Testing the Reinforcement Model: Aggression’s Longitudinal and Reciprocal Links with Forecasted and Actual Aggressive Pleasure

The Reinforcement Model of Aggression holds that transient experiences of positive affect surrounding aggressive acts promotes subsequent aggression. Yet, a longitudinal test of this model is lacking. To fill this gap, I conducted a three-wave longitudinal study (~20 days between waves) in which 469 diverse undergraduates at a Minority Serving Institution repeatedly forecasted how pleasant they expected aggression to feel, perpetrated an aggressive act, and then reported how pleasant it felt. Longitudinal growth in both forecasted and felt aggressive pleasure was positively correlated with growth in aggressive behavior. Further, the better that aggression felt on one wave, the more aggressive people were on the next. Suggesting that these effects contribute to broader patterns of aggressive tendencies across the lifespan, dispositionally-aggressive participants forecasted and felt more aggressive pleasure over time. Forecasts of aggressive pleasure were broadly inaccurate, though their inaccuracy had few implications for aggression. These results highlight the diverse ways that forecasted and felt positive affect reinforce aggression over time.