The role of emotional pathways in pain-induced aggression in social and cognitive contexts

Background Pain is an adaptive mechanism that can be associated with changes in aggressive behavior in certain contexts. Methods Across four experiments using the Voodoo Doll Task (VDT) and Social Network Aggression Task (SNAT), this study examined average tendencies in laboratory-indexed aggressive responses under the present experimental conditions and their associations with emotional processes (impellance), cognitive control (inhibition), and social context (instigation) within the I³ model. Results Under the conditions of Experiment 1, acute pain was associated with higher levels of VDT-indexed symbolic aggressive responses and intensified negative emotions. Experiment 2 did not provide clear evidence of pain-related changes in the reaction time (RT)-based indices of the Stroop and MSIT under the present experimental conditions. In Experiment 3, enhancing positive emotions was associated with reduced VDT-indexed symbolic aggressive responses under pain. Experiment 4 further indicated that, under the experimental social-evaluation conditions, pain was associated with increased negative emotional responses, and social evaluation interacted with these emotional responses in shaping SNAT-indexed aggressive responses. Conclusions Overall, the findings indicate average tendencies under the conditions of these experiments: pain-related aggressive responses were more consistently associated with impellance than inhibition, while instigation shaped how these responses were expressed.