to male offenders. The current study investigated whether sensitivity to provocation (SP) predicted bias towards interpretation of ambiguous facial cues as angry (hostility bias) in violent inmates compared to community-dwelling non-inmates. The sample (N = 272) consisted of 105 (53 women) violent inmates and 167 (85 women) adults living in the community. Hostility bias towards targets’ faces was differently related to sensitivity to provocation across genders and groups depending on the target’s sex. Generally, the higher inmates’ sensitivity to provocation in men, the higher the identification of anger on female target faces, but the lower on male faces (anger/fear morphs). Conversely, the higher inmates’ sensitivity to provocation in women, the lower the identification of anger on female target faces (anger/fear morphs). Additionally, we observed that in non-inmates, men’s sensitivity to provocation significantly predicted anger identification on male faces. In the case of anger/happy face morphs, the more sensitive to provocation women in our samples were, the less they perceived anger in ambiguous faces. Conversely, men who were sensitive to provocation tended to perceive anger more often. With the current project, we show the importance of studying gender differences, which are often neglected, in the study of hostile interpretations of ambiguous stimuli amongst inmates and community samples. We anticipate that the results may help to design distinct and adequate resocialization and psychotherapeutic programs for both women and men with a tendency to violence.

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Data availability

Data used in this study will be stored at: http://www.apsycholab.pl.

Notes

  1. In the current study we asked participants to report their płeć (in Poland were the study was conducted, this term can be understood both as biological sex or gender). Participants had an open response to this question, and could self-define. All defined as either man or women.

  2. Age may impact emotion ratings of faces (Mather & Carstensen, 2005) and education is related to age, as a result, age was added into the model.

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Funding

The studies were founded by National Science Centre (UMO-2017/26/D/HS6/00258).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Maria Grzegorzewska University, Szczęśliwicka 40, 00-712, Warsaw, Poland

    Anna Zajenkowska & Marta Bodecka-Zych

  2. University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Nina Gehrer, Michael Schoenenberg & Aiste Jusyte

  3. SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland

    Krzysztof Krejtz

  4. Lawrence PsychAdvisory, Nottingham, UK

    Claire Lawrence

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  1. Anna Zajenkowska
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  2. Marta Bodecka-Zych
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  3. Nina Gehrer
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  4. Krzysztof Krejtz
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  5. Claire Lawrence
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  6. Michael Schoenenberg
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Correspondence to Anna Zajenkowska.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible. Committee on human experimentation of Maria Grzegorzewska University (acceptance of the Ethics Committee) and with the Helsinki Declaration. Informed consent was obtained from all participant included in the study.

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Zajenkowska, A., Bodecka-Zych, M., Gehrer, N. et al. Gender differences in sensitivity to provocation and hostile attribution bias toward ambiguous facial cues in violent offenders and community-based adults. Motiv Emot 47, 115–124 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-022-09972-z

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