Violent behaviour and interpretative bias: An experimental study of the resolution of ambiguity in violent offenders

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The present study used an information‐processing approach to investigate differences in interpretaion of sentences which were ambiguous for violent or neutral meaning across three groups of subjects: violent offenders, non‐violent offender controls and a group of non‐offender controls.Subjects were presented with unambiguous and ambiguous sentences. The ambiguous sentences were selected so that they could be interpreted in either a threatening or neutral manner. A recognition memory test indicated that both offender groups were more likely to interpret violent ambiguous sentences in a threatening fashion, with the opposite being shown by the non‐offender group. This difference was found to be significant. A control condition suggested that the interpretative bias was specific to violent material and not a general anxiety response. Furthermore, the tendency to infer violent threat was found to correlate with hostility. The results are discussed in relation to cognitive theories of anger and aggression.

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: